Minutes or hours later, I couldn’t tell you which, we were surrounded by police and officials who had us disentangled, pulled to safety, and separately dealt with. Louche was unceremoniously hauled off while I was treated like a visiting angel. An easier way down was found through the inside of the cathedral, which I’m sorry to say I wasn’t able to appreciate, and I was reunited with the jubilant band of cabbies in the square outside.
With his snowplough brow leading the way, Rudee shot toward me with that parental mixture of total anxiety and complete relief. He scooped me up in his arms and lifted me off the ground just when I was getting used to being on earth again. Then he planted me in front of him, hands firmly on my shoulders as if he was afraid that I might fly away. He seemed on the verge of tears. “Little Mac! I was worried as a warthog, but now I’m happy as pig!”
“Hey, nice landing, little one.” Dizzy was grinning beside him, and added, “Rudee, I like ‘happy as pig,’ maybe it’s the title for our album.”
Mink Maynard added, “Yeah, that’s cool. It’s only for you I flip my wig, baby you make me happy as pig.”
Rudee shot Mink a look but couldn’t help laughing. I spotted the gleaming domes of Maurice and Henri in the cluster of drivers standing around their cars and talking excitedly. A spontaneous party was starting to break out in the square. The river rats were improvising a torch dance, and the people who’d spilled into the street were stomping and clapping and joining in. There was no sign of Blag, so I figured he was trying to turn a little profit now that light had returned to the streets of Paris, and with it some potential customers.
Just then I noticed, in the middle of the river rats’ midnight mayhem, a statue I hadn’t seen before. Instead of the usual cracked grey stone, it was wet, a dull black in colour, and represented a man looking up, trying to shield his eyes, in a fedora and trench coat. There was broken glass at his feet. Strange.
I fell into the back seat of Rudee’s cab, exhausted, but too fired up to rest. Madeleine’s voice came over the radio. “Bravo, mes chauffeurs. You’ve made me proud, as I knew you would. And a thousand mercis to Mademoiselle Mac, our little angel from California.”
A chorus of honking horns greeted this announcement, and I sank into the seat, embarrassed but unable to hide my smile from Rudee, who was grinning back at me in the mirror. “It’s never too late to celebrate. Let the Bastille Day party at CAFTA begin!” roared Madeleine.
“Some beet borscht before we put on the party pants, little one?”
I was about to show my disgust for Rudee’s taste in food, but then I realized he was kidding. He spotted an all-night cafe that was back in action with the relighting of the city, and I waited while he ran in for some much-needed sandwiches. I devoured my snack as Rudee drove, and when he crossed the Pont Notre Dame, I looked back at the Gothic cathedral, now framed by the lights of the city. All was as it had been before tonight, for centuries unchanged, the towers arching proudly into the sky, the beautiful flying buttresses, the mysterious stone gargoyles, and the mighty spire. All were where they should be. It already seemed like a dream.
When we pulled up in front, CAFTA was alive like I’d never seen it. The streets surrounding the café were jammed with cabs, other cars, and motorcycles, so Rudee stopped when he couldn’t go any farther and jumped out. I guessed that no one would be going anywhere for a while. At first, when we entered, nobody even noticed us in the general craziness that was building in the room. Then we were spotted and met with cheers.
“Bonsoir, little angel. When did you grow your wings?”
“Hey, Rudee, who’s the little parachutist?”
“Bravo, Mademoiselle Mac!”
To use my dad’s expression, I worked the room, thanking all the drivers for coming to my rescue and spotlighting my crane acrobatics. They had some pretty amazing stories themselves about the throngs of Shadows that had come bursting like clouds of vapour from the sewers, ready to do their worst with their mini cranes and their snarling beasts. It seemed that gargoyles came in all shapes, and the drivers exchanged stories about giant crow-shaped ones, cat-like creatures with no tails, and an assortment of really ugly dog gargoyles.
By the time Rudee and I arrived, the other members of the Hacks were finishing their last minute stage set-up in the corner and were nearly ready to play. Maurice was resining up the bow of his bass, and I wondered if he used the same stuff on his hair. Henri was leaning over his banjo, trying hard to tune over the hubbub of the cafe. I saw that Dizzy had fixed a French tricolour flag to the end of the slide on his trombone, and Mink was chatting up a woman in the audience, no doubt dazzling her with rhyme.
Just then, the crowd parted to make way for two very serious-looking gendarmes. Surely, I thought, they’re not going to shut down the party before the Hacks play their first note. They pressed through the partygoers toward the stage, and I noticed a familiar figure between them in a black tailored coat and bowler hat, carrying his usual rolled umbrella. Even on a national holiday, Magritte kept his look intact. I supposed that if he’d been in a Hawaiian shirt, no one would have recognized him.
He leaned up to Rudee, who was by then on stage, and said something to him. Rudee reached out a hand and helped the little man up onto the stage. “Mes amis,” shouted Rudee over the crowd, “before the Hacks begin to rock the CAFTA” — a cheer greeted this suggestion — “We have a VIP with us, a very impeccable policeman.” More cheering and laughter followed this remark. “I give you Inspecteur Magritte!”
If for no other reason, his overall tidiness brought Magritte respect, and the crowd quieted somewhat. “I come tonight to say merci on behalf of all of Paris to you, les chauffeurs.” Magritte inclined his head and touched his bowler in respect as a thunderous cheer erupted. “We have you to thank for maintaining the glorious glow of the city of light, mes amis.” He steepled his fingers thoughtfully, and I could see Dizzy behind him doing an excellent imitation, to the crowd’s delight. “We suspect a small group of cultural radicals to be responsible for these crimes against our city, led by a lunatic pretender to the throne, from a society so secret, they don’t even know they exist.”
I had to look away to keep from laughing. Then I heard my name. “And to our most welcome visitor, Mademoiselle Mac from California, we present the Pomme Verte, the highest honour possible for a non-French citizen, for her part in preserving the city of light and our most beloved monument, Notre Dame de Paris.”
I was nudged forward and onto the stage to accept my green apple, feeling a little like I was at the school field day awards ceremony. I thanked everyone I could think of, from Sashay to Jerome, Rudee, of course, and Blag, who was still nowhere to be seen. Someone took a picture of me shaking hands with Magritte and holding the Pomme Verte then disappeared.
The radio over the bar crackled, and Madeleine’s voice could be heard over the din of the room. “Bravo, Mac, and now, mesdames et messieurs, CAFTA proudly presents, our very own groupe du jour, the band with the big borscht beat, the Hacks!”
Again the crowd applauded and whistled as Mink stood up behind his drums and clicked his sticks together. “One two, you know what to do.”
The Hacks stormed into their opening number. I think it was “Grasse Matinee,” but I’m not sure. The room shook as the crowd danced, clapped, and stomped in time to the music. The stage was tiny but still left room for general wackiness from the band. Mink twirled his sticks like batons as Maurice attempted to lift Dizzy’s pork pie hat from his head with his bow. Dizzy was leaning into the crowd and taunting the dancers with the flag on the end of his slide, and even the normally sedate Henri played a banjo solo with his shining teeth. Rudee omitted nothing from his bag of tricks, and all the silliness I’d witnessed alone in the balcony of the Église Russe was now shared with the “partypoppers” at CAFTA.
Mink’s big vocal solo was a highlight and featured his lyrical gifts in lines like, “You pour moi. Me pour toi. What have we got. Je ne sais quoi.”
Then came a surprise appearance. I don’t know where she’d been hiding, but it was with great drama and more than a little pride that Rudee introduced “The most beautiful woman ever to grace the Paris stage, la reine des rêves, Sashay D’Or.” The room parted for her, clearing a space in front of the stage, and Sashay gave her usual beguiling performance. Although minus the special effects and the smoke machine, the impact was somewhat muted. At the end of her show, she pulled me onto the dancefloor and wrapped me in a replica of the silky white scarf.
The Hacks ended their first show with “Gâteau To Go,” and the break immediately saw the arrival of the most amazing collection of desserts I’d ever seen in one place. I was told that the master bakers and pastry makers of Paris, who normally work at night to prepare for the next day, had made a special feast of sweets in thanks to the cabbies. Trays of gâteau Saint Honoré were followed by towering displays of Vacherin cake, tartes au citron, and chestnut tortes. Finally, a gâteau amande arrived with glazed strawberries on top in the shape of a taxicab that promptly collapsed and sank into the cake as the crowd cheered its arrival.
I grabbed a jubilant Rudee and whispered in his ear. We packed up a sampling of the sweets, including what was left of the strawberry taxi, and headed for his car, unnoticed by the partiers at CAFTA. I was kidding him about his nose solo. We were laughing and almost didn’t see a couple approaching through the tangle of cars.
“Blag! Where have you been?” I was very happy to see him and forgot all about his feud with Rudee.
“Hey, kid. Nice landing on Notre Dame. You gotta licence for that scarf? You know Tawdry, don’t you?”
I did. The angular skyscraper of a woman from Shadowcorps smiled sweetly at me. “Bonsoir, superstar. Nice to see you again.”
What Blag had in the horizontal, Tawdry had covered in the vertical. She was stunning in a luminous black chiffon off-the-shoulder gown, but it was the shoes that really set it off. Black, of course, with heels that seemed to start around my knees in gleaming metallic blue and wrapped in a mile or so of licorice-like ribbon. Blag was in a smart black leather suit, uncharacteristically clean-shaven, and I think I detected a whiff of cologne when he came over to me. “I’m gonna skip the flail at CAFTA. Tawdry and I have a little soirée to get to.”
He glanced over at her with a stupid grin, and she responded with a pout and some breezy batting of her substantial eyelashes. This worked magic on poor Blag. “I just wanted to give you this.” He handed me a clumsily wrapped gift and said, “Go ahead, open up kiddo, a little souvenir.”
Inside was a Tonnage T-shirt with “Demolition Dance” written on the back and a picture of an exploding building. “Blag, you’re so sentimental,” I said, and Tawdry rolled her eyes.
I’d forgotten for a moment about Rudee, who’d held back silently during this exchange. It was Blag who made the first move. “Hey, Daroo, listen. Let’s put this thing between us to bed, okay? I don’t even remember what started it all in the first place.”
“You’re right, Blag. Let’s let biceps be doggone.”
Blag looked stunned at this pearl of wisdom, but Tawdry and I couldn’t let it go by and pretended to flex our muscles, giggling. Rudee and Blag began an earnest conversation full of references to the “old country” and seemed to be making up for lost time. Before long they were laughing, and Blag affectionately slapped Rudee’s shoulder, almost knocking him over.
Tawdry took a sisterly tone with me. “Listen, honey, you ever wanna ditch those sneakers and get into some heels sometime, I got a starter set I could get you going with.”
“Sure, thanks,” I said and called to Rudee that we’d better get rolling on our sweets delivery.