Five Nights in Paris: After Dark in the City of Light

214 Pages·2015·2.53 MB·English

by  Baxter

Dedication
For Marie-Dominique and Louise—
Il n’y a qu’un bonheur dans la vie,
c’est d’aimer et d’être aimé.
Epigraph
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Will fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, The Day Is Done
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
PROLOGUE: THE DANGEROUS EDGE
1. AS THROUGH A GLASS, AND DARKLY
2. WOODY’S NIGHTS
3. UNDER COVER
4. THE DARK SIDE
5. PROMENADES
6. FIVE LADIES FEELING
7. THE RIGHT WAY TO WRITE
8. WHITE NIGHTS
9. NOISES AT NIGHT
Night 1: Sound
10. BLUES IN THE NIGHT
11. PARIS ON SEA
12. RASPBERRY AND ROSE PETALS
13. EATING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE
14. TIME AND TIDE
15. SPENDING A CENTIME
16. HELP THE POOR STRUGGLER
17. THE SENSE OF A SACRIFICE
18. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
19. LOVE AND FRESH WATER
Night 2: Taste
20. POOR FOOD?
21. STRICTLY FROM HUNGER
22. PROPOSING A TOAST
Night 3: Touch
23. A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
24. LOVE AT NIGHT
25. SKIN-DEEP
26. CRAZY BY NIGHT
Night 4: Scent
27. UNDERWORLD
28. SCENT OF A CITY
29. THE NOSE THAT KNOWS
30. GARDENS OF THE NIGHT
Night 5: Sight
31. THE BLACK-AND-WHITE MAN
32. FRENZY AND DARKNESS
33. BOUND FOR GLORY
34. WAITING
35. EXQUISITE CORPSE
36. MAGNETIC FIELDS
37. THE HOTEL OF GREAT MEN
38. THE HOUR OF CRIMES
Acknowledgments
Index
Photo Credits
About the Author
Also by John Baxter
Credits
Back Ads
Copyright
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
The Dangerous Edge
His words were shapely, even as his lips,
And courtesy he used like any lord.
“Was it through books that you first thought of ships?”
“Reading a book, sir, made me go abroad.”
WILFRED OWEN, It Was a Navy Boy
L
ong before I decided to leave Australia, in the 1960s, I felt the desire to
escape. Year by year, it crept over me like a thrilling sickness.
Some footloose friends also wanted to go abroad, but their horizons extended
only to such tropical paradises as Bali. I set my sights on England and, in time,
California.
Three factors forced the final break. Two were TV commercials.
International airlines had just identified Australia as a rich new market and were
upping their promotional efforts.
The first, for Pan Am, began with a telephoto lens peering down a runway.
At the far end was a Boeing, lumbering toward us as it built up speed for the
takeoff.
“At this moment,” murmured an insinuatingly seductive voice, “in New
York, the lights are going on along Broadway. Meanwhile, in London . . . ,” and
so on, through capsule evocations of Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Paris.
By then, the Boeing was swelling to fill the screen. “In this world,”
concluded the voice, “there are many places to go; many cities to see.” And just
as the plane roared overhead, came the clincher. “Now is the time,” it said.
“Now, when the heart says ‘Go!’”
The second commercial, created by BOAC, later British Airways, was, by
contrast, seductively soft-sell. For commentary, it offered simply a reading of
John of Gaunt’s anthem for England from Shakespeare’s Richard II.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars
No roaring jet liners for the Brits; just scenes of villages, cities, lakes, woods,
and fields, ending—a brilliant touch—with a man on a bicycle wobbling away
down a leafy lane to “this earth, this realm, this England.”
But I said there were three inspirations—and the third, perhaps the clincher,
was nothing like the other two.
My wife of the time had a girlfriend from school. She’d recently married, so
we invited the couple around for dinner. As my wife explained before they
arrived, Annie had always been the wild one: the first to smoke, the first to play
hooky, the first to lose her virginity.
In person, she certainly filled the eye: a little too much cleavage, perfume a
bit overpowering, more hair than one was used to seeing in conservative Sydney.
But undeniably a dish.
Her husband, Rob, was quieter. Big, casual, confident, soft-spoken; Robert
Mitchum, I thought. He never quite said what he did for a living, but obviously it
paid well. And he’d traveled to all the places I wanted to see.
Over dinner, I quizzed him mercilessly. What was New York really like?
Had he been to Tokyo? London must be wonderful. And Paris?
“I’ve spent time there,” he acknowledged.
I pressed for details. Where did he stay? What places did he visit? Notre
Dame? The Louvre?
“For instance,” I concluded, “last time you were in Paris, what was the first
thing you did?”
He and Annie exchanged a look of collusion, one of those “Shall we tell
them?” glances, with a half-grin, that often precede revelations.
“Well,” said Rob, “if you really want to know, I knocked off the Patek
Philippe watch exhibition.”
I blinked. “Knocked off . . . ?”
“John, mate,” he grinned, “I’m a thief.”
And he was. A very good one, as it happens—the leader of a crew of
shoplifters that targeted high-end stores all over the world. For the next few
hours, he explained and demonstrated some tricks of his trade: the techniques of
distraction and misdirection, the elements of performance, the art of it. The well-
brought-up, law-abiding Catholic boy in me deprecated his way of life, but the
larger part—the adventurer-in-waiting, the reader of crime fiction, the admirer of
film noir—was seduced. After that, it was only a matter of time.