The row of Asian seamstresses busy at their sewing machines didn't even look up as she entered. Many of them kept up low conversations while they guided the material under the punching needles. From the shop exterior she heard voices—loud, officious ones. If she took off the smock, her dirty jeans and scruffy denim jacket would be picked out in a minute. Bins of black and white items of clothing were overflowing and the seamstresses kept adding more finished pieces. Aimee bent over and picked up the bin nearest her. A seamstress looked up questioningly at her.
"Display sent me for floor samples," Aimee smiled. "The requisition order is in my van."
"Inform the floor supervisor," the seamstress said. Her thin black eyebrows arched as she looked Aimee over. "Bring it on your way back."
"D'accord," Aimee agreed. She grunted, hefting the heavy bin into her arms. Slogging to the back of the busy work area, she kept her face hidden and set it down with all the others. Piled high, they made an odd-shaped mound.
Aimee slid a few black pieces out before she closed up the bin and stepped behind the pile. She took off her jean jacket, slipped on a tailored, well-cut black wool jacket, then stepped out of her jeans into a form-fitting tight black skirt. She rifled through a hosiery bin and grabbed thin black-ribbed tights. Sample shoes and boots in assorted sizes were strewn helter-skelter on shelves. She tried several pairs of boots on but the only pair that remotely fit her were sexy suede high-heeled pumps. Not exactly what she'd pick for a great escape. She looked like this season's fashion victim but she'd blend in more than she ever had before. The challenge would be, could she run in such a tight skirt and heels?
She bunched her jeans into a ball. The workers' backpacks and handbags hung from hooks behind her. Quickly she emptied the contents of a stylish black leather bag onto the floor and scooped her cell phone, wallet, cards, tube of mascara and Glock, with one remaining bullet cartridge, into the bag. Next to the contents of the bag on the floor she slipped some hundred-franc notes with a scribbled "Sorry, hope this covers it" in red lipstick on one of them. She unlatched the back workers' entrance as she heard a loud voice above the clicking sewing machines.
"Please give your attention to this officer. Have any of you seen. . ."
Not waiting to hear more, she slipped out into the night and the darkened Places des Vosges.
AIMÉE'S HEEL S tapped a rhythm on the cobblestones as she searched for Rene's Citroën. Finally she found it on the rue du Pas de la Mule, which meant "in the donkey's footsteps." She and Rene always joked about that, but no smile came to her lips as she saw two policemen examining his vehicle. They weren't just giving it a ticket either.
Going to her office or flat would be stupid, she realized, and hiding at Rene's would be idiotic. Where could she find a place to hide that contained a computer? She ducked into the patisserie on the corner, bought a bag of warm chocolate croissants, and exited out the rear back to the Place des Vosges. She walked in her Issey Miyake designer suit, munching and looking in boutique windows, slowly working her way under the arcade towards the busy rue St. Antoine. In the children's playground, plainclothes police blocked her way by the side of the square, talking to the mothers, nannies, and assorted caregivers. Where could she go?
A group of tourists clustered in the doorway of the Victor Hugo Museum, which, Aimee noticed, the security forces ignored. All French national museums contained state-of-the-art computers, hooked on-line with government and educational ministries. This would be perfect—that is, if she could play tourist and sneak in the door.
She slipped among a trio of elderly ladies, greeting them like old acquaintances. She smiled and immediately began chitchat about the weather.
"Of course, being from Rouen," Aimee said, "I savor these ancient parts of the Marais."
"But the Cathedral of Rouen," one of the trio exclaimed, "is such a gem! A perfect example of the best in medieval architecture! How could one compare this Bourbon king's imitation to that!" The old woman spoke passionately. She pointed at the seventeenth-century colonnades above them. Aimee knew little about architecture and nothing of Rouen. She wished she'd kept her mouth shut.
"Are you just joining the architectural tour then, dear?" an almost hunchbacked old woman asked. "You've missed significant parts of the Marais, the hôtel particuliers on rue de Sevigne especially."
"I'll catch them next time," Aimee said.
She edged closer to the old lady, who smelled of musty violets. Two policemen walked by and she pressed herself against the rose-colored bricks of the building.
They filed into the foyer and she realized she was the youngest member of this group. The tour leader, a round-faced young man with circular tortoiseshell glasses, spread his arms as if enjoining the spirit of Victor Hugo himself to guide them, and began in a sonorous, droning voice.
"From 1832 to 1848 perhaps the greatest of all men of letters lived on the second floor of this building." He nodded officiously to several older men leaning on walkers. "Those unable to navigate the stairs may follow our journey through the museum on our computer access."
Despite her predicament, she almost laughed out loud as she saw the look of amusement the old men gave their guide. Most eighty-year-olds ignored computers and these didn't seem any different.
The museum, laid out as it had been in his time, showed the daily life of Victor Hugo. Hugo's bedroom, taken up with a canopied bed, overlooked Place des Vosges through leaded bubbled glass. Worn dark wood paneling covered the walls. A showcase held various colored locks of his hair tied with ribbon, labeled and dated. In the study was his escritoire and a sheet of half-written yellowed foolscap with a quill pen in a crystal inkwell beside it. Almost as if Hugo had paused to take a pee, which she herself desperately needed to do. Aimee stared longingly at a porcelain eighteenth-century bidet with exquisite floral rosettes. Lining the dining-room walls were portraits of his wife, mistresses, and other prominent writers of his day. The room captured his essence, dark and narcissistic. The only touch that could be called socialist was the heavy peasant glassware on a mahogany sideboard.
The guide continued. "This being the last tour of the day in this historic building, the option of resting is of course available." His arms waved dismissively toward a vestibule.
Aimee sat down, rubbing her heel, and joined several old men. The smell of tobacco floated in the air. She'd already cheated death once today. Tomorrow could be another story. Gratefully, she accepted a cigarette from the old man next to her. She inhaled the smoke greedily, savoring the jolt when it hit her lungs.
After the buzzer clanged, signifying closing time, the men rose and drifted towards the entrance. While no one was looking, she melted into the folds of a faded tapestry near the cloakroom door.
There could be worse places to spend the night than the Victor Hugo Museum, she decided. She backed up against the damp stone wall, and crouched down behind some tapestries while museum workers rang up the day's receipts and tallied ticket sales. All the time she worried about Rene, hoping he hadn't been badly wounded. And then there was the LBN—since she'd escaped, would they abduct Rene? And that questionable SWAT team—were they real B.R.I? But there wasn't much she could do until the museum closed and the workers left for the day.
The staff grumbled about the drafts and chill coming from the stone walls. She smiled to herself. They probably went home to warm, cozy apartments with every modern convenience. But she lived in a place like this, never mind that she couldn't go back there! She felt sure her apartment and office were under surveillance.