"Get in," Yves shouted and gestured to her.
Behind her she heard the running footsteps again, echoing off the walls. Coming closer.
"Hurry up!" Yves pulled the handle from the driver's side and the dented blue door swung open.
Before she could pull the door shut, he'd shot down busy rue St. Antoine.
"Where were you?" Aimee asked suspiciously. Why hadn't he been with the rest of the group?
"Behind everyone." He jerked his arm towards the back of the van. "Since I do most of the video I carry the equipment. Thierry trusts me."
Aimee groaned.
"What happened to you?" His dark eyes held concern. He threw his jacket at her. "Take mine. It's warmer."
"No thanks." She couldn't take her smelly, ripped leather jacket off since the recorder was still taped to her back and the videos bulged out of her tank top.
"I need some anesthetic," she said. "Let's get a drink."
Yves jerked the van to a stop in a narrow alley off Bastille, still in the Marais. A waiter shuttered the windows from inside a murky bistro on the corner. She heard strains of a jazz guitar as the door opened and a laughing couple spilled out. If she concentrated, she could probably make her feet walk to the corner and cause a ruckus so the bistro would let them in.
"Listen, this shoulder hurts," she said, feeling giddy.
"I've got just the right thing for that." His black eyes bored into her with a laserlike intensity.
"I seriously need a drink." She started to giggle and didn't know why.
"I've got that too," he smiled.
And a beautiful smile, she noted. Here she was with a neo-Nazi carrying stolen videos-possibly containing an old woman's murder recorded by him. And incredibly attracted to him. He'd seemingly helped her for the second time that night.
"My flat is over here," he said, pointing to a darkened brick turn-of-the-century warehouse. "Can you make it?"
"You leave the equipment in your van on the street?" she said and wondered at her own coherent thinking.
"No one messes with our blue vans," he said. "That's for sure. But"-he pulled out a digicode remote and punched some numbers-"I don't park on the street."
As the metal awning rolled up slowly, Yves eased the van into the warehouse courtyard.
Aimee didn't like the sound of the awning rolling back down and looked for a way out. A narrow side entrance showed a pinhole of light.
"Thinking of leaving?" Yves said, unlocking a door under the vaulted arches of the brick building.
"Not yet," Aimee grinned. "I'm thirsty."
"Let me help you, this is tricky," Yves said, scooping her up. He flicked on a set of lights and carried her down a spiral metal staircase to a brick basement flat.
Warm air hit her, laced with a strong familiar tang. They descended onto a bleached wood floor lined by deep white sofas, a long metal table, and open kitchen. The vaulted arches in the walls had been bricked in and covered by bright batik fabric.
"Site of the old tanning vats," Yves explained, setting her down on a sofa. "This was an old saddle factory. Police and cavalry saddles," he grinned.
Aimee felt sticky and hot but didn't dare take off her leather jacket. Her arm had started throbbing. Funny how things hurt when you had time to think about them, she thought. Sure that the grease and patchouli oil had been absorbed into her pores, she wanted a wash.
"Remy, OK?" Yves said as he handed her a bowl-like brandy snifter.
Aimee hadn't had Remy Martin VSOP in years. She almost purred as it slid down her throat. This neo-Nazi definitely had more class than his comrades.
"I need to clean up," she said.
He gestured. "Be my guest."
She gripped the Remy and hobbled towards the kitchen. Inside his white-tiled bathroom, she put her clothes in a pile on the floor, making sure the videos were secure in the inside pocket of her jacket.
One good thing, her shoulder hurt so much she couldn't feel much else. She turned the hot water on. Praying there was enough for a tubful, she knelt on a thick towel in front of an old gilt mirror. After she downed another shot of brandy, she noticed the thin red line of singed skin along her spine.
Her shoulder drooped, but this had happened before and she knew what to do. And with enough brandy she could do it. Gritting her teeth, she rotated her shoulder socket counterclockwise up to a three o'clock position. Taking another gulp of the brandy, she reached with her left hand to grip her right shoulder. She took a deep breath, pulled her arm straight out, swiveled it slightly, and popped the socket back into twelve o'clock. The pain shot from her fingertips to her neck. She heard a gasp behind her. Yves was in the mirror wincing, still in his jeans and sweater.
He knelt down beside her and took her gently in his arms. "Are you all right?"
She nodded and gave him a lopsided smile.
"You're not going to pass out, are you?" He kept her cradled in his arms.
"Not yet."
He poured another snifter and she sipped slowly. "I'm fine."
Softly, he stroked her wet hair. "What kind of outlaw are you?"
"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. But I should be asking you that."
"If you do, I'll give the same answer." He laughed and then Aimee knew she was headed for trouble.
They ended up in the tub with the bottle of Remy, surrounded by steam, most of it of their own making.
AIMÉE SLID back into her greasy jeans and left Yves asleep. But not before stealing his brown sweater and checking out his apartment. Off the open kitchen space she found a small office with a state-of-the-art computer, printer, and color scanner. Yves obviously had a decent day job. She searched high and low but couldn't find any other videos.
She grabbed a taxi, switched to another one at St. Paul, and rode home. Just to be sure, she doubled back along the quai twice. Dawn was an hour away. Miles Davis greeted her in the dark flat, sniffed her noisily, then burrowed into her patchouli-scented jacket. Silhouetted against the quai's street lamp, the black shadow of the Seine snaked outside her window.
Aimee felt more guilty than she ever had in her life. Somehow she should have gotten away from him. But she'd drunk too much and enjoyed how Yves had made her feel. The brandy hadn't dulled her brain, she'd known what she was doing. And she'd wanted to do it. What if he'd been a part of the old woman's murder? Sick, she made herself sick. How could she have slept with him?
She opened a bottle of Volvic spring water and popped a handful of vitamin B and C. She slid Les Blancs Nationaux's video labeled "Meeting November 1993" into her VCR. Miles Davis nestled into her lap and she hugged him, trying to prepare for the awful truth.
SUNDAY
Sunday Morning
"CONGRATULATIONS, MEIN H ERR," ILSE squeezed his arm tightly and whispered. "We will make the past live again!"
Hartmuth was afraid his smile looked like a grimace of pain, and he glanced away. He concentrated his gaze on the balding mayor of Paris, standing among the European diplomats at the ceremony. Only once did his eyes drift to the gray wainscotting of the room.
He remembered these walls well. In this very room he had routinely filed Jewish Population Removal Orders in quadruplicate. His Kommandant viewed "removal" as a simple business function of the Occupation. Jews were "removal material" subject to tiresome but routine formalities, formalities Hartmuth was required to perform every time he swept the Marais in a Jewish roundup. He'd found Sarah's family too late. They'd already been deported on the convoy to Auschwitz.
Ilse beamed from under the brim of her rose-colored hat. Across from them, Cazaux laughed familiarly with the mayor. After the opening ceremony, Hartmuth escorted Ilse in her brown orthopedics across the rotunda of black-and-white tiles.