“Taxi?” What was the man talking about? Anita forced herself up from the floor of the cab and slouched on the worn seat, leaning back. Her head was not only aching miserably, but it was also spinning dangerously and her stomach felt queasy. If this unspeakable animal didn’t stop both his incessant jabber and his breathing of sour wine fumes in her face, she would do more than merely occupy his taxi; she would undoubtedly throw up all over it.
“Yes, taxi.” The driver looked at her sardonically. “I’m sure you mistook it for a box at the opera.” At least six martinis, he judged. When would women learn to be content with plain wine?
Anita held her head and then glanced over the cabdriver’s head. The street was a small one, deserted, and at first glance appeared unfamiliar, but then she recognized a boutique she occasionally patronized on the far corner and noticed the stream of traffic pouring across the main artery just a few hundred yards along. Memory returned to a small extent — she had been shopping for groceries. She had gone to the Supermarket Gourmet in the Porte de Maillot. She looked at her watch and finally managed to focus on the tiny face — two o’clock. Two o’clock? Four hours since she left home, and here she was nowhere near the Porte de Maillot but over near the Louvre! Or maybe even longer than four hours — it didn’t even have to be the same day...
“Madame!” Now that the woman was awake, communication was possible, though difficult. “Why don’t you — ah — recuperate somewhere else? The bistro over there, perhaps? The food is good, and you can probably use some. And I do need my cab. I have to make a living and I was not lying about the family.”
“What is today?”
“Christmas,” the driver said sarcastically.
It cost Anita a severe pang behind the eyes to bring her glare to bear on the wavering face before her, but she managed it.
“I asked you—”
“Tuesday,” the driver said hastily and honestly. The lady seemed to be sobering up faster than most, but still... “Madame, seriously. Let me help you out—”
“Quiet.”
It had been unbearably hot in the supermarket, she remembered that. She had gone to the shrimp counter and the ice had been hot. She frowned. Hot ice? No puns, she instructed herself sternly; but it had been a fact. The ice had burned her. And after that? Four hours... Where could she have been? Certainly not in this — or any other — taxi all that time. Then?
“Madame!” The driver decided that talking was useless; a policeman was the only solution. He hated to call on the law, his natural enemy, but could see nothing else for it. He looked about, well aware that a policeman was never around when you required one. He sighed and studied his unwelcome guest. Certainly the lady was beautiful and certainly well dressed, obviously not a fille de joie, but none of these facts helped get her out of his cab. The Magasin du Louvre was close by and at that hour taxis were in great demand. “Madame! Please!”
“Oh, be quiet!” Anita said crossly and pressed her hand to her head. She looked at the driver coldly, considering him for the first time as a person instead of merely a bothersome hand and an aggravating tongue. “If you want to earn money with your taxi, stop talking so much and start driving. The Avenue du Maréchal Favolle...”
She gave the number and then had a frightening thought, one that had also occurred to the driver at the same time. She opened her purse and was relieved to see that her wallet was intact, bills poking out. The cabdriver also saw the money; he hopped into his seat and took off with a jerk before his odd passenger changed her mind and asked for a bar instead. In which case he’d probably not get paid. Anita looked around for her shopping bag, shrugged to find it missing, and leaned back in the jouncing vehicle, wishing she had chosen one with better springs in which to take her nap.
But where had she spent those four lost hours? Walking? But even overlooking the blackout, walking could not account for the difference in distance from the Porte de Maillot; she could walk that in twenty minutes to a half hour. Unless she was walking in circles... In a cinema? Sitting on a park bench? Without knowing it? She closed her eyes, trying to put the problem out of her mind for a moment, trying to concentrate instead on willing her pounding headache to abate, but the icy fear of where she might have been or what she might have done continued to intrude.
The cabdriver, while possibly no master of the mot pour rire, was nevertheless excellent at his trade. He crossed the river on the Pont des Artes in favor of the lesser traffic on the Left Bank, eschewed the avenues and boulevards fronting the river in favor of a series of smaller but less crowded streets, quite accurately assuming his fare to be more interested in speed than architecture, traversed those streets with a better-than-average scattering of pedestrians, crossed back to the Right Bank on the Pont Bir-Hakeim to miss the Trocadéro and the crowds of tourists there, and shot down the Rue de la Tour as if trying to make up for the time lost in pointless discussion back at their starting point. He swung into the Avenue du Maréchal Favolle with gusto and pulled up to the curb before the apartment with a slight flourish. The cessation of motion brought Anita from her reverie; she climbed down and paid the driver. If he had any notion that fuzziness would make madame overtip, he was quickly disabused of the idea. With a grunt and a scowl he put the cab in gear and pulled away. Money for martinis they had in abundance, he thought bitterly, but a decent tip for a hard-working cabbie? Never. He should have put the meter on while trying to wake her!
Kek opened the apartment door at the sound of her key in the lock. He frowned at her, his gray eyes searching her face.
“Where on earth have you been?” He noted the missing shopping bag and returned to her face. “What’s the trouble?”
Anita smiled painfully. “Were you worried?”
“Of course I was worried.” He led the way into the living room and moved behind the bar, reaching for glasses. “You’ve been gone more than four hours. I asked André to go down to the market and look for you; I wanted to stay here in case you called. Where have you been, for heaven’s sake?”
“I’d love to know where I’ve been,” Anita said wearily. She sank into a chair, putting her hand to her pounding head. Kek paused in the act of taking down a bottle.
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I say, darling. And no drinks for me, thank you just the same. I feel as if I’d had about ten of them as it is. Without tasting them,” she added wryly. “Or enjoying them.”
Kek put the bottle aside and came from behind the bar. He walked over and looked down at her. His voice no longer exhibited irritation at her having given him a fright; nor did he sound curious when he spoke. Rather, his tone was emotionless, but his eyes were steady and alert. As always, Anita felt the wonderful sensation of being protected when she was with the man.
“All right,” Kek said evenly. “Tell me what happened. Everything. And exactly as it happened.”
Anita shrugged helplessly. She shook her head. “Nothing happened, darling. That’s what’s so strange. I remember thinking that the market was uncommonly hot and wondering why they didn’t turn on the air conditioning, and I remember walking over to the counter with shrimp, they were special this week, and I remember the ice burned me — I know it doesn’t make sense — and then the next thing I knew this cabdriver is shaking me and screaming at me and I was in a cab over on a side street near the Magasin du Louvre with nobody around and it was two o’clock.”