Fata Morgana by William Kotzwinkle Read Free Book Online Page A

sensing his thoughts, she turned and smiled. “It’s a ruin, I know.”
    “But you...” he said, gesturing to her beauty.
    “I too am ruined,” she said with a laugh, taking a key from her beaded purse.
    She opened the door, and the room was the usual sort of Pigalle hole, an indelible smell of old wine and stale tobacco permeating it, the walls cracked and peeling. Generations of drifters had used it, and Picard felt at home, though not completely, for there was a delicate feminine thing which sought to hold its own against the smell, the dreariness. Her table had a lace cloth, her windows were hung with soft curtains, and her open closet was a silken tabernacle, where brocaded flowers bloomed in shadow and lovely butterflies danced. She had just now removed her boots, and was seated on the bed, wiggling her toes within her stockings.
    Picard, still in his cape, knelt at her feet, held them gently in his hands. She leaned back, stretched her legs out; her stockings were embroidered with a design of dark-blue clocks. The voluminousness of her underwear made further exploration difficult; their fingers went together to the buttons which held her gown. It came off easily, leaving her arms and shoulders bare. The floorboards rumbled, the windows rattled.
    “They’re working nights,” she said, dropping the strap of her camisole. “Blasting in the sewers.”
    “No,” he said, helping her lower the other strap. “It’s because of you the room shakes.”
    She smiled; a single candle burned in a stone lantern beside the bed, and the flame was fanned by passing petticoats, gently tossed toward a chair. He saw that the clocks upon her stockings continued upward till they were met by red lace garters; when the garters came away her soft white flesh was imprinted with momentary rings that faded even before he placed his lips upon the peach fuzz of her thighs.
    “Your jacket,” she whispered, opening the buttons; her fingers touched the smooth butt of his revolver and stiffened, but he removed his jacket with an innocent smile, hanging it over the bedpost.
    Her perfume reigned now, obliterating the wine and tobacco smell of the room. Naked she was even more lovely, and she knelt on the bed, waiting as Picard stepped out of his underwear. “I think you might crush me,” she said, seeing his barrel-framed body.
    Picard stretched out beside her on the bed, taking the pins from her hair. It tumbled around her shoulders; her eyes were still amused by his physique, which she took in slowly, running her fingers over his shoulders, his neck, twining her fingertips in the tangle of grey-black hair that covered his rock-hard chest. His gut was where his torso weakened, where all the lemon tarts had settled, and she rolled the fat playfully, lingering on the scar that crossed his belly like an obscene grin. “Someone carved you badly, darling.”
    “There was a large stone in my bladder,” said Picard. “The largest ever seen in French medicine. Large and perfectly formed.”
    She knelt between his legs and brought her lips to the scar, kissing it gently. “Your surgeon was a butcher.”
    “He was an American dentist.” Picard reached toward the chair on which his jacket was slung and put his hand into the vest pocket. “I carry the stone with me wherever I go.”
    She raised her head, looked at him curiously.
    “Here,” he said, taking the largest of the three brilliant pearls from his handkerchief. “You may have it.”
    She laughed and took the pearl in her hand. “A perfect fake.”
    “Have it appraised before you throw it away.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “It’s real?”
    Picard reached into his jacket again. “My card.”
    “Africa Oyster Bed Company.” The young woman looked up with a grin. “Are you good bed company, Monsieur Fanjoy?”
    “We’ll see,” said Picard, drawing her to him, and turning her, so that her back was to him. They lay that way, stretched out against each other, and he slipped his left