The Luxembourg Run by Stanley Ellin

Author:Stanley Ellin
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781504042666
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2016-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

Oscar delivered the goods.

There were reporters and press photographers waiting at the airport in Paris, not many, but enough to indicate that here might be a celebrity in the making. There was a VIP lounge set aside for the interviews. At the sight of the first camera aimed in her direction, Grete put herself on full, seductive display, and the press took to her immediately. Beneficiary of reflected glory, I was then given the treatment ordinarily reserved for a Bergman or Fellini.

Our entrance into the Meurice was at least as impressive, and, most gratifying of all, upstairs in my suite I found waiting a magnum of Dom Perignon ’66 with card attached. The card bore the elaborate crest of de Liasse. Its message read Will you share this evening with me to celebrate your arrival? Please call at once.

Good. Better than good.

The pied-à-terre on Avenue Montaigne was a luxurious apartment largely dedicated to stereo equipment. I remembered Jean-Pierre as lean and sardonic. I discovered that while he was still trim of figure, he was, unbelievably, maudlin about the old school days. For his part, he was taken aback when I asked that we converse in English, my French having rusted badly after years of disuse. But once over these hurdles, we got along as if we were in fact dear old friends.

We covered school days at length, and then Jean-Pierre said, “Your mother. How is she?”

“All right, I suppose. I rarely see her.”

“Ah, well. Of course you wouldn’t know I was in love with her from the first time she visited you at the lycée, would you? No, don’t smile. It was quite serious as far as I was concerned. What moonstruck animals boys can be. When she divorced your father I actually dreamed that some day I might tempt her into marriage, never mind the grotesque discrepancy in age. After all, I could offer her a title. Women, you must know, are strangely susceptible to titles.”

“Dear mother,” I said. “Madame la Comtesse.”

“Amusing, no? But not to my mama, dear old snob that she is. To her, the indescribably boring world of the aristocracy—that dreary index in the Almanach de Gotha—is all that matters. She wouldn’t admit under torture that what she lives on are the proceeds of a commercial enterprise.”

“Well,” I said, “from an outsider’s view, the aristo does inhabit a highly glamorous world. I note that as an expert. Glamor happens to be my business.”

“Your film business, you mean. Yes, you made quite a splash in the newspapers this morning. But is all that true? I refer to the young Dutchman who was writing your screenplay and mysteriously disappeared before completing it.”

“All true, unfortunately.”

“Too bad. But at least you are involved in work which has, as you say, a certain glamor. That girl, now that we’re on the subject. The one photographed with you. An adorable little beauty, isn’t she?”

“She is,” I said. It had taken a long time, but here we were at last.

“Yes,” said Jean-Pierre. “Ah—I suppose that between you two there is a rather special arrangement?”

“None at all.

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