the lobby and out onto the street. There was no taxi in sight so he started running down the sidewalk. Cars flew by and he craned his neck over the automobile hoods, desperate for a cab. Finally he spotted one coming around the corner of rue Blanche. Will dashed across the street and threw himself in front of it, causing a shriek of brakes.
He jumped in and rattled off the address to the driver. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was almost five o’clock. As the driver’s radio played a Polish polka, Will tried to piece together what must have happened. He remembered carrying Zoya to the room with the other fellow, the one he had seen in the dream world. Was that man this Vidot? The letter referred to him as a “friend,” so presumably they knew one another. And where was Oliver? The taxicab jolted, braked, and barked its horn through the traffic, the Place de l’Opera was bumper to bumper. Will rubbed his face with both hands in frustration. His memory was cloudy. He remembered smoking the owl pellet as the priest had instructed. Then he must have passed out. He did not remember any dreams or visions, only a deep, soulful rest. He tried to remember what day it was, Friday? Saturday? The traffic on the street was busier than it would have been on a weekend. It must be Friday. At the thought of work, Will shook his head. He had not called in sick, left any sort of message with his assistant, or even checked in. At this rate, his job probably wouldn’t be waiting for him.
He leaned toward the driver, “
The driver’s eyebrows went up and a broad smile broke out on his face. “Okay!” he said in English and they were off. Through a combination of blaring horns, bravado, and inspired sidewalk driving, the cab zoomed, lurched, cut, swerved, and sped down the Boulevard des Capucines, along rue de la Paix, then turned up the Right Bank until it crossed the Pont Notre-Dame and pulled up in front of the police station.
Will threw a fistful of francs at the self-satisfied cabbie and, leaping out, ran up the steps. Inside, he found a desk clerk. Yes, yes, she said, a woman matching that description had been brought in early that morning. The clerk began leafing through the ledger in front of him.
“Well, hello!” said a voice behind him. Will turned and saw the man from the barn, no longer naked or wearing the priest’s borrowed clothes but now clothed in what appeared to be a smartly tailored suit. “We never had time for a proper introduction. I am Detective Vidot.” He looked down at his clothes. “I am not usually this formal, but I will be reuniting with my wife soon after some time away and I would like to look my best.” He offered a tight smile. “I trust you had a good rest.”
“Where is Zoya?” Will said.
“Ah,” said Vidot, “I have some news there, good news or bad news, I do not know. I had hoped we could keep her longer, but when I returned from the tailor I discovered she had already left.”
“She was released?”
Vidot looked uncertain as to how to answer that. “Maybe? Or perhaps she released herself, with some assistance? I am not sure yet.”
“You think she escaped?”
Again Vidot paused before answering. “Yes, that is my guess, though it was not entirely unexpected. I was actually on my way to speak with a man who will, I believe, shed a bit of light on what occurred. Perhaps you’d like to join me?”
As Vidot led him down the hall, Will looked around. He had never been in a police station before. The slow clatter of typewriters clicking out reports and the stale cigarette scent mixed with the smell of mimeograph ink permeated all the rooms they passed through. The officers and clerks they passed moved in a slow and steady motion, as if they were assured justice would ultimately prevail, or because they simply did not care. At the end of the corridor they came to a closed office door that Vidot opened without knocking. An older man sitting behind the desk stood up as they entered. He already looked nervous.
“Detective Vidot,” the man began, straightening his tie, “it is good to have you back—”
“Lecan, please, be seated,” said Vidot curtly, taking a chair across from the man. Then he paused and stared at the older detective. Will remained standing, watching the two and trying to figure out what was going on, until Vidot remembered he was there. “Oh yes, this is my American friend Mr.—I am sorry, Will, I don’t know your last name.”
“Van Wyck.”
“Ah, yes, a Dutch-American? I see. Well, Mr. Van Wyck, this is a colleague of mine, Detective Lecan. Now that we have made our introductions, Lecan, could you please tell us what happened with our prisoner Zoya Polyakov?”
“Who?” Detective Lecan grinned, clearly attempting to look as if he had never heard the name before.
Vidot shook his finger at his colleague in a scolding, almost teasing way. “Now, now, Lecan, do not try to hide it from us, tell us what you did with her. I have found three officers who can testify that she was last seen in your custody, so please provide us with the details of what happened or we will have to go to the authorities.”
Will looked confused. “Wait, aren’t you the authorities?”
Vidot lifted a pack of cigarettes off Lecan’s desk. “Perhaps we are,” he said, taking one out, “or perhaps we are simply three men talking about a pretty girl as men so often like to do. So now what do you have to say?”
Lecan looked at him suspiciously. “You are saying this conversation is off the record?”
Vidot smiled and held out his hands. “Of course.”
Lecan shifted in his seat, he looked nervous. “No, it’s too much. What I have to tell you will sound preposterous. You will think I’m mad. Who knows, I might truly be mad. Maroc’s probably right, he says I’m going to kill myself if I keep drinking like a Belgian.”
“You will be surprised what my friend and I find preposterous,” said Vidot.
“Well…” The old detective looked down at his hands as he spoke. “First there is this, I saw her not long ago, I think maybe it was last week. She was walking on the street while I was at Chez Loup. I knew it was her immediately, though it seemed impossible. I had not seen her for years, many years, and yet I swear she had not aged a day. I told Maroc as much and of course he laughed at me.”
Lecan shook his head, as if even he didn’t believe himself. “Then when I came in to work this morning, I saw her name in the log. I recognized it right away. I’m telling you, my heart almost stopped. I had to go see for myself. Sure enough, there she was, sitting alone in the cell. It was almost as if the angels from above had brought her out from the shadows of the past, to taunt me and show me how old I have become.”
“You think too much of yourself,” said Vidot.
“Yes, perhaps.” Lecan smiled. “Anyway, the officer on duty informed me that you had left instructions that she not be disturbed, but I needed to speak to her. I simply had to. So I pulled rank and had her brought up to one of the interrogation rooms.”
Lecan shifted in his chair nervously as he went on. “I came in right away and introduced myself to her. It was only the pair of us, sitting there alone. She was so elegant, so good-looking, she excited me. I started talking at a fast, impulsive rate. She did not remember me at first, but I reminded her of where we had met, way up in Frankfurt so many years ago. I described the nights we had gone out and what she had worn, her feathered cap, her velvet coat, the ermine muff she always carried. Finally she smiled, she remembered, or pretended to. Yes, she agreed, she found it strange that she seemed still so young while I had grown—how did she put it?—‘as old as a turtle.’ I said the thought had been bothering me as well, for I had been so young then. She said she used a beauty trick that she had learned from an old friend. She asked if I believed in real tricks like that, not merely illusions or sleights of hand. I said I did not know what she meant. She asked if I believed that real magic could be found in magic tricks, and I said, emphatically, no, such things were only found in fables and children’s stories. Then she asked if I believed in curses. It was an odd question, but the whole conversation was getting quite hard to follow, she had started with beauty tricks and now she was onto curses. In any case, I answered again, no, curses were the same as magic, it was all silliness. Then she grew quite serious, her eyes grew wide, and I swear a shadow seemed to pass across her face. She said that I would discover I was wrong, because curses do in fact exist.
“Then she said she would prove it to me right there, by placing a curse on me. I asked her not to and she laughed and said I should not be worried, after all, I had said only moments before that I did not even believe in such things. Besides, she said, it was a small and simple curse. She said it went like this: I would gradually disappear, experiencing the absolute gray solitude of death long before I ever expired. First, she said, my wife
