France and England 1937
He wanted to oblige with coffee, but it did not turn out the way he thought when they got to his room in the hotel.
No dispatching of clothing. Glasses of water substituted for wine, and a lengthy diatribe of more divorce procedures and a deluge o tears instead of pillow talk.
An hour or more, and the deluge washed away, along with thoughts of anything else, including breakfast.
He sent her back to her hotel in a cab. A good-by hug satisfied the both of them.
He slept well all alone and happy, and made it to breakfast on his own.
Lovely white table cloth, and a waiter with black trousers, white starched shirt and black bow tie.
Allain, dressed stylishly in a suit, passed on a full breakfast. Coffee and a tall glass of fresh orange juice, slowly sipped, did its job of freshening him up.
He casually picked up the carefully folded, crisp morning’s newspaper, hoping for a clue of what’s happening today or yesterday, when a man approached with unhappy thoughts.
“My wife said you made a pass at her!” Followed by bulldozer of a slap so hard it sent Allain’s brain on a boat to China, leaving his face to decide if his teeth had given up. Maybe it was a centurion forcing him to divulge the secret of how Christ rolled that damn stone away?
The man was tall, in a bespoke, dark woolen suit, white shirt and red tie. The slap tossed Allain’s thought to a place far away.
The man leaned forward and smacked the palms of both hands flat on the table. Allain may have lost his thoughts, but was accomplished at spying a face filled with anger, and was beginning to catch the scent of garlic or the scent of a long dead rodent. The man’s knee caught the edge of the table, not giving Allain’s pants time to avoid a flying cup of scalding coffee and a glass of orange juice.
An alert waiter strode quickly, and carefully stepping between them. “May I help you gentlemen?”
“Nothing worthy,” Allain said with a smile. “Just a discussion of manners.”
Still another waiter asked if Allain would like another breakfast. “I think not. I didn’t enjoy the first one.”
The waiter promised his suit would be renewed, with a half dozen apologies.
Allain skipped asking for a doctor or help getting to his room. He finally got to his feet, and the man whispered, “Il faux parle”, but the accent was a bit short of good French.
We have to talk? Allain understood the French phrase, but not the sense of it.
“By the way, who is your wife?”
“You know who she is!”
“Not yet I don’t, but I’d like to. You going to tell me or maybe show me a photo of your monkeys.”
The waiters quickly grabbed the man’s arms, let him to the front door and made sure the doorman didn’t let him back in.
As he left, the waiters looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, as if to say, who is his wife and who the hell is he?
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Allain undressed, put on a complementary white bath robe, left his suit at the door to be cleaned. Then locked the door, tossed the robe on the bed, and looked in the mirror before taking a shower. Then put on pajamas and climbed into bed.
Early morning yearned for him, but he was still sleeping when there was a knock at the door. Certainly his suit was not ready. Too early. And the knock was more than a tap, and wasn’t followed by a soft courtesy call.
Thoughts rippled across his mind, none of them good. Couldn’t be the OVRA, Mussolini’s secret police, or maybe the husband he’d met at breakfast? Still thinking, he put an ear to the door. Mussolini’s brutes were all over France. But, England? They wouldn’t dare.
Hitler’s killers, on the other hand, were a different story. Over forty thousand British citizens followed Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists who thought Hitler is top hat. Swell guy! Let’s all have a pint of Berlin’s best Bier!
The knock came sharper, louder, like the wood was about to be turned into Billy clubs.
“Hold on for God’s sakes!” He wrapped his bath robe, slid into slippers, pitter pattered to the door, unlocked it and cracked it open.
Two men pushed the door with heavy force, grabbed him and did their best to drag him out. Didn’t happen. Allain pulled back as hard as he could. The heavy door did a good job of cracking a couple of fingers. The closest man yelled, the other took a foolish moment that loosened his hold. Allain swung a fist at a delicate area. The man winced and tried to hold Allain’s arm, but ended with one knee on the floor. Allain grabbed that man’s fingers and pushed one finger hard enough to make him forget why he was there. A good kick left them back out the door, sturdy enough to get the door latched.
With the door secured, Allain pressed his back against it and heard some words. Dialect: Neapolitan, Sicilian, Venetian? All he really heard for sure was heavy shoes moving away. He looked down to see a very nice Baretta automatic pistol. Italians? A pistol almost never tells the whole story.
Allain once again showered, dressed and was about to leave when another pounding on the door made him pick up his new Baretta.
“Who is it?” End of Part 2
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