Paris: The Novel

asked.
    “Remind me.”
    Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
    Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
    And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
    The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light
.
    He nodded. An Englishman had translated the old Persian poem of love, and fate, and nothingness decades ago, and now it was a bestseller all over Europe.
    “But it isn’t morning yet,” he objected.
    “No,” she said. “It certainly isn’t.”
    And then they made love again. And this time, when he was ready to come to a climax, he discovered another of her talents, as she held him in the delicious squeeze for which she was known by her fortunate lovers.
    Afterward, he lay quite still and closed his eyes, and it seemed to him as if he were in some faraway place, a Persian garden perhaps, or an endless, timeless desert, under the stars, and he heard her say that he should sleep awhile.

    Luc Gascon was puzzled, but he didn’t mind. He loved intrigue.
    If Jacques Le Sourd had imagined that he hadn’t been noticed when Luc was delivering the flowers to La Belle Hélène that evening, he didn’t know his man. Luc noticed everything. He’d trained himself to do that ever since he’d worked up at the Moulin de la Galette as a boy, and now, at the Moulin Rouge, a customer only had to blink his eyes for Luc to be at his side in an instant. As for the discreet errands in which he specialized, errands that often required that he not be observed, he’d become a master of that game. If a man needed a message to reach another man’s wife, Luc would find a way to deliver it. If a man wanted to know if his own wife was unfaithful, Luc could probably find that out too.
    Above all, in these and many other encounters, Luc had learned never to show that he had noticed anything.
    When Jacques Le Sourd had asked about de Cygne at the MoulinRouge the night before, Luc had taken note of his face. So when he caught sight of him loitering in the rue des Belles-Feuilles this evening, he had remembered him at once. And the fact Le Sourd was in such a quiet street, where de Cygne was shortly to arrive, could not possibly be a coincidence.
    He didn’t yet know Jacques’s name. But it was evident that he was not a rich man or an aristocrat. Almost certainly he meant harm of some kind to de Cygne. And de Cygne was now a client, a friend of the captain, moreover. This was really all that Luc needed to know. His clients were his livelihood. Every client for whom he could do a favor was an investment. His clients were to be protected.
    Besides, it was his nature to be curious.
    His cab had gone only halfway up the avenue toward the Arc de Triomphe, therefore, when he paid the coachman and stepped out. Then he’d made his way back to the rue des Belles-Feuilles and kept watch.
    It had been easy to spot Le Sourd returning to take up his hiding place. The way that he briefly touched his stomach with one hand suggested to Luc that he was carrying a weapon of some kind.
    More skill had been needed to enter the street and take up a position out of sight nearby, but Luc had accomplished that without too much difficulty. Now he could observe everything that passed.
    And if this fellow tried to attack de Cygne, what was Luc going to do? Luc hadn’t the slightest doubt. He was going to save the aristocrat. That was where his interests lay. The only question was, how?
    Luc wasn’t afraid for himself. Once he got close, the stranger would have to be very fast indeed to escape the stiletto Luc always carried, and which would have done its work before the stranger even saw it coming. But it would be best if he could intervene without causing any stir at all. No noise. Luc’s world was a private world, and he meant to keep it that way.
    A simple ruse would be to pretend to be a servant whose master next door had long been expecting a guest, and who believed that de Cygne was entering the wrong house. He’d done something like that once before, and it was enough to create confusion and interpose himself between de Cygne and his attacker. But then the little cat had entered the picture, and this was better still. The fact that the little performance was absurd mattered not in the least. He could be bent, apparently looking for the cat, so that his own face was hard to see. In case of need, the stiletto would be already in his hand, held against his stomach.
    And the business had gone off perfectly. He’d seen the stranger’s pistol, but the