We follow Gaspard quietly, and Jack leans closer to me, whispering against my ear, “You’re fluent in French?” There’s the question.
His warm breath tingles my skin.
“Yeah,” I whisper, “and it’s not the only language I’m fluent in. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime, Long Beach.” I have to face forward more as we roll to a stop. Gaspard led us to a heavy black curtain, which merges to a side aisle in the audience.
Before he leaves, Gaspard tells me that if we find Charlie, we can’t stay. Packed house, after all.
This is a mess.
I don’t even know if I want to find him. I can’t yell at him in public, and I’m going to. Client or not. He’s going to hear it from me.
I push aside the heavy curtain to a wonderland of velvet, lace, and 19th century glamour. Champagne soaks in ice buckets on candle-lit tables, chandeliers glinting overhead. Patrons puff on cigars and cigarettes, and under red-tinted lights, they watch artists dance with belle-epoque style feather headdresses that are taller than the women who wear them.
Jewels dangle from costumes and ears. Music thumps the floor as they twirl, melodic voices billowing around the playhouse.
No matter how many times I’ve been here, it’s easy to be swept inside the magic. But I disentangle from the glitz and drama. Le Chat Rouge is a small playhouse, and despite the darkness, I have a good vantage.
My eyes flit from the dancers to the back of the room.
Sitting at his usual table, with a cigarette between two fingers, is Charlie Keating Cobalt. “There he is,” I say hushed to Jack.
He follows my gaze. “Should we wait. That way we don’t cause a scene.” He’s thinking from a producer vantage. How would this look to the public?
But I’m not about to wait for the show to end and have a massive group of people in my way again. From security’s standpoint, I need to be closer, and he needs to know I’m here.
“No,” I say. “We’re doing this now.”
Letting the curtain fall behind us, we make our way to the back of the room. Waiters stroll around the tables, refilling champagne flutes, the atmosphere casual. So I don’t feel conspicuous walking to Charlie.
When I’m inches from his table, he leans forward and smashes a cigarette in the ashtray. He stands without hesitation. “I’m ready.”
I almost expel a breath of relief. Quickly, I skim his body. No signs of injury. I nod once. “You can go ahead.” I don’t trust him to follow me tonight.
The three of us exit the cabaret. Stars blanket the night sky, a crescent moon and old streetlamps adding light. With Jack walking beside me, I’d call the setting romantic.
But the walk home is strained. Quiet.
Silent.
Leftover frustration and ire is bubbling up inside me.
No one says a damn thing, and Charlie casts glances back at me every two minutes like he’s worried I’m not following him. So by the time we reach the middle of a bridge, I’m not shocked when he stops dead in his tracks and spins to me.
His golden, sandy-brown hair whips around with the warm July wind, a striped button-down half untucked from his pants.
Confusion laces his yellow-green eyes. “I’m fine,” he says through his teeth. “Nothing happened. You don’t need to give me the silent treatment like I’m five-years-old.”
“If I were giving you the silent treatment, I would be the five-year-old,” I refute. “I was waiting to talk to you in private.”
He lets out a brittle sound. “No one has been on this fucking road for five blocks.”
Sure enough, the bridge is asleep. I only hear the sound of a violin off in the distance. Maybe on the other side of the river.
I give Charlie a look and then nod to Jack.
Jack raises his hands. “And I’m fine with staying out of this. I can go on ahead and leave you here to talk—”
“No,” Charlie snaps. “You’re filming my life; who the fuck cares if you’re here or not? I don’t.” His eyes bore into me. “Vrai?” True?
“Fine.” My voice grows coarser. “You haven’t disappeared on me like that in months. And all day, I’ve been going over it and over it in my head, and I need you to tell me the truth. Tell me if this whole fucking ‘show’”—I use finger quotes—“isn’t some elaborate plan to distract me and make it easier for you to go motherfuck-knows-where. Get yourself in troub—”
“Did it look like I was in trouble?” His eyes flame, and he points towards where we left with the cigarette still pinched between his fingers.
“That was one minute out of three-hundred,” I tell him coldly. “I don’t know what happened…” My voice trails off when he starts unbuttoning his shirt.
“Charlie, stop,” I say, my tone tempered. Hand outstretched.
“You want to know what happened in those two-hundred-fifty-nine minutes. I’m going to show you.” He tosses his shirt off to the side, pale chest in view. His fingers nimbly unbutton his pants.