“Can you remember anything else about him? Any chance remark she might have dropped?”
Carmella wrinkled her brow. “I remember now!” She snapped her fingers. “His name was Pierre. Barbara was always twitting Françoise about ‘Lucky Pierre-—always in the middle.’ Some sort of an American joke. I didn’t understand it and I don’t think Françoise did. Oh, yes, and he lived in Montmartre. I remember that because a few times I posted letters to him for Françoise and that was on the envelope.”
“How about his last name? Was that on the envelope?”
“It must have been.” She shook her head. “I really can’t remember it, though. It must have been one of those common French names. Dupres, or Charlois-—something like that.”
“How about the street address? Do you remember that?”
“No. Wait! Yes! I remember the street because it struck me as comical. It was the Rue de la Boite. I remember mentioning it to Françoise once and she grinned and said it was well-named. That should give you some idea of the kind of street it probably is.”
I made the translation and got the idea. La Boite—the box—the feminine gender in French grammar—-and female in a slang that seemed to be universal. “Do you remember the street number?" I asked.
“No, I don’t. I'm sorry.”
“That’s all right. You’ve been very helpful. Now, could you give me a description of Françoise. Physical, and anything else you can remember about her."
“She is blonde—dyed, with brown roots if you look for them. Her figure is what they call petite. Her bosom is too large, vulgar really, for her small frame. And her hips -- they are too obvious. She is always swinging them like an advertisement of what she’s peddling. She has nice legs, though,” Carmella admitted reluctantly. “Slender and shapely. Her mouth is a little like Bardot’s—always in a sultry pout, you know? I will say for her that she didn’t smear on the make-up the way some sluts do. She had a naturally smooth, white complexion, and she never covered it up. Just a touch of lipstick and a bit of mascara—-that was usually all.”
“About how old would you say she is?”
“That’s hard to say. She admitted to being two years younger than I. That would make her twenty-four now. But I always thought she was lying. She might be a year or two older. She didn’t look it, though. She always looked like a teenager gone bad to me.”
“Anything else about her you can remember?”
“Let me see. Oh, yes, one thing. She’d picked up a lot of American slang from Barbara, and she liked to use it. She worked it into a conversation whenever she got the chance. I think she thought it was chic, or sophisticated, or something like that. Oh, and she never wore a brassiere. She was very proud of the way that cow-bosom of hers stood straight out and pointed upward. She claimed her natural shape was better than anything the bra manufacturers might devise.”
“That’s intriguing,” I murmured.
“I suppose it is to a man. To me it’s just another proof of what a low-class bawd she really was. Like all those cheap Montmartre hookers, everything she had was always on display.”
“Anything else?”
“One other thing. She had a peculiar sort of superstition, or habit, maybe—-I’m not sure which—of always combing her hair after sex. She told us about it once. The way she said it made it sound like she knew it was odd, but couldn’t help herself. A compulsion—I guess that’s what you’d call it."
“That doesn’t sound so unusual to me,” I told Carmella. “After all, lots of women are fussy about their hair. And particularly after making love, when it’s most apt to have gotten messed up.”
“You misunderstand. Not the hair on her head. The hair down there.” Carmella pointed so there could be no mistake.
“You mean she combs it?”
“Yes. And brushes it. That’s what she told us. And I know she dyed it just like the hair on her head. I could tell that from the one time we took a shower together. Brown roots there, too.”
“Well, I can see why she might dye it. But why would she comb it?”
“Something about being sanitary. “And keeping it soft and free of snarls. That’s what she said. But when Barbara and I laughed at her, she never mentioned it again." Carmella shrugged. “For all I know, maybe it’s the custom among Montmartre harlots.”
“If it is, I’ve never heard of it.” I thought a moment. “I suppose if she did go back to Montmartre, she’d be working as a prostitute again,” I mused aloud.
“I suppose so. Although she had worked at other jobs. She was a stripper once. To hear her tell it, she could go back to that any time she wanted. And she was an artist’s model. She used to carry around a sketch some artist had done of her. It was a nude. She used to brag that the artists used to compete with each other to get her to pose in the nude because she had such a beautiful body. But my guess is they probably wanted her because they could get her cheap. And they probably recognized that she was a sure roundheels, too. I think that's about all I can tell you about Françoise.”
“What about Barbara Thomas, the American girl?”
Carmella proceeded to give me a rundown on Barbara Thomas. I filed it away in the back of my mind for future reference. Right now I was more interested in Françoise Laval. Carmella had given me more to go on with her. I decided to leave for Paris just as soon as I could.
What with the police investigating the two murders and throwing out a dragnet for Luigi Tortorizzi, it was almost a week before I could get clearance to catch a plane from Geneva. Carmella spiced up the week somewhat with visits to my room. Friedriksenn was still too filled with grief even to notice.
He and Carmella had their talk about what to do about the inheritance and decided to notify Dombey of Dover that they didn’t want their share. Aside from that, Friedriksenn displayed little interest in his wife or what she was doing. I was sure he knew, but his good-byes to me were affable nonetheless. He had his chauffeur drive me in the Rolls to the Geneva airport.
The plane was half empty. It was the off season for Geneva-to-Paris flights. Also, I’d had to settle for a night flight, and not too many people were anxious to risk navigating the Alps at night. Those who were aboard were a sleepy lot, and most of them doused their seat lights before the plane took off. I did the same and tilted my seat back to try to get some sleep. What with Carmel1a’s night-time visits, I had some catching up to do.
I was just dozing off as the plane took to the air. I barely took notice as the two men came up the aisle from the rear of the plane and took the seats behind me. Except for them and myself, that section of the airliner was empty. The seats were empty for six rows toward both the front and back.
I guess they must have waited for the stewardess to go forward before making their pitch. The first I knew that there was a pitch was when a hand with a knife circled my back-tilted seat and the blade snuggled cozily against my jugular vein.
“Do not move, Signor Victor.”
I recognized the voice. It belonged to Luigi Tortorizzi.
“This is he?” another voice asked. I didn’t recognize this one.
“Yes. Steve Victor. The man from O.R.G.Y. And a naturally good driver, too, by the way. I have not yet had the chance to compliment you on your driving, Signor Victor. Allow me to do so now. For someone with no racing experience, you did very well indeed.”