I started for the scene on the run. That was a mistake. The truck was coming in my direction fast. My mind was on Tarleton, and I hadn’t yet absorbed the fact that what had happened was no accident. Just as the truck drew abreast of me it mounted the curb.
I was hit hard, from the side. But I wasn’t hit by the truck. I was struck by a flying tackle that just managed to carry me out of the path of the hurtling lorry. I looked up to find Lucky Pierre sitting on my chest. The boy flesh-peddler had saved my life a second time.
“It was the two who were at your place last night,” he told me as we scrambled to our feet. “I spotted them when they were parked at the curb before, and I was coming to warn you.”
“How did you know where I was?” I asked him.
“I followed you,” he admitted with a grin. “I was coming to give you a message just as you were leaving your place. When I saw how peculiarly you were dressed, I became curious. So I followed you.”
“Lucky for me you did. What message?”
“From Françoise Laval. The model, I mean. She will meet you tonight at nine o’clock on the top of the Eiffel Tower.”
“Why did she pick such a screwball place to meet?”
“Because of Pierre, the artist with whom she lives. After last night he is very suspicious. She will be able to slip out, but she knows that when he discovers she is gone he will go looking for her. But the Eiffel Tower is the last place he would look.”
“I guess so,” I granted.
“The man who was with you is alive.” Lucky Pierre pointed.
“How do you know?”
“They are putting him into an ambulance. They wouldn’t bother if he was dead. They would call a hearse.”
I saw that he was right. I debated whether to go over and see how badly Tarleton was injured. I decided against it. Dying or not, there was no point in calling attention to the connection between us. Lucky Pierre at my side, I went back to my quarters on the rue de la Boite.
He wasn’t with me when I left them again that evening to keep my date with Françoise Laval. She was waiting for me on the top platform, 906 feet in the air. Above us, 984 feet above the ground, the meteorological laboratory was all lit up and humming. The hum was lost in the strong wind whipping around the tower. We climbed halfway up the circular staircase leading to the tower’s top in order to get out of the wind.
We were only partially successful. Strong gusts still made Françoise‘s skirt swirl so that her perfectly shaped legs were revealed. And the wind provided another advantage for me. It had deterred sightseers, so that we had the upper platform and stairway all to ourselves.
Françoise was dabbing at her eyes as we seated ourselves on the stairway.
“What‘s the matter?" I asked her.
“It is that Pierre. I can never please him. He says he loves me, but he will never make love to me. All he wants me to do is take off my clothes and pose. Sometimes he pretends he wants to make love, and then as soon as I undress, he runs for his sketchpad. I am so frustrated!”
“There, there.” I patted her shoulder and she snuggled against me.
“Not only that,” she continued, “but now he absolutely refuses to let me claim the money you say I have coming. He says it will corrupt me. And he says then I will corrupt him and that will be the end of his art.”
“Well, you’ll have to work that out with Dombey of Dover," I told her.
“Who is that?”
I explained, and went on to fill her in on the procedures connected with the inheritance. Then I got down to my real reason for being there. “What can you tell me about Barbara Thomas?" I asked her. “Suppose you start with a physical description of her." I already had such a description from Gina Moretti, but I had two reasons for wanting one from Françoise. First, I wanted to be sure it tallied with Gina’s. And second, I hoped she might add some details which Gina had overlooked.
“She is a redhead,” Françoise told me readily. “And she is much taller than I am. Here, stand up a moment and I’ll show you.”
I stood up, and she stood on the step above me. Our lips were on a level now, and she kissed me deeply.
“Yes, in heels,” she murmured, “she would be exactly your height. She is more slender than I, more slim of hip.” She took my hand and held it to her hip. “Not so much to hold onto as this,” she purred. “More the fashion-model type. Still, her figure is good. And padded very well where it counts. Like here.” She half turned so that my hand trailed across her derriere. It felt very warm under the flimsy cotton material of the skirt she was wearing. “As well padded as I am, and that’s not so bad, is it?” she hinted.
“Not bad at all,” I agreed, squeezing her foam-rubber buttocks obligingly.
Françoise turned to face me again and resumed her description of Barbara Thomas. “Here”—-she took my hands and pressed them to her breasts—“Barbara is not quite as large as I am.” She wasn’t wearing anything under her sweater, and I could feel the tips of her breasts growing against my palms. “They are higher, it is true,” she conceded, “and perhaps the shape is more streamlined, more like upswept ovals than round globes the way mine are. But there is not so much of them, and some men prefer the old-fashioned style, finding it more voluptuous.” She moved away a little bit and pulled her sweater up. The impressive orbs of her breasts sprang free, and the pink roseates, as large as half-dollars, looked dewey in the moonlight. A drop of moisture glistened at the tip of each erect scarlet nipple as well. “What do you think?” She asked.
“I’m just an old-fashioned boy,” I told her. “I don’t think they’ll ever go out of style.”
“Merci.” Françoise dimpled prettily and made no move to lower her sweater. Instead, she took both my hands and arranged the fingers around the breast-tips. “Now you’ll notice that this is the exact center of each breast,” she said throatily. “With Barbara, it is not so. Hers are off-center, just a little above where they should be. And that is what gives her the illusion of an upsweeping curve. Do you gather my meaning?” She squirmed so that the subjects under discussion moved in and out of the loose grip of my fingers suggestively.
“I’m with you,” I assured her.
“Now-—” She shot me an impish grin and moved away, climbing a step higher. “As to her legs. They are longer than mine, just as slender, but not quite so curvaceous.” She raised her skirt and extended first one leg and then the other to my admiring gaze. “And when you touch them”-— she caught my hand and held it in a grip between her inner thighs—“you will not feel that little bit of extra flesh I carry there. Of course, there are those who find that very feminine and exciting.”
“Count me among them,” I told her.
“Her thighs are a little more muscular, the way a dancer’s thighs are,” Françoise continued. “But I do believe that mine are as sufficient for the purposes of gripping as hers are apt to be. Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to find out,” I told Françoise. “And right now, I don’t really care.”
“Thank you, M’sieur," she said demurely. But her next move was anything but demure. “She has a very faint appendectomy scar on her stomach,” she told me. “It runs from here to here.” She raised her skirt above her waist now. She was dressed in the French style-—no undies.
I took a long, admiring look at her writhing nether-mouth and started fumbling for my own buttons and zippers.
“Oui, M’sieur,” she sighed. “But do you know something?” Her fingers delicately parted the flower petals. “Here we are exactly the same, Barbara and I!"