Hot Night in the City

hand lurched forward to the next minute. Oh, that kind of mechanism, was it? He might have known! And he might have known that the booking company would have only one clerk on duty. Typical!

After several aeons, he advanced to become third in line, but when the elderly couple at the desk turned back to ask the clerk to clarify some muddled, complicated matter, our hero sighed so loudly that the old man, embarrassed and flustered by making someone behind him so impatient, lost track of his question and began at the beginning again. A glance at the clock told the suffering Basque that there remained only a quarter of an hour for the fiacre that awaited him below to make it across the river to Austerlitz station—barely enough time, assuming they were not delayed by some fool in an automobile tooting his klaxon and frightening the horses.

The worst of it was that he could see his name on an envelope on the clerk's desk. There were his tickets, only a meter away! And his money was in his hand! His bones fairly twisted within his body from impatience.

The clock lurched to the next minute, and the young man cleared his throat to speak to the large man ahead of him, a professional person, judging from his expensive black broadcloth coat and the stiff dignity of his manner. 'Excuse me, monsieur. I am traveling on a mission of the utmost importance, so I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I just handed over my money and snatched up my tickets. It wouldn't take a second, and I would be eternally—'

'My business, monsieur, is also of great importance,' the blond-bearded giant said, turning to him. 'So I'm afraid you will just have to wait your turn.'

'But, monsieur, my business is a matter of life and death!'

'And mine, monsieur, is a matter of honor.'

'Next?' the clerk said in a small voice, not wanting to get involved in what was beginning to sound nasty.

'If your business was so damned pressing,' the young Basque said, his black eyes darting dangerous fire up into the pale blue eyes of this recalcitrant stranger, 'then you should have made your reservations in advance by the telephone. If you'd had an ounce of foresight, monsieur, we'd both be out of here by now!'

The clock click-thunk'd one of their precious minutes into eternity, and the clerk risked another timid, 'Next?'

'I don't believe in the 'phone,' Blond-beard informed his tormentor. 'It is my professional opinion as a doctor that excessive use of this invention might lead to deafness.'

'And it is my opinion, as a man of common sense, that your view is mindless quackery.'

'Quackery, monsieur?'

'Mindless quackery.'

'If I were not in a great hurry, I would treat you to the thrashing you deserve!'

'You thrash me? You, a fat northern slug, thrash me, a pure-blooded Basque of the race that kicked Roland's behind for him? Ridiculous.'

'I will remind you that I am considerably bigger than you, monsieur.'

'Larger, yes. Bigger, never!'

'Next?'

'Monsieur, I don't mind telling you that— But no. I can't waste more time listening to your infantile Gascon rodomontade.' And the doctor turned to the desk and began arranging for tickets to Biarritz.

'Gascon?' the young man muttered, stunned that anyone could mistake a Basque for a Gascon. 'Gascon? I'll teach you to call me—' But he smothered his outrage (albeit with Herculean effort) because he owed it to his family's honor to get home to Cambo-les-Bains as quickly as possible. And arguing with this uncivil, stubborn, mound-of-meat of an opinionated, thick-headed northern quack would only delay him and— Ah, at last!

The blond doctor brushed past him on his way out to the elevator, and the young man stepped up to the flinching clerk, slapped his money on the counter, snatched up the envelope containing his tickets, and ran out of the office.

'Wait!' he shouted.

But the doctor pushed the button for the ground floor, and the elevator slid down through its ornate wrought- iron cage into the darkness below, its occupant smiling in nasty victory.

'Bastard!' the young man muttered. He threw his overcoat over his shoulder and rushed down the marble staircase that spiraled around the cage within which the elevator descended so slowly that he beat it to the floor below, where he pushed the call button, then continued his flying descent.

There! Now Dr. Blondbeard de la Sassymouth would have to open the inner accordion door and the outer wrought-iron door, then close them again and push his 'ground floor' button again to continue his descent. Our Basque knew this routine well because there was a newly installed Otis 'safety' elevator in the newspaper office where he occasionally sold scraps of drama criticism, and the journalists could never resist playing childish elevator tricks on one another.

As he continued his spiral dream, two old gentlemen flattened themselves against the wall to make room. On the next floor, he again pushed the elevator button in passing—ha!—and he plunged on down, his feet a blur, his overcoat flying behind him. Halfway down the last flight, a scrubwoman heard his clattering approach and fled downward, and he nearly came to grief over the bucket and brush she left behind, as he heel-slipped down half a dozen wet stairs, barely managing to keep his balance. As he charged into the entrance foyer, his brains a-reel, he heard the scrubwoman say something most unladylike, but he slammed the front doors open and broke out onto the pavement, where footsteps of passersby were revealed in an inch of fresh snow.

Oh, no! The cab wasn't where he had left it. Damn the perfidious cabby who had promised to wait until he —

Oh... there it is.

It had moved down towards the head of the rank, which had shortened to just two cabs with the departure of the infuriating slowpokes who had been ahead of him in the queue. He ran through the whirling snowflakes towards the glow of the cab's side lamp. 'Cabby!' Then he reduced his voice to a hoarse croak, so as not to disturb his sister, who had finally fallen asleep in the cab after a terrible night of worry about the foolhardy actions of their irresponsible brother back home in Cambo-les-Bains. 'I'll double the fare if you get me to the station in time for the seven-twenty.'

He jumped in as the driver took a long swig from his flask, applied the whip to the dozing horse, and they lurched off. The young man carefully spread his overcoat over the curled-up form of his sister on the far side of the cab; then he twisted around to catch a last glimpse of the Lafitte-Caillard travel office through the isinglass rear window, and he was gratified to see the doctor burst out through the double doors, stumbling and skidding, and rush towards the last remaining cab in the rank.

Serves him right!

The cabby threaded through the snarled and snarling traffic at breakneck speed, exchanging with offended drivers those dire threats that satisfy the Frenchman's yearning to be manfully aggressive without actually risking physical confrontation. Fearful that the jolting and pitching of the cab might rob his sister of her much-needed rest, the young man reached into the darkness, put his arm around her, and drew her firmly against his side. She murmured a vague, drowsy, nestling sound, then her eyes fluttered open and she looked up—

They both screamed.... Although he managed to lower the end of his scream into a more manly baritone.

'Get out of this cab!' she commanded, recoiling into the farthest corner.

'But, mademoiselle—'

'Get out immediately! Out. Out! Out!'

'But we're in the middle of traffic.'

'Get out or I'll scream.'

'You are screaming.'

'If you think that was screaming, wait until you hear this!' She opened her mouth, threw back her head, and drew a deep breath.

But she didn't scream, so baffled was she by his question: 'What happened to my sister?'

'...Your what?'

'My sister! I thought you were my sister, but you're not.'

'Thank God.'