BACK    CONTENTS    ABOUT

Page 39.

21. Cosmetics

Shortly after, Rick and Hannah walked past the rental office. As if on patrol, they walked some distance, and then turned around in the rain on the sidewalk. They headed back the way they'd come.

They stood for a few minutes outside the rental office's big plate glass window, waiting for an opportune moment. They watched the glacial pace of nearly nonexistent operations. Two or three people entered, paid, waited, and left to pick up their rental cars at a driveway under a rain shelter beside the little rental office. A row of cars stood in the waiting lane, extending backward into the dark bowels of a two-story parking garage behind the office. Two attendants in dark trousers and white shirts, wearing dark gray chauffeur caps, kept the line of cars moving.

Rick waited for just the right moment, when both attendants took off—one to get the next car, the other maybe to step into the restroom.

"Come on," Rick said.

Hannah and Rick walked at a brisk but controlled pace as if they'd just come out of the office. If anyone noticed them, the game would be up. But nobody did.

They got in and closed the doors. The key dangled in the ignition. Rick released the emergency brake, started the car, and immediately drove away. If anyone noticed, there was no sign. Behind them lay a blur of rain and watery neon.

"I'm hoping it will take them a while to sort things out," Rick said. He glanced in the rear view mirror several times—on impulse, but with futility, because the rear window was fogged up.

"All we need is about an hour. We'll be at the Luxembourg border. Then we'll dump this car and get something else."

"How about a pair of train tickets?"

He snapped his finger. "That's a great idea. Got that map?"

"Here." She unfolded the map she'd bought at Econoligne.

Neither of them had a working cellphone with apps, so they had no access to online services. Which was probably good—one less way to be hacked or tracked.

"I think we can get to Thionville pretty quickly," she said, rattling the large paper as she unfolded its sixteen or so sections over the dashboard. Rick helpfully gripped a corner to hold it open. "Thionville is a city in France, south of Luxembourg, and we should be able to hop on a train to Luxembourg-Ville, the capital of Luxembourg."

"You got it," he said. "Watch for road signs."

She laughed. "Can you believe this?"

"Huh?"

"The nearest city is Yutz."

"You're yutzing me."

"You wish." She pealed with laughter. "You'd love to be yutzed."

"I'm not so sure."

"By me."

"Now I'm really scared."

She punched him playfully on the arm. "Look here. It's a small, picturesque city," she read, "with 41,000 inhabitants, parks, hotels, yadda-yadda."

"Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Is there a train station?"

"Bigger than Stuttgart," she said, using an old G.I. expression. She pointed to a spot off the south side of the Meuse River, which wound through the city. "That big letter G."

"Stands for Goofy."

"Stands for Gare."

"Train station." He glanced aside while driving. "I see the lovely acronym SNCF."

"Yup. Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français. National Railroad Corporation. And look next to it: CFL."

"Can Figs Love?" He could figure it out, but preferred to lighten the moment.

"Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois," she said. "Iron Roads of Luxembourg."

"Ah. That's what I was hoping. There is a Luxembourg train connection from Thionville."

"Half hour, and we're breathing free air."

"We should be there soon," Rick said.

"So far, so good."

He wasn't so sure. "We've got to keep our eyes open."

She pointed to a passing road sign. "About an hour now we'll be in Thionville."

"Go back to sleep."

"Avec plaisir." She turned her face to the window, where beads of water arced and tore away.

Rick drove in silence, as much through tunnels of rain as through his own jumble of thoughts.

After a while, he saw a cluster of buildings off to the right side. Taking the exit ramp, he came to a local road in a small town.

Hannah woke up, confused. "Where are we?"

"Nowhere. Time to become other people."

She sat up, watching alertly as he steered into a large parking lot. Surrounding the hundreds of obediently lined up, parked cars was a shopping area that included a gas station at one end, with a motel near it. At least, it would be called a motel in the U.S. Here it was a Zavotel or something—obviously a chain, therefore probably not overrun with roaches or pickpockets or whatever.

He left the car in the larger parking lot, rather than park behind the hotel.

They walked together, entering a small lobby with dingy carpeting and a good smell—something with lots of onions and garlic.

"Mmm," she said, "sheep eyes."

"No, roasted mountain oysters."

"This isn't Appalachia."

"Might as well be."

The man on duty was small, portly, and old. He wore a slouch hat over a presumably bald head. The thick glasses and black-colored mustache might have come from a Halloween trick kit.

Hannah nudged Rick, looking at him and then up to the right. There again was a surveillance camera. They saw their own pale, shocked faces looking up at the camera.

"Don't be paranoid," he said softly, echoing her earlier instruction to him.

She raised two fingers. Une chambre pour la nuit. "A room for the night."

"Deux personnes?" The man matter-of-factly threw open a large, flat book—a guest register.

"Vous avez des papiers?"

He was asking for papers, Rick understood. Everything here was under police control as a normal matter of civic procedure. "Les papiers sont dans l'auto. Ça suffit?" He fanned out a three twenty Euro notes. He leaned forward. C'est une affaire du coeur, entendez? "It's one of those matters of the heart, do you follow?" In other words: We are having an affair and we'd like to keep it discreet.

The man shrugged, took the notes, and disrespectfully shoved the book at them. He held up a pen to sign their names, addresses, that sort of information, which he expected would be phony.

Rick obliged, making up some names that sounded French: Roger et Michelle Belville. He added a made-up address in Metz—39 Rue des Marchés. He tried to write as indecipherably as possible, in case anyone cared to follow up. He held up another forty Euros just to make the point. The man would get these later if he let them be.

The man slapped a room key on an absurdly large, bell-shaped plastic handle on the counter.

"Merci bien," Hannah and Rick both said as the clerk was distracted by a shrill ringing sound.

They got only a grunt and a dirty look in return, as the man turned away to attend to a telephone call.

"Two-one-one," Rick read from the dangling key plate. "Room 211."

"Let's get it over with quickly," Hannah said.

They could not unlock the door fast enough. Together, they pressed into the room and pushed the door shut. Rick tossed his backpack on the bed, while Hannah dumped the Econoligne sack on the bed. Shaking it, she emptied out the hair coloring and other cosmetic objects.

"He might call the police," she said.

"I hope not. I tempted him with some more Euros."

Hannah filled the sink in the bathroom with warm water. "I can't read French well enough, but I have a general idea how to color hair."

"Women do a lot of that."

"Not blondes. We don't need to." She loosened her chignon, so that her thick golden hair fell around her shoulders.

"Excuse me," said Rick, whose hair was a nondescript very dark brown.

"You don't need to either," she said, stroking his head with her pretty hands. An electric feeling went through him.

"Oh, do that some more."

"No time," she said. "Sit and I'll cut. We don’t want to leave any traces of what we did here."

TOP