Sweaters and blue work pants were piled behind her. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner, Monsieur. I’d like to buy this blanket and some clothes,” she told him.
“Everything’s for sale . . . except my
His words suggested he knew the Seine. An old sailor who lived under the bridge now?
Money, ID . . . her bag—she’d left everything in the kitchen of the Hotel Lambert. All gone now. Her heart sank. She had no money with which to pay him.
“Here. I picked this up,” Krzysztof said, setting her bag down. He climbed up next to her on the improvised bunk.
“Fast thinking.” She pulled the none-too-clean blanket around her, peeled the wet dress off under it, and rubbed herself dry with the coarse wool. Her fuchsia silk Agent Provocateur bra stank of the river.
“They’ll be looking for you in that,” she said, eyeing Krzysztof’s dinner jacket and handing him the sweaters. “Give me the tuxedo jacket.”
“You shouldn’t have thrown the pipe bombs in the river,” Krzysztof said angrily.
Surprised, she looked at him. “What . . . let the bombs blow up in my face?”
“All we needed to do was cut the fuse.”
“What?”
“I tried to tell you—wax fuses are waterproof. But by plunging the pipe bomb into the water you must have set the explosion off.”
“Your anarchist friend told you that?”
Krzysztof nodded.
Great. She’d never live this down, if she didn’t freeze to death. She’d blown it in both the figurative and literal sense. Now everyone, from the bomb squad to the terrorist brigade, was after her.
Dampness oozed from the sewer cavern walls. She shivered, wondering if she’d ever feel warm again. Krzysztof took her cold hands in his and rubbed them, then wrapped them in a woolen sweater.
“It’s already been fifteen minutes,” he said. “If we don’t get going, they’ll find us.”
Only fifteen minutes? It felt like hours. And if the Brigade Fluviale took them in, she couldn’t count on hot tea, a warm blanket, and congratulations. More likely they’d be sent for questioning by the terrorist brigade and make a protracted stay in jail.
“We have to get out of here.”
She handed the man a hundred francs, looking at the lentils that were cooking on his fire.
“Food and wine’s extra.”
He sat on a box and raised his bottle, his dripping legs dangling. “
She heard squeals in the background. Rodents.
“All the comforts of home—dry, too—when she’s not rising.”
The man had to be desperate to live in an old sewer drain; the river reached a quarter of the way up the walls when it was in spate.
The blanket’s warmth and her rising internal body heat kicked her mind into gear. The man’s radio got reception; would her phone work? She had to check on Stella. She tried it. But she couldn’t get through.
“Anyone else live here, Monsieur?”
He shook his head.
A loner. And the cavern reeked of drains and mold. But as they said, any port in a storm.
“What’s your name?”
“Jules . . . first mate of the
“Aimee Leduc,” she replied. “We appreciate your hospitality.”
“Can always tell a lady,” he said. His eyes closed and he nodded.
Engines whined from outside. Krzysztof leaned down and slid another piece of wood over the sewer opening. His eyes were anxious.
It occurred to Aimee that Jules would know the homeless people who were sheltering nearby and the local
“Jules, I’m looking for Helene,” she told him.
He snapped awake. “Eh? I keep to myself, I keep my distance.”
Aimee nodded reassuringly. “Seen her around?”
“I don’t fraternize with that bunch down there.”
“Where?”
“Near the bend.”
If only she could find Helene, talk with her. “So, tell me . . .”
Jules shrugged. “I know nothing. I keep myself to myself.”
“I have to get out,” Krzysztof said before she could press the old man further. Fear shone on his face as he observed the rising water. “Now! I feel trapped.”
Claustrophobic.
“I can’t swim.”
Aimee scanned the embankment walls for the opening to another drain. All these sewers crisscrossed under the island. They’d find a manhole exit eventually, but with Jules’s help it would go faster.
“Jules, can you show us a way out?”
“That’ll cost you,” he said.
Their refuge was growing more expensive every minute.
“The package deal includes a flashlight,” he said.
Several mismatched, cracked rubber boots were piled up over by the wine. ”Throw those in, Jules?” she asked.
But he’d gone ahead, shining the flashlight beam over green fungal configurations on the walls that oozed slime.
She picked out a mismatched pair of right and left boots—one red, one blue—and stuck her feet into them. She draped the blanket like a shawl over her tuxedo-clad shoulders and lowered herself down the box staircase to follow the flashlight.
Scurrying and squealing came from the darkness ahead. Now the water level was lower as it was borne away by runoff tunnels that slanted toward the Seine.
Krzysztof hesitated.
“I don’t do well with rodents,” Aimee said. “You go first.”
Compared to the rushing Seine outside, the water in the tunnel flowed slowly and steadily but it was putrid and foaming. Chill emanated from the lichen-encrusted walls. The sewer was divided; the main branch had secondary connections, all leading to a collection point. The tunnels, built partly of brick, partly of stone, formed a vast underground network.
Jules stopped, shone the flashlight beam, and pointed. Overhead were freshwater pipes, telecommunications cables, and pneumatic tubes. Rusted wire rungs led upward. All the sewer tunnels had access through manholes to the street.
“You’ll need this,” he said, holding out a sawed-off hook. “A deposit’s required.”
Without it they would have had no way to pry the metal gating open.
She thrust fifty francs into his hand. “You open it, Jules.”
He stuck the flashlight in his belt and hoisted himself up the rungs of the ladder. Krzysztof followed and Aimee heard the wrench of metal and then a clang as the manhole cover was raised.
“Can we get out here?” she called.
She heard the squeaks of rodents and splashing, then footsteps descending.
“What’s wrong?”
