Fata Morgana Read Online Free PDF Page A

and who was forbidden to enter. His present concierge would not care if he imported a thousand naked dancing girls and rode with them on elephants up the stairs. The mood of the building was casual; the gentlemen practiced knife-throwing in the halls.
    He entered the rue de Nesle and walked the few paces to the rue de Nevers, a perfect little alley in which to tap a man on the skull. As often as he’d walked it, he could not get his body to completely relax there, for the lane was too tight, too threatening, and he used it now to tighten his guts. The little lane did its work, its shadows and stone walls honing his nerves toward readiness.
    He exited the narrow alley, onto the quay, tasting the river air. The worst a man can do is lie in his bed like a turnip in a bin, rooting slowly in the darkness. Movement, Picard, and the lights of the city, that’s what you need to bring you round; wine and a kick in the belly. Those who sit at home in their stuffed chair will start growing stalks out of their head.
    He walked onto the bridge, crossed to the Right Bank, into the massive public courtyards. The lights of the palace blazed. Seven o’clock, our Emperor is dining with his beautiful Eugenie. Later he’ll slip off to find a whore somewhere. Long live the Emperor. Rescued last month in a pimp’s alleyway. Wearing a disguise, in search of love, and nearly assassinated. The Emperor has the spirit of youth. Refuses to be encrusted by his crown. A wise man. And here is the rue de Richelieu. This Monsieur Lazare—right up the street from the palace. Paying through the teeth for such an address. Fleecing somebody, I can feel it in my bones. A fortune-telling machine. Grotesque. Our enlightened Empire.
    And which of these luxurious houses—but of course, that one. Bengal lights and colored lanterns. Lit up like a palace.
    Faint sounds from the salon reached him, soft music, the tinkle of glasses. He entered the glittering courtyard, crossed to the staircase of the townhouse, where a footman admitted him, taking his card, his cape and hat, and extending a silver salver. “One hundred francs, Monsieur Fanjoy, please.”
    The footman led him up a long hallway and gestured him into the grand parlor. The room was supported by Grecian pillars and hung with heavy gold drapes. Vines were twined around the pillars, and plants of all kinds grew between them, making the entire room a garden. The women were spectacular.
    He glanced quickly over the faces, whose outlines were continually being traced in the newspapers. He looked for the cracks in their facade, could tell which ones would be easy game for a blackmailer. Little secrets have a way of playing at the tips of our fingers and in our eyes. The skilled blackmailer sees it and he draws on it, until the secret is his.
    At the buffet table he avoided the cream tarts, selected a sandwich of black-jeweled caviar. The essence of the sea burst onto his tongue, strong and mysteriously fishy, precisely the atmosphere of this room, reflected the Inspector, gazing about him.
    The gentlemen’s vests sparkled with war and service medals. Their faces were proud, distinguished—Lecour the boxing master, what is he doing here? Even he is subdued, Lecour who hits like a mule’s kick, acting as if the darkest secret of his life were known.
    Picard’s eyes were drawn to the far end of the buffet table, to a slender young man who had produced a sheaf of papers from his pocket and was explaining their contents to a second man, of soft sagging face and a freckled dome crowned by a few strands of red hair.
    “...the mine is located here, beyond Banana Point. Our expedition will be outfitted at a native village, approximately three miles from...”
    Duval the certificate peddler, observed Picard. The Prefect arrested him last year, outfitting balloon expeditions from a room on the rue du Dragon. Princesse de la Tour d’Auvergne gave him two hundred thousand francs for a lot of hot air. If he has found