The Adventures of Mademoiselle Mac 2-Book Bundle (3 page)

“There goes the most beautiful woman to have ever taken the stage in Paris or anywhere with curtains,” sighed Rudee as we drove away, “you can have your Coco LaFoie, your Tipi Chaussette.”

My mind was still on the smoking man by the stage door, but I could see that this was not the moment to mention it to Rudee. Another set of rain-slicked cobblestone streets later, we arrived at a café. Every car outside, all parked at odd angles to the curb, was a taxi. The blinking sign in the window of the smoky room said
CAF TA
; then I saw that with the burned-out letters lit up, it would have spelled
CAFE TAXI
. It was packed, bright, and very loud, and the smell of coffee and fresh pastry ruled. In one corner, someone was getting a shave and a haircut. Card playing, arm wrestling, and arguing contributed to the chaos. As Rudee looked for a table, he was spotted by some friends.

“Hey, Rudee, I've got some goose liver for you.”

“Did you bring the brie?”

The laughter was punctuated by more voices. “Hey, who's that? Have you given up on the most beautiful woman to have ever taken the stage?”

“Business slow, Monsieur Rudee? Doing a little babysitting on the side?”

That was it for me. I stood up on a chair and shouted above the crowd, “He's not my babysitter. Rudee's my friend!”

This was greeted by some good-natured “ooolalas” and “wellwellwells,” and the crowd moved back to their drinks and on to other matters. Rudee looked the most surprised of all by my outburst. A tall, thin driver with a mop of hair escaping from a pork pie hat and a nose that looked like it could slice bread was waving at us and pointing to a couple of empty chairs. We sat down, and Rudee introduced me to François Caboche.

“Friend of Rudee's is a friend of mine.” He grinned through a wispy moustache that hung like a curtain over his mouth. “Call me Dizzy.”

He saw my expression and went on. “No, it's not a balance problem; my mom was in love with Dizzy Bluebird, and when he toured here with his hot half dozen, she was at every gig. She put a mini trombone into my hands when I was in the crib.” Dizzy tilted his head at Rudee. “Your pal Rudee's a heckuva fine organist, you know. We jam on Saturdays upstairs; you want to come by?” Rudee didn't jump in, so I just smiled.

I said my dad had told me all about Rudee's talents. “He played me the Pipeline Tour tapes. He said Rudee's solo in ‘Strange Glove' should be studied by every kid who wants to call himself an organist.”

Rudee couldn't hide his pride and asked if I'd heard my dad's vocal on
“
Transatlantic Train.
”
I didn't tell him it just sounded totally weird to me.

“Listen, Rudee.” Dizzy lowered his voice so it could barely be heard above the din of
CAFTA
and leaned toward his friend. “I've been thinking about what you said about the city getting darker, and I'm sorry that I laughed at you,
mon ami
. I know the theft of the cross from the Église Russe bothers you a lot, and I figured that's what was getting to you. Anyway, I was picking up my usual fare on Rue Bonaparte, and I realized that I couldn't read the building numbers. There was no fog, the lamps were on, but it seemed a bit darker to me. Maybe we're both crazy.”

“That's it, slideman,” Rudee burst in excitedly then quickly glanced around the room to see if anyone was paying attention before continuing. “I know it's true. Paris is getting darker by the day. Hardly but slowly. A driver in the Métro drove past the Pigalle station and two hundred passengers on the platform yesterday.”

Rudee paid for the drinks and the warm chocolate croissants that had magically appeared and quickly disappeared, and we all headed into the street. We waved to Dizzy, who got into a very low-slung cab with exhaust pipes that looked like trombones. His cab belched blue smoke, and Rudee shook his head. “Only bohemians would travel like this.”

The café door swung open, and a driver wider than the doorway squeezed out to spit in the street. Spotting us, he lumbered over.

“Daroo, you lunatic, how do you afford gas with all your freeloading friends?” He snorted like a pit bull and tilted his face close to mine. When he spoke, his breath could've been used as rust remover. “Past your bedtime, isn't it, nana?”

Rudee stepped between us. “Her name is Mac, sewer lips. Isn't it time for your big flea bath?”

This gross chunk of man lifted Rudee off the ground with one hand and dangled him like a dirty sock. “I think you need a new hinge for that hairdo of yours, beet breath. Sorry you'll miss the show at the club tonight.”

Rudee's eyes seemed to recede under his mighty brow, but he said nothing. His assailant dropped him to the pavement and strode off, laughing to himself and spitting like a broken faucet.

Once he was out of sight, Rudee gathered himself and said, “Blag LeBoeuf. I've known him since we were knee high to fire hydrants.

“Our families knew each other from the old country. Then we went apelove for the same girl, don't you know.” He shrugged, and a small smile emerged. “He lost the girl to me, and it's been like this ever since.”

I wanted to know more about Blag, but as soon as we settled into Rudee's cab and he adjusted the lights and music to his liking, the radio squawked, and Madeleine's voice cut through. “
Bonsoir,
everyone. Just thought you all should know that the cross from the domed church has been stolen.
Incroyable
,
non?
Let me know if you hear something, and I'll pass it along to the others.”

“The domed church. That's Les Invalides,” said Rudee in an awed tone. “That's where Napoleon is boxed. The church with the golden dome is one of Paris' most shining monuments. But how could someone ...”

He yanked the wheel of the cab to the left, and I fell onto his shoulder. He threaded the needle across six lanes of cars as he madly circled the Arc de Triomphe. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I must see this for my ownself.”

When we slammed to a stop outside the domed church, a TV crew was setting up hastily, uncoiling cables and mounting a camera on a tripod. A reporter was fixing her make-up and throwing her hair back for that windblown look. A small collection of blue-and-white police cars was gathered at the entrance, and official looking people were trying to appear busy. Rudee spotted someone, and they exchanged greetings.

“Magritte,
ça va
?” Rudee said to a well-tanned policeman in a bowler hat and tailored black coat smoking a pipe and pulling on a pair of gloves.

“Ah, my old friend,” and tipping his hat at me, “mademoiselle,
enchanté
. Rudee, I cannot thank you enough for delivering the Picasso thief to me.”

“He refused to pay the oversized baggage charge and ...” Rudee shrugged.

“Still, we are grateful ... now, tonight is a theft of another kind.”

“Magritte, I can't believe it. First the cross of the Église Russe, and now this.” Rudee looked like he would cry any second. “And not only the cross, but the dome, the beautiful frosted dome, painted black.”

It was true; the freshly cropped dome was drenched in what looked like a bad paint job, still sticky and dripping on the windows below.

“
Oui
, I know, it is a travesty,” Magritte said coolly, “and they chose matte instead of glossy, which serves to de-emphasize the Baroque influence of the concave flying buttresses....”

Rudee's impatience with this tangent was obvious. “But who, who, Magritte, and why?” he interrupted.

“Who, yes. Myself, I suspect a group of militant atheists from Montparnasse. But how,
mon ami
, that is the question. It was, if you will excuse a small joke, an outside job, because the entire building was locked and still is.” Magritte shrugged, and we all looked up to where the magnificent dome now blended in with the night sky, with only a silhouette to distinguish it. “I must begin my investigation. If you'd like to walk with me….”

Rudee nodded, and we followed as Inspector Magritte dusted doors and windows with fingerprint powder, shone a flashlight into shrubs and down stairways that led to locked doors. He held a magnifying glass close to read the inscription on an ancient turquoise cannon as Rudee chatted with him. While they talked about the weight of crosses and discussed various theories as to how one could be raised and transported, I stared at the perfect crescent moon that lit up the immaculately designed gardens. The moonlight caught something shiny, so I walked over to a row of trees and picked up a pair of mirrored glasses. A chill ran from my hand to my spine.

“What have you there, mademoiselle?” asked Magritte, shining his light on my find. I started to hand them to him, but he curled up his nose. “
Non, merci
. Ah, the tourists. No taste at all you know, present company excepted, of course.” He smiled at me. “How anyone could see through these, I don't know. Although I suppose to reflect back the absurdity of our existence on this ...”

Rudee coughed and said his goodbyes.

“Ah, it's
adieu
then,
mes amis
.” Magritte waved and went back to his ruminations.

Back in the cab, Rudee looked at his watch. “Oh,
mon dieu
, we have to pick up Sashay; her show's almost over. He who hesitates is late.”

We zoomed through the streets, now emptying of people. When we arrived at the Moulin D'Or, couples were spilling into the street, arm in arm, laughing and leaning on one another. A lone figure was the last to emerge.

“Rudee,” I asked, “isn't that Blag LeBoeuf?” I hoped another encounter like the one outside
CAFTA
wasn't about to happen.

Rudee barely glanced. “No doubt, little one, he still comes to make eyelids at her after all this time, and the club ... his family ... well ...”

He left the thought unfinished, concentrating on navigating through the less than sure-footed crowd; but it was then that I understood whom they had fought over years ago.

We didn't have to wait long at the stage door. In a whoosh of scarves and in a long cream-coloured cape, Sashay materialized and was in the back seat before Rudee could even open his door.

“Let's go. Leave now. Please.” She sank into the seat as we drove away. She didn't seem to notice that Rudee had been too surprised to turn off the organ music that poured like mud from the speakers. I leaned forward and switched off the sound. Rudee did the same with the taxi radio, and we travelled in silence. The only accompaniment was the soft swish of the tires over the rain-soaked streets as we made our way to Sashay's apartment. When we arrived and Rudee pulled up and parked, no one said anything for a minute.

“There is something so very wrong, Rudee my dear. I'm sorry I doubted you, because now I believe there is a plan, a conspiracy of some sort involving these strange characters who have been showing up lately at the club. They have tables on the balcony that they occupy every night. They pay no attention to the show, they only smoke and laugh their strange laughs and are rude to everyone. Tonight as I passed their tables, they were raising their glasses in a toast, and one said, ‘The Sun King is dead. Lights out, Paris.' They all laughed loudly and clinked glasses as they would at a celebration. Rudee, what could this mean?”

“Sashay,” he replied seriously, “did you hear about Les Invalides?”

She gave him a quizzical look, and he continued. “A symbol of the city that we love has been stolen — the cross from the Domed Church is gone and the dome has been painted black.”

Sashay paled even more than usual as Rudee went on. “Mac, the domed church was built by Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King,' and is one of the greatest monuments to a golden age.” His tone grew sadder and a silence followed. “We must find out more. I saw Magritte, and the police don't take this seriously. They think it's vandals, and they're waiting for a handsome note or something.”

“Ransom, Rudee, a ransom note.” Sashay's voice sounded like it was coming out in little spurts. “Tomorrow night, they'll all be there. It's a party for the new owner.” She didn't hide her disgust. “I can't get too close. They all stop talking when I come by and say rude things under their breath, and I think it's just a matter of time before they try to get rid of me anyway.”

Rudee was shaking at this point, but before he could offer to defend Sashay's honour, I jumped in. “Let me go. You can get me in ... somehow. They wouldn't suspect me.” Rudee was shaking his head back and forth so hard, his comb-over hair was trying to catch up.

“Your daddy would kill me, Mac, no-can-be.”

Sashay was mulling over the idea, I could tell, and I knew that her opinion would win. I turned to her and tried to sound serious. “I'll listen and try to find out something about their plans, and that'll be it. Then we can go to Magritte with something concrete, okay?”

“She's right, Rudee,” Sashay interjected calmly, “and I know how to get her in to the club. Come to my place,
ma cherie
, an hour before Rudee picks me up tomorrow night.”

When she smiled at me, I knew that there was a special understanding between us. The danger seemed far away.

I was glad to be back on my curved wooden bed in my room in the Église Russe after all that had happened on my first day in Paris. I wondered if my class had seen the church before it was vandalized and hoped that Penelope was being inventive with her explanations for my absence, knowing I wasn't going to be rejoining them any time soon. I opened the hunk of a book I'd been looking at the night before, but it wasn't long before my eyes were swimming over pictures of beautiful old buildings, ancient churches with gleaming spires, golden domes, and crosses melting in the sun.

I thought someone with very bony fingers was rapping on my door the next morning, but as the cobwebs lifted from my brain, I realized it was rain on the dome above my room. It sounded like handful after handful of pebbles being tossed down on the roof as the wind wrapped around the windows with a comforting hush. Soon all comfort departed as my nose was attacked by the pungent odour of beets boiling below, beets with leeks or onions. Yech! My hunger was more powerful than my revulsion as I climbed down the stairs to Rudee's room. It occurred to me that he was trying to find a new way to drive me back to my classmates. Humming along to some intense organ music, he was contentedly stirring the awful concoction. I sniffed around for a morsel of bread or even some stinky cheese.

“
Bonjour
, Miss Mac,” Rudee grinned, “hungry?” He read my expression and laughed. “Oh, don't fret. I know girls, and some women, don't like beets, especially for breakfast, but where I come from, it's the vegetable of kings.”

Before I could ask where exactly that was, he closed his eyes and raised his head in happy concentration. “Listen, Mac, listen and savour genius. Vladimir Ughoman, the famous composer. Ahhh.”

Then abruptly, he said, “Okay, let's go,” as he snapped off his record player, grabbed his coat, and tossed me my duck's head umbrella. We raced through the downpour across the churchyard. “What do you say to a croissant and some fruit juice at
CAFTA
?”

The café was as busy as it had been the night before. Groups of cabbies were drinking out of steaming cups, checking their lottery tickets, and talking. I saw Blag arm-wrestling some helpless victim at a table near the kitchen.

“Hey Rudee, Mac,” a voice called across the room, and Dizzy waved us over to a table he was sharing with another driver. After a round of backslapping and secret handshakes, Dizzy said, “Mac, I want you to meet Mink Maynard.”

A small, dark-haired man with a furry beatnik beard greeted me with a sleepy smile and a low, rumbling voice. “
Mon plaisir,
m'dear, what brings you here?”

I glanced at Rudee. “My dad's a friend of Rudee's. I'm visiting from Upper Mandeville in California.”

“
Très
cool, but I'm no fool,” purred Mink, “you must be King Daddy's girl from halfway round the world.”

Rudee and Dizzy laughed, and Dizzy explained, “Mink's the drummer in the Hacks. King Daddy's an old nickname for your dad. Mink also writes the lyrics for our songs.” Turning to Mink, he added, “You don't have to prove it. We know you can rhyme.”

“And keep time,” Mink said to groans from his friends.

Breakfast arrived and filled the table, but it was soon just dishes and crumbs. Pushing back their chairs, Rudee and the boys did their secret handshake again, which by now was no secret to me.

“Practice Saturday? The usual?” said Rudee to nods from the others.

Dizzy nodded. “Ten-four.”.

“And out the door,” rhymed Mink as he headed for the exit.

Rudee said it was time for me to see a bit of Paris, even if it was raining. I persuaded him to drop me off at the student residence so I could check in and suggested we meet at the Pont Neuf taxi stand. This time the sidewalk was empty, so I waited until my group emerged with Penelope in the lead. She was wearing a Coco Chanel–inspired blue-and-white striped top and white capris, along with a severely pouty expression.

“Ah,
ma chère
Mac, we meet again.”

“Penelope, I'm sorry. There's a lot going on. I'll have to tell you later.”

“I assume this means you'd like to be excused from our visit to La Tour Eiffel, which will be followed by tea and macaroons at Ladurée,” she responded petulantly.

I shrugged sheepishly.

“Okay,” she said, assuming a take-charge tone, “take your shoe off and rub your ankle. Quickly,
s'il vous plait
.”

Mademoiselle Lesage swept into the street behind my classmates, who eyed me suspiciously. “Mac, Penelope told me about your parachuting accident in California.”

“Oh, it's just a little flare-up, Mademoiselle Lesage. I'm sure with rest, it'll be fine.”

“But today we are to climb the one thousand six hundred and sixty-five steps of the Eiffel Tower, just as Gustav Eiffel, its creator, did as he ascended to his office with its view of the exquisite Champs des Mars and the neoclassical Trocadero across the Seine....”

I got to my feet unsteadily. “I suppose I'll unfortunately have to miss today's activities.”

Penelope mimed playing a violin behind Mademoiselle Lesage, and the others stifled giggles. I hobbled into the lobby and checked out the front page of
Le Devoir,
which featured a shot of the domed church surrounded by police cars.

In my spotless room with the bed still made, I quickly changed clothes, then headed for the Pont Neuf, grabbing baguettes and brie for Rudee and myself on the way.

We drove up the hill to Montmartre and sat on the steps of the Sacre Coeur church, looking over the magnificent city while an organ grinder pumped furiously on an ancient wooden box and a monkey dressed as a gendarme dashed through the crowd striking poses and collecting contributions in his little policeman's hat. Rudee dropped in a handful of change, then we headed down into the city.

“The financial section,” said Rudee. “The wheelers and stealers,” he added as we passed men and women in suits walking faster than anyone I'd seen yet in Paris. Caressing their portable phones like hand warmers, lugging shiny briefcases, eating hunks of gooey pastry as they walked, they seemed careful not to look at each other.

It was then that we noticed a big commotion at the Place St. Augustin. A jovial crowd was forming around a truck labelled “Fruits Fantastique” that had driven right into a sign painter's ladder. The driver and the painter were nose to nose. The driver was claiming that he hadn't seen the traffic light at all, never mind the colour. There were oranges, kiwis, and lichees covered in red paint rolling all over the square being squished by the cars trying to avoid the scene. The flics, as Rudee called the police, seemed to agree with the truck driver that the light was too hard to see and were preparing to let him go. This upset the sign painter so much that he climbed up the traffic pole and painted all three lights red as the crowd cheered him from below. When he climbed down, they carried him off on their shoulders to a bar down the street while the cars in the Place St. Augustin got more and more tangled. We sat on the hood of Rudee's cab and watched it all unfold.

“Rudee, that's the silliest thing I've ever seen,” I said, laughing at the cars slipping and sliding, splashing fruit juice and red paint on the business people in their perfect suits.

Rudee nodded. “
Oui
, ridiculous, Mac, but to me it also is one more sign of something strange with the light in Paris. It's getting darker all the time.” I saw what he meant. “I hope this traffic clears up soon. We've got to get you to Sashay's.”

On the way we passed a tractor-trailer full of sand for a fake beach at the Tuileries Gardens pond, another “Lighten Up” project. A picture of a grinning Luc Fiat in his white suit filled the side of the truck.

“Hey, Rudee, look, a cup of California.”

“
Excusez-moi
, Miss Mac?”

“Looks like Luc Fiat's been busy again,” I said, pointing at the moving beach.

“We can use all the warm thoughts we can get right now, little one. It only shines on the sunny side of the street, you know,” Rudee replied.

His odd expressions sometimes made it hard to respond, although I was starting to understand him better and kind of liked the Rudeeisms. Fiat's work, however, held a dark side for me. “Unless his bodyguards are keeping it from shining.” I explained by telling him what I'd seen the day of the rally on the Champs Élysées.

“You're too suspicious,” he laughed and handed me a tiny box wrapped in silver. “Give this to Sashay for me, will you? I'll be back in an hour, and I hope I will still recognize your little Yankee self.”

He deposited me on the sidewalk outside Sashay's place and drove off.