Page 10 of The Devil Wears Orange
Undoubtedly, one photo-snapping tourist witnessed this and is on the phone with the police, right? But when I scramble around to look out the window, I’m stunned by the sight of tourists too preoccupied to notice what transpired. None of them will dial 9-9-9 emergency.
Then, as the car whizzes past a bench, I spot Anne and Chase sitting, unharmed, and playing a game of Peek-a-Boo, seemingly untroubled by the earlier threats. Anne looks up and lifts an armin a wave; I press my hand against the back window in response, but realize Anne is actually waving at an approaching Becky. Relieved, I relax and suck in measured breaths. They’re safe. Oh, thank God. And after a beat, What about me?
Turning, I see the waiter has removed his mask and replaced it with aviator glasses, a Yankees’ baseball cap pulled low above a beard and moustache badly glued to his face. He says something in a foreign language to the kidnapper – the same man who had threatened Anne in the Tuileries – who sits on the other side of me. The waiter’s tone is biting and coarse in admonishing him, his finger pointing at me. My head whips from one to the other as they bicker. Perhaps the waiter is angry that they can now add kidnapping to their list of criminal activities.
Leaning on its side across the car’s floor hump in front of me sits a familiar face –Mistress in a Red Dress. Hundreds of years after her death and men are still clamoring for her attention.
I avert the waiter’s stare, and have to swallow a few times before I can get any words out. My voice is unsteady. “I kept my part of the bargain. You can’t just take me. I’m an American.” I cringe as I say it.Such an American thing to say.
The Peugeot merges in roundabouts and rolls through stop signs, driving the same speed as the others. We’ve blended in so well with traffic that it’s hard to spot the vehicle with the stolen painting. I look back. No one is following.Incroyable!This is either the most carefully planned art robbery or the luckiest. With that thought comes another realization. If no one is after them for the painting, then no one is coming to save me.
The waiter speaks to the driver, who then tosses a small bag, retrieved from the front passenger seat, back to him. Catching it, he unzips the main compartment – I peer in, expecting to find a gun. Instead, the waiter retrieves a black turtleneck and, bending forward so I can’t see, whips off his hat and glasses, and throws the turtleneck over his white uniform. With the disguiseback in place, he sits up. He speaks with the driver as he slides black slacks over the white ones stretched taut over his muscular legs. The waiter kicks off his shoes, reaches under the driver’s seat for black sneakers, and stuffs his big feet into them. All the men wear similar outfits.
“Listen, you can drop me off here. I won’t say anything to anyone. I promise,” I say and stare at the thief, trying to unmask his eyes hidden beneath black shades. The beard and hair are fake, and even with sunglasses on, I may still be able to identify them. I’ve read enough crime stories to know your chance of survival diminishes when taken to a secondary location. I should have fought harder, screamed louder, bitten someone’s ear off.
The worst part, I fear, is that when they find my body, I’ll be wearing this horrendous raincoat. I hope they don’t retrieve my body.
Nee-eu! Nee-eu!The wails of a police siren interrupt my morbid thoughts, but they sound more like an annoying car alarm than the rescuing sound of freedom. I don’t care whether they are chasing the lady in red or the lady in the multi-colored raincoat. I can’t contain my elation and a smug smile forms on my face.
The driver checks the rearview; concern mounts on his face that is duplicated on the others. The waiter yanks out a gun from somewhere. Startled, I gasp. He had lied when he told me he’s a non-violent man. He stares at me; a petrified image of myself reflects back from his sunglasses. After a beat, he replaces the gun in his holster.
The other men shout in their foreign tongue until the waiter silences them. He points to his right, but in the confusion and screaming, the driver turns left. He makes a sharp turn onto a small, cobblestoned street. It’s a dead end. The flashing police lights are now behind us. The driver shifts gears and reverses straight towards the police car. I scream.
“Aaahh!” the kidnapper whoops. His primal war scream blasts in my ear, silencing me. He smiles and it’s the first time I see his toothy grin.
The Peugeot plows into the police vehicle. The impact throws me onto the waiter. I try to push myself off, but he has wrapped an arm around my waist. Our faces are so close that I consume his familiar smells, the mint on his breath, the bergamot of his cologne. The palms of my hands rest against his heaving chest. There was a spark between us at the gallery; no one can fake that kind of chemistry.Damn, he was the beddable type until he asked me to commit high-profile art thievery.
Finally, I manage to push myself off the waiter, my breathing deep and uncontrollable, my body’s tingling an affront to my logical mind. Mentally, I lambast the betrayal like the adult me arguing with my horny teen self. Embarrassed, I avert his gaze. Why do I feel as though I’m on an early morning walk of shame after a night of great sex? Though I can’t recall the last time that happened.
The vehicle has crammed the police car into a set of parked vehicles. It looks like an accordion, all creased and jumbled. The Peugeot continues reversing down the street until it reaches the end and turns right. The driver shifts the car into gear and squeals off. I catch a smile on the driver’s face in the rearview. The thieves got away. I feel my life slip away.
We race down side streets and along the River Seine. Trees flash by, and up ahead is a bridge, its bends made to resemble a woman’s curves. Leave it to the French to sexualize architecture.The driver eases on the accelerator as two police cars appear behind them, but by now I feel it’s only to torment me with their teasing ways. The Peugeot picks up speed and squeezes into a bike lane, sending cyclists scrambling out of the way. I scream as the car narrowly misses a fleet of riders, then returns to thesafety of the street amid a cacophony of horn blows. Along the way, we manage to lose one of the police cars.
The waiter uses an electronic screwdriver to carefully detach the painting from its frame. A sharp swerve causes him to stab his finger with the tool, and he barks something to the driver. Once done, he rolls the picture, inserts it into a tube, and then slips the tube and straps over his shoulder.
The getaway car takes another turn, no longer constrained on a narrow Parisian street. Another police car swoops in to take over the one left behind along the Seine, and we are back to having two police vehicles on us. The driver’s hands tighten on the wheel. His eyes dart to the rearview mirror. A quick right finds us back on a narrow street. Uphill. Downhill. Up again. At one point, we are airborne, and I frantically reach for a seatbelt.
Finally, the sirens grow faint. I look back to see the police caught behind drivers clumsily pulling over to the side of the narrow roadway. I breath out a heavy groan, kicking myself for having followed the white rabbit down the hole.
In the brief moment the Peugeot is out of view from the police, and after a few turns, it manages a harsh right into an empty warehouse. The metal garage door clangs shut behind us. Then there is silence, the kind of silence whereby our breathing reverberates in the cavernous space. No one speaks, and in that quietude, the siren of a police car rushes past our secret hiding place.
I close my eyes. Had I known today would be my final day, then last night I would have… What exactly would I have done differently? Demand Pierre give me that job at the news magazine? Aggressively flirt with the Prince?
Someone mutters something that sounds like an order. My eyes flash open. Some of the warehouse windows are blasted out, and a rickety set of wooden stairs seem to lead nowhere like the apartment inThe Seven Year Itch.
The men exit the car. I fumble with the red release button, and, in frustration, the waiter yanks off the seatbelt and pulls me out, pressing me hard against him. He puts his arm around me, a firm hand on my waist.
“Please, let me go,” I whisper so only he can hear.
The driver sprays a fire extinguisher inside the car then rushes up the stairs to join the others. The men are oblivious to the two of us left behind, and the waiter’s gaze follows his men up the steps, then back to me. It’s a small favor I’m asking from him. I never asked for any of this and was minding my own business. My only mistake was to let the art absorb me, butMistressabsorbed me too well and sucked me into this mess.
Light floods the semi-darkness of the warehouse as someone flings a door open at the top of the staircase. A man races down towards them, machine-gun in hand; he is tall and thin and dressed in black with a baseball hat. He claps the backs of the men as they rush past him, but when he notices me, he angrily says something to the other men and points his gun in my direction. I tremble against the waiter.
The waiter shouts something. The gun-toting man hesitates, then heads back upstairs.
Finally, the waiter untangles his arm from around me and takes one step back, then mounts the stairs. He’s letting me go. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I held and watch him ascend with the tube secure across his chest. I slide one foot backward, then another to slink out of the warehouse.Crunch.I step on the broken glass scattered on the floor and remain still, unsure if it’s loud enough for him to hear. His back stiffens, and he stops mid-step, turns, and swiftly heads down, taking them two at a time. He must have changed his mind. I’m not going anywhere.
“No, no, no,” I say, backing up until I hit the garage door. I bat at his hands as he reaches for me, but I’m like a kitten swatting at a ball of yarn. Frustrated, he bends, scoops me up, and throwsme over his shoulder. The slippery plastic of the raincoat makes me slide down his back, and I grip his belt to avoid landing on my head. As I’m carried up the steps, I lift my head and eye the garage door that grows smaller in the distance. The rooftop is high enough to throw me from. Death by sidewalk is not an outcome I had considered, and, like many, I had hoped for a painless death surrounded by children and grandchildren.
