City of Light (City of Mystery) (8 page)

“Lives have already been
lost in the building, or so I would have to assume.”

Graham shrugged. “They
admit to three, so I’d guess the number to be twice that.  The death of a few
workers is to be expected in such an ambitious enterprise, I would imagine, and
a price Paris is more than willing to pay.  For the public will be thrilled
with the scope of this clean and modern new city in the air, the grandeur which
appears to have been manufactured in an instant.”  Graham attempted to snap his
fingers on the word “instant” but his woolen gloves hampered the drama of the
gesture. “The elevator doors will open and they will immediately cease to
question the risk or the cost.  It will seem as if the tower has always been
here.  They will wonder how they ever managed to live without it.  This is what
progress does, you know.  Each step into the future makes us ever so much
grander and more demanding and thus ever so slightly less human.”

Rayley was surprised
by this burst of philosophy from such an unlikely source. “When the elevator
doors open,” he said, “I wonder how many of them will suddenly realize they
have a fear of heights.”

Graham chuckled, his
seriousness gone at once on the breeze. “It’s true,” he said.  “I’ve certainly
never been this high before. Well, I once climbed a mountain on a trip to
Scotland, but that’s rather a different thing, isn’t it?  Atop a mountain, you
look down and see the ground and trees gradually sloping away, and here you
look down and see nothing and nothing and then the ground.  There’s something
unnatural about it.  It’s as if we are dreaming, is it not?  Tell me Abrams, do
you ever fly in your sleep?  Because that is what it feels like to me, as if we
are all suspended here in some collective dream.”

“I suspect Monsieur
Eiffel would tell us that was precisely his point.”

Graham glanced
toward the group.  “Ah dear, I see the photographers are setting up, so I’d
better go and make sure my lad has his lens pointed the right way.   He’s a
fool, you know, mentally infirm even by the limited standards of his profession.
They all claim to be perfectionists, but I think it’s just a cruel desire to
make people stand in ludicrous positions for a long period of time while they
keep their heads beneath their cloths and laugh at us.  Excuse me.”

“Indeed.”  Rayley
rocked back on his heels with a sigh.  He had gotten a little more comfortable
with the wind and the cold and the slight sway of the boards beneath his feet
but he had forgotten about the damn photographers. Now they would be stuck here
for much longer, perhaps an hour. He dug in his pocket for his watch.

“He has a private
apartment at the top, you know.”

She had appeared at
his side just as she did the first time – abruptly, without warning.  He
wondered if she somehow calculated it, if she had trained herself on ways to
approach men with stealth, the better to overwhelm them with the unexpected
gift of her beauty.

“Eiffel,” she
continued, when it became clear Rayley was not capable of answer.  “It’s only
for his most select guests.  It’s on the third level at that point in a
building I believe engineers call the tippy-top.”  She laughed, showing small,
even teeth.

“The elevators go
higher?”  It was a stupid question, since they clearly didn’t, but it was the
only thing he could think of to say.  If he ever managed to get back to London,
he would spend more time with the other detectives, Rayley vowed to himself. 
He would insist that they teach him how to talk to women.

“Oh no,” she said. “You
ascend on foot.” She pointed to a spiral staircase near the center of the
platform, far away from where the photographers and journalists had clustered. 
They were determined to show the background of Paris in their shots and were
thus setting up along the guardrail.  They’d all seemed to simultaneously
realize they must perch their cameras on platforms in order to shoot above the
railing, a complication for which none of them had prepared, and everyone was
scrambling around looking for boards and boxes the workmen might have left
behind in order to create makeshift risers.  There was also the issue of having
a human in the foreground by the railing to create scale, so there appeared to
be a debate as to who might volunteer.  After a brief moment, the young
American woman agreed to serve as a model for them all and earned a round of
hearty, if somewhat glove-muffled, applause.

Clever girl, Rayley
thought. She would have her picture in every paper of the civilized world
within the week.

He turned back to
Isabel, whom he suspected might be joking, or trying to test just how gullible
he truly was. “How many people know of the existence of this apartment?” he
asked.

“Very few. I
understand it’s beautifully outfitted, can you imagine?  Sofas trimmed in
velvet, cut crystal glasses on the shelf, and the most wonderful art.”

Rayley was relieved
that his frantic newspaper reading frenzy of the last few days offered him the
chance, for once, to make a sensible response. “I understand he has quite the
collection.”

“Of art?”

“Among other
things.”

They smiled as if
they were a pair of conspirators, and Rayley relaxed. That was a far better
attempt at this flirting business. For he knew that Gustave Eiffel, despite
playing the grieving widower and devoted papa, was also known to keep company
with the most glamorous women of Paris. 

“He calls it his
aerie,” Isabel said.  “Accessible to his most select circle of friends.  But
the second level of the tower is open to all.”

“Only to the mad,”
Rayley said.  He had read quite enough about the second platform, which was
said to have a view of the city that would stop the heart.

“So shall we?”

“What?”

“Shall we climb?”

“Oh, no. God no.”

“But we have plenty
of time.” She made a slight gesture toward the journalists, photographers, and
engineers.  “They aren’t paying any attention to us at all.”

“I don’t think we’re
supposed to leave the group,” Rayley said and was immediately shamed.  He
sounded like a nervous schoolboy.  “I don’t think the second level is open,” he
amended, although that remark sounded scarcely better.

She laughed again. “None
of this is really open, is it?”

“We’re here as
guests. So if we should be found-“

“Fine, Detective. I’ll
go alone.”

Oh God, Rayley
thought.   Ohgodohgodohgod.  Because, with a defiant glance at the others, who
were all literally focused on the American reporter, Isabel had begun to walk
toward the spiral staircase.  He had two options.  He could either go with her
or let her climb alone.  No, now that he considered, he supposed he had three. 
He could walk over to Brown and inform on her.  

All of the choices
were equally unappealing.

She’s pulling a
bluff, he suddenly realized. The calculated use of the word “detective,”
obviously designed to shame him, had instead given her away.  She doesn’t truly
intend to climb a half-built staircase that most likely leads to nowhere, he
thought.  It’s a test.  We will get no more than a few steps up and she will
turn to see me behind her.  She will relent and we will laugh about this
later.  I will have gained her respect and we shall raise champagne in some
bar, some properly-sized bar located on the ground, and we shall toast each
other’s courage.  And we will laugh about later too, years from now, perhaps on
lazy Sunday mornings spent in bed.

The last thought
only seized the most peripheral part of his mind for Rayley was not a
delusional man.  He knew that in the real world, in the Paris sleeping below
them and in the London sleeping across the channel, he stood not a shred of a
chance with a woman like Isabel Delacroix.  But the fantasy was enough to get
his feet moving.  He approached the staircase and, with a sharp exhalation, put
his foot on the first step.  

She was no more than
two or three feet above him.

It was a
tightly-wound spiral, with each step not quite large enough to accommodate a
man’s foot.  The heel of his boot hung off the back of the step, forcing him to
lean forward onto the balls of his feet, keeping one hand on the flimsy railing
and the other on the more substantial center post.  In this pose it was almost
impossible to avoid the sensation that she was in his arms, for he had caught
up to her quickly.  This was a good thing, for if she now lost her footing, she
would tumble directly onto him.  An appealing thought, followed by the less
satisfactory question of whether or not in this bizarre hunched position he
would have the strength to catch her.  Rayley had a brief vision of the two of
them rolling head over heels back to the platform while a dozen reporters and
photographers turned to watch.

But as for now, her
feet were just above him, her legs not only visible, but unavoidable.  He
should be a gentleman and stay close enough to catch her and being a gentleman
at this small distance offered the bonus of periodic glimpses of ankles and
even, once or twice, the flash of a calf.  He quickly saw that the climb was
arduous, each step steeply pitched and the spiral forcing them to twist and
lean ever more to the center.  Surely she will stop soon, Rayley thought.   No
more than ten feet should be enough for her to make her point, to know that if
she is determined to do something foolhearted, I will come with her.  Even if I
don’t want to.  Even if my hands are shaking and my breath is in my throat.

Her feet.  Her
ankles. Her legs.  He could not not look.  Her foot was long and not as
delicately shaped as one might expect. The ankle was sturdy, the leg above it
showed sinew and muscle.  She has worked at some point in her life, he thought
with surprise. This is the leg of a barmaid, a housekeeper, a farmer’s wife.  A
woman who has used her body for more than caviar and clothing.

“How high do you
intend to go?”

The question cost
him.  Not just pride, but oxygen.  He had monitored his exhalations for some
time to save up the breath to ask it, and he was relieved to find his voice did
not sound strained.

She merely laughed,
a sound which appeared to cost her nothing.

“Why do you think
the steps are so narrow?” he asked.  He knew the proper answer. The spiral was
wound tightly to minimize the swaying of the staircase. The question was only a
desperate attempt to slow her down.

“So that you can’t
change your mind,” she called back wickedly.  “Rather difficult to turn and go
back, wouldn’t you say?”

He nodded, although
he knew she couldn’t see him.  He was already tired and he could think of
nothing in his experience exactly like this.  They plodded upward, past the makeshift
ceiling of the first platform, through layers of steel and cables and yet she
did not stop.  Rayley knew he couldn’t look down.  The sight of the floor below
him, the ground yet farther beyond that….if he stopped he knew he would never
start again.  He would die, just here, on this staircase, with the hips of
Isabel Delacroix bobbing above his head.

And then, suddenly,
light and air. They had broken through the layers of construction to the base
of the second platform.  And Isabel stopped. 

“Astounding,” she
said, and this time she made no effort to conceal the gasp in her voice.

Rayley turned his
head slightly and saw that she had used the perfect word.  The city had grown
even smaller, the details even less visible than from the platform below.  Paris
becoming an impressionistic jumble of shadow and colors, worthy of its greatest
artists.  If the view from the first platform made you feel like a giant, this
vista turned you into a god.  He thought of Graham’s remark that being so high
was like dreaming, but Rayley had never been granted a dream as grandiose as
this.

Isabel twisted and
sank down to one of the steps, squeezing as much of her hips onto it as she
could.  Rayley kept his arms braced against the center pole and the handrail,
leaning forward, and it occurred to him that this would be the perfect position
in which to kiss her.  If he ducked his head only a few more inches, their
faces would be brought together.  But she might refuse, perhaps even scream.  God
forbid, maybe even push him.  

She belonged, after
all, to another man.

“Shall we climb
higher?” he said. 

He would spend the
rest of his life wondering why he had said this.

She shook her head. 
Her hat had gone askew in the efforts of her ascent and small wisps of hair
were coming loose from beneath the brim.  There was a flush in her cheeks and
even – impossible to ignore at such proximity – a glimmer of perspiration on
her upper lip.  “I don’t understand the aerie,” she said, when she had caught
her breath. “This is the perfect view.  To go yet higher would be…a waste.”

“Yes,” he said. 
“You would see less and less of the earth, only more of the clouds.  A man
would climb higher only so that he could say that he had.”  He looked down at
her.  “Or a woman,” he added.

“Or a woman,” she
echoed softly.

“So are you
suggesting that if Gustave Eiffel ever invites Isabel Delacroix to his aerie,
she will decline the chance to see his Whistler?”