Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore Read Free Book Online Page B

extraordinary. Your look, I mean… I must paint you. I will pay for you to model.”
    “Monsieur, I am not a model.” A quiet voice, shy.
    “Please, mademoiselle. I assure you, this is not a ruse, I am an artist by profession. I can pay you well. More than you make at the laundry. And even then, I will accommodate your other work.”
    She smiled then, flattered perhaps. “I’ve never been painted. What would I have to do?”
    “You’ll pose for me then? Splendid! Simply splendid! Here is my card.” He handed her his calling card with the address of his studio, as well as his full name and title embossed with the family crest.
    “Oh my,” she said. “A count?”
    “It is nothing,” said Henri. “Come to my studio tomorrow afternoon, after you finish work. Don’t worry about dinner. I’ll have food for you. Just come as you are.”
    “But, monsieur—” She gestured to her work clothes, plain, black and white. “I have a nice dress. A blue dress. I can—”
    “No, my dear. Come just as you are now. Please.”
    She tucked his card into her skirt. “I will come. After four.”
    “Thank you, mademoiselle. I’ll see you then. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to my friends. Good day.”
    “Good day,” said the girl.
    Toulouse-Lautrec turned but then remembered. “Oh, mademoiselle, I apologize, what is your name?”
    “Carmen,” she said. “Carmen Gaudin.”
    “Tomorrow then, Mademoiselle Gaudin.” And he was through the café doors.
    Carmen trudged across the Place Pigalle toward Montmartre, then cut down one of the narrow alleys that would lead her to rue des Abbesses and up the hill. Halfway down the alley a pimp, just out for the evening, smoked a cigarette and leaned against a ramshackle shed. There was grunting coming from behind the shed, one of the pimp’s whores, perhaps, performing an early stand-up with a customer.
    The pimp stepped into Carmen’s path. “Ah, look how sweet you are,” he said. “You looking for work, my little cabbage?”
    “I’m going home,” she said, not looking up.
    The pimp reached down and took her by the chin, blowing smoke in her face as he appraised her. “You’re pretty, but not for much longer, eh? Maybe you should take the work while you can get it?” He tightened his grip, pinched her cheeks roughly to make his point.
    “Are you a painter?” she said, a quiet voice, shy.
    “No, not a painter. What I am is your new boss,” said the pimp.
    “Oh, then I have no use for you,” she said.
    She knocked his hand away and grabbed him by the throat, her fingers sinking into the flesh around his windpipe, then slammed him against the brick wall as if he were a rag doll, crushing his skull. As he bounced off the wall she yanked him backward over her bent knee and his spine snapped like kindling. It had taken a second. She dropped him to the bricks and a last breath sputtered out of him like a wet, lifeless fart.
    “No use at all,” she said, a quiet voice, demure. She trudged down the alley and was making her way up the butte when she heard the whore begin to scream.
    R ÉGINE SAW HER YOUNGER BROTHER OPEN THE DOOR TO THE BAKERY FOR A very pretty dark-haired girl in a blue dress. Strange, she thought, Lucien never brings his girls to the bakery.
    “Juliette, this is my sister Régine,” said Lucien. “Régine, this is Juliette. She’s going to model for me.”
    “Enchanté,” said Juliette with a slight curtsy.
    Lucien led Juliette around the counter and into the back room. “We’re going to take a look at the storage shed in the back.”
    Régine said nothing. She watched her brother grab the ring of keys from the wall, then lead the pretty girl out the back door of the bakery and into the little, weed-choked courtyard behind. A pentimento rose in her heart now, too, of another pretty girl being led to the storage shed, one she’d barely gotten a glimpse of. She backed to the stairs and took them two at a time up to the apartment.
    L