The Angel and the Devil

“Woke up this morning, blues falling down like hail, And I got to keep on moving, cause there’s a hellhound on my trail...” - Robert Johnson

The ringing was persistent and annoying, and when I was sure it wasn’t going to cease I snatched up the cradle, sighed deeply before I spoke.

‘Yeah?’ My voice was cracked and lifeless.

‘Daniel Tremaine?’

I coughed and automatically searched the bedside table for cigarettes. ‘Who’s this?’

‘My name is Detroit Jones, Mr. Tremaine.’

My hand paused over the table. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘I’m Detroit Jones.’

‘I’m sorry.’

If Jones picked up on my blatant rudeness he chose to ignore it. ‘I was given your number by an employer of yours, Mr. Tremaine.’ His tone was as dry and smooth as polished wood. ‘If you’re not too busy I could use your services.’

I was about to reply when a burst of coughing erupted from my throat. Jones waited patiently while I narrowly avoided bringing up a chunk of lung, and when I’d got myself under control he continued.

‘You sound like you could use some water.’

‘I could use a lot more than that, Mr. Jones,’ I replied, easing myself off the bed and feeling the familiar headache resurface as I sat up slowly. The air in the room was stale, lit by a flickering and silent TV screen in the corner and the pale dawn edging through the gap in the drapes. ‘Who did you say gave you my number?’ I said, narrowly avoiding stepping in leftover pizza as I stumbled towards the window.

‘Conroy Scott. You were with him in Rome, yes?’

‘He’s a good man.’

‘He is,’ said Jones. ‘An agency has seriously let me down and we’ve got three days of city location on the slate. Can you help me at all?’

I pulled the drapes aside and flooded myself with an early morning picture of the Paris skyline. Grey skies, slanting rain and traffic backing up, even at this early hour. Trying to find the sun would have been an exercise in futility.

‘Keep talking,’ I said.

It took only a couple of minutes for Jones to explain his situation, and after getting the final details and a brief negotiation of my fee I told him I’d see him within the hour. I scrubbed myself in the shower and shaved under the steaming spray, and when I wiped the fog from the mirror and examined myself the reflection looked better than it had for some days. My eyes were still bloodshot and the pain in my head was approaching a crescendo, but I’d work through it. Back in the bedroom I dressed quickly in my standard attire of jeans, boots and a black shirt. I lived in the world capital for fashion, but had myself chosen to ignore it.

The kitchen was in the same state as the rest of the apartment. The place was a dump, but for a central city area overlooking the river I was paying very reasonable money. I found juice in the fridge and swallowed it down along with a couple of Aspirin, grabbed my keys and retrieved my leather coat from behind the front door. As I was closing it behind me the cat slipped in, narrowly avoiding an amputated tail, and I spent a moment rubbing her behind the ears and giving reassurance that a decent meal was on the way. I’d pick up a little fresh tuna on the way home and give her a treat. Living with me, that was the least she deserved.

My watch read 6.40am as I headed away from my building in the direction of the Metro. The patisserie on the street corner was already alive with activity, the open counters piled high with incredibly fresh bread still smoking from the oven. Generally I found the smell intoxicating and would have stopped to grab breakfast, but when the yeast hit my senses as I approached it reacted with the remains of the vodka I’d overdosed on the night before, and I felt my stomach give a lazy roll. I rushed past, and it was only when I reached my hand inside my breast pocket and found I’d left my cigarettes in the apartment that I realized what a long day this could turn out to be.

In fact, it turned out to be the longest day of my life.

********************

The metro was as hot and busy as I knew it would be, but as always it was the preferable alternative to driving through the city. I stood near the doors and found myself wedged between a slim woman who would have been attractive were it not for the blatant hair on her upper lip, and a man with intense body odor who rhythmically ate indigestion pills throughout the journey. Between this and the rocking of the train carriage my health struggled to improve, and I decided to stare at my shoes and concentrate on what the implausibly named Detroit Jones had told me about the job.

Jones was employed as a location manager with the famous French studio Canal Plus, whose main office and production houses were situated in the centre of Paris. Over the last few weeks the respected director Olivier Assayas had been shooting his new picture at Canal, and although filming was nearing completion the production was scheduled to move into external locations around the city for the last few days. Extensive security was always required on location, especially in a city of nine million and with a movie shoot that had been splashed across the papers for the last two weeks. Some members of a security team Jones had arranged in advance for the location had pulled out at the eleventh hour, leaving him with a wild director, several famous stars and expensive camera equipment littered around the streets and not enough eyes to watch over them. This was were I fitted in. Jones had sorted out most of his problems but still had no-one to oversee the safety of two of the main stars of the picture. Movie productions live and breathe on word-of-mouth, and after he had made several frantic telephone calls my name had been thrown into the arena.

My stop arrived, and I joined the pushing crowd as they exited the carriage and headed towards the escalators. The heat was stifling and I started to feel claustrophobic, my throbbing temples not improved by the busker’s tones echoing against the tiles of the station walls. He was attempting to massacre a version of Bowie’s Space Oddity and succeeding admirably. If I’d had been able to reach him he’d have been eating the guitar, not strumming it. Mercifully I saw the daylight of the exit and pushed against the crowd, virtually throwing myself into the rain and fresher air.

The district of Saint-Denois was on the outskirts of the city, and quieter than the central location that I had traveled from. I started a fast walk and checked the directions to the location that I had scrawled while listening to Jones. Rain dripped across the paper, making the ink bleed, and I tucked it back inside my coat and turned my collar high against the weather. I just hoped someone was there to provide umbrellas and hot drinks.

It’s difficult to hide a film unit, and I found the production easily. It appeared as if the crew had taken over and closed several small suburban streets, and a security post had been erected at one end of the road with a barrier and tape keeping the public clear. Not that any Parisian’s seemed to be interested in a film lot that looked fairly deserted; a rain-swept Tuesday morning at 8.00am was no place for spectators. I approached the security post and gave my name, and the short but stocky guard examined his clipboard until I saw his eyebrows raise in recognition. I was given a laminated pass with my name, the name of the production and the words ‘Full Access’ on the plastic, and the guard let me pass through the barrier with a barely audible grunt. I also had no interest in stimulating conversation, so I headed towards the long line of Mobile trailers that were parked along the length of the street, my boots kicking up puddles as I walked. One of the doors swung open as I approached, and a bald man with a waterproof jacket and a scowl emerged.

‘Hey friend, I’m looking for Detroit Jones. Know where I can find him?’

He looked at me as if I’d just asked if I could sleep with his wife, and remained silent.

‘Monsieur Jones? Erm, s’il vous plait, er, ah, fuck it.’

The bald man grinned, jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s inside, mate,” he answered in perfect English, before striding away into the street.

I cursed softly under my breath and leapt up the stairs and through the open door. The interior of the trailer was lit with harsh striplighting which bathed two huge desks littered with paperwork. The smell of fast-food was strong, and a small two-way radio hanging from a hook to my left spat forth a crackled voice in the local dialect. One of the desks was deserted. Behind the other was a man who was so pale I almost thought he was an albino until I saw a spark in his black eyes. His hair was thin and it looked as if he was trying to hold onto it judging by the amount of gel he’d layered across his scalp. He looked up as I entered.

‘Help you?’

‘Detroit Jones?’

‘One and the same. You are?’

I stepped forward with an outstretched hand. ‘Daniel Tremaine.’

Jones stood and his face cracked open with a smile, revealing teeth that were spaced far enough apart to kick a football through. We clasped hands and I realized it wasn’t just his hair that was oily. ‘Glad your here, Mr. Tremaine. Thanks for coming at such short notice.’

‘No problem. And it’s Daniel. The only person who calls me Mister is my ex-wife’s lawyer.’

Jones laughed, made a noise that reminded me of an old nail being wrenched from a board. ‘Get you some coffee?’

I shook my head. Caffeine was the last thing my brain needed. ‘I could use a cigarette.’

‘I don’t smoke, I’m sorry.’

Fucking wonderful. ‘Maybe you could just show me the layout and my duties then.’

Jones moved around the wide expanse of desk , picking out a couple of files from the turmoil as he came. He craned his neck forward like a turtle and squinted at the pass I’d pinned to my coat before grabbing hold of an obscenely orange puffer jacket and burying himself inside it.

‘How’s the weather?’ He inquired.

I shook my head and a patter of rain drops hit the linoleum. ‘How do you think?’

He gave me another shot of the painful laugh, before zipping his jacket shut and beckoning for me to follow him outside. I did so, shutting the door behind me, and stepped back into the rain.

********************

Paris isn’t an easy city to live in. If allowed to it can overwhelm you with it’s charm and decadence, turn young men into old and good men into bad. Of course, I was corrupted long before I escaped here just over a year ago, and lately it was becoming harder to hide the fact. Most of my friends were bartenders, and they only kept the laughs coming as long as you kept the cash flowing. No-one has a shorter memory than a man who serves drinks. I knew that, but even false acquaintances were better than none at all.

It was a city to get lost in, and that suited me just fine. People never moved to Paris because they just happened to wake one morning and fancy a change of scenery. There was always a reason. Lowlifes, runaways, pseudo-artists, failed students and the city’s eternal inhabitant; The philosophers, who sit around on cafe terraces all afternoon discussing the works of Freud while grooming ineffective goatees and watching miniskirts breeze by. And then there were guys like me, who dropped themselves off here looking for something new and never quite found it, yet never quite had the courage to leave. Life in the world’s greatest architectural sewer. Maybe the Foreign Legion would have been a better option, but I could never be bothered to obtain the number.

********************

Jones led me across the street, the rain by now having soaked me through, and we turned into a smaller street that was quieter with less activity and larger, more expensive looking trailers. Tall, nineteenth-century period buildings lined the sidewalks and shielded some of the weather, and in the distance I could see a catering truck that I intended to ambush as soon as the chance arose. My headache was still paramount, but now the booze was draining from my system my appetite was returning rapidly.

‘I know you’ve had some good experience with personal security’, said Jones, placing his feet delicately around rain-puddles. ‘And believe me, this won’t be a problem to you. Have you ever met Miss Ledoyen?’

‘She could walk past me now and I wouldn’t recognize her.’

I saw Jones shake his head. The rain was causing his hair product to run down the sides of his scalp, but I felt no need to inform him. ‘You surprise me, she’s very well known’

‘I don’t really watch movies, Detroit.’

Jones had either no response to that statement or was so mortified he couldn’t think of a reply, and he remained silent until we reached the door of one of the biggest trailers on the street. He trotted up the couple of steps and rapped quickly on the door, before returning to stand next to me. His face sported a large smile that looked more false than a Vegas magician, and while I grudgingly admired his enthusiasm I couldn’t echo it, especially now a stream of rain was running under my collar and pooling between my shoulder blades.

It was probably just as well that I didn’t try and lay on the fake grin, because when the door opened I’d have ended up looking pretty damn stupid with the expression frozen on my face. That’s how simply beautiful the woman looking down at the two of us was. She leant against the open door frame and glanced distastefully at the sky for a moment before looking first to Detroit, and then myself. When her eyes met mine I felt my throat click audibly as I swallowed, and I saw the contrast of her black hair against the milky paleness of her flawless skin. For just a moment I was thirteen again, sitting in Billy Edwards basement and staring wide-eyed at my first naked woman, creased and stapled in the pages of one of the girlie books we had stolen from Billy’s old man.

Jones spoke first. ‘Bonjour Mademoiselle Ledoyen. Je comment-’

She cut him off with a voice that was equally as sensual as her looks. ‘Monsieur Jones, please, I have asked you before not to murder my language.’

‘I was just making an effort.’

She smiled. ‘Make an effort to speak English. It is easier for you and less hurtful to me.’

Embarrassment flared on Jones cheeks, and I hid a wry smile. He smoothed a hand through his hair and frowned as he filled his palm with something more substantial than rainwater. I glanced up at the woman I now knew to be Virginie Ledoyen and our eyes met briefly once again. There was an expression on her face that I couldn’t read, but one thing to my mind was certain; she had the measure of this location manager. Jones cleared his throat in a halfhearted manner and tried again.

‘This is Daniel Tremaine, Miss Ledoyen. He’ll be your security for the rest of the week.’

She looked back to me. ‘Do you speak English?’

I was unsure as to how my voice would sound, and luckily it didn’t let me down. ‘Not too well, but it’s better than my French.’

Another smile, this time revealing perfect white teeth. ‘Good. Then come inside out of this terrible rain.’

I thanked Detroit Jones for his help and turned away before I could he could place his gooey palm in my own once more. Virginie closed the door behind me as I stepped inside, and I peered back through the doorglass at Jones as he scuttled away across the street, his garish jacket disappearing into the distance.

‘He is an odd man, I think,’ said Virginie.

‘He’s alright.’

She walked into the interior of the trailer and I watched her move. She was wearing a huge white robe wrapped itself around her slim body and her wet hair fell in loose tangles across her shoulders. Her bare ankles poked out from beneath the robe, and for a moment I wondered what the rest of her would look like beneath the cloth.

‘You need some coffee?’ She asked, crossing to a silver espresso machine.

‘Just some water please, I have a headache.’

‘Are you ill?’

I shook my head and leant against the wall. ‘No. Well, not really. A late night and an early morning that I wasn’t expecting.’

She held a small mug as coffee hissed into it, and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘Late night? You were doing something exciting?’

I laughed softly under my breath. ‘Less exciting, more stupid. Alcohol and arguments.'

‘Oh, that kind of ill,’ she said, passing me a glass of cool water which I drank down straight. ‘Better?’ She said as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

‘If you had a cigarette to follow I would be.’

‘I don’t smoke,’ she said, and when she must have seen the obvious frustration on my face she continued. ‘Drinking, smoking, late-nights. You should look after yourself more.’

‘Can you honestly see a guy like me jogging before breakfast?’

‘I’m serious,’ she said, crossing towards me and removing my empty glass and replacing it with her coffee, up close, I could smell her clean skin, fresh as ocean spray. ‘You drink this, you need it more than I, and help yourself to anything while I go and get dressed.’ She span on her heel and walked quickly towards a door situated at the far end of the trailer. The door closed softly behind her and a moment later I heard the muted sounds of water running.

I took a look around the room as I drained the cup, feeling the caffeine burn into my brain and provide some welcome if short-lived relief. A long couch held a denim jacket and a roughly scattered collection of magazines and a couple of books; Henry James and The Diary of Anne Frank. In one corner was large television and a small, expensive looking stereo, and against the other wall a spotlessly shining kitchen area and a work surface holding a huge bowl filled with various fruit. I picked up an apple, sniffed and then replaced it, and then pulled open the fridge door in the hope of finding something less healthy. I was faced with masses of Yogurt and skimmed milk, instead of the bacon sandwich and beer I’d been hoping for. I closed the door and returned to the apple. Maybe if I started eating the kinds of food Virginie had, then I’d start to look as good as her. Well, that and some Divine Intervention, obviously.

I was finishing the fruit and even contemplating the yogurt when the door opened and Virginie returned. I know it’s rude to stare, but stopping myself was an impossibility. Her damp hair was now combed long and straight, and the white shirt she wore was like a layer of paint against her breasts and stomach. Her leather skirt barely qualified as a definition of the word, stopping as it did just below her behind and sitting above legs that were smoother than Barry White and curvier than a Ford Thunderbird. The straps of her sandals curled across her ankles like protective snakes.

‘How do I look?’

‘Good enough to make my hangover pack its bags and head for the station,’ I said. I couldn’t help myself. It takes a hell of a lot to impress me these days, but this woman was doing it.

‘That’s a pretty good compliment, Daniel,’ she grinned, crossing the room like a dream and reaching for the denim jacket. ‘You like my pictures?’ She indicated to where I had been standing by a dozen or so framed prints on the wall. All were black and white, and showed classic images of Paris and it’s citizens.

‘You took these? I asked. She nodded, pushing her arms into the jacket and causing her shirt to stretch even tighter across her breasts. ‘They’re really good,’ I continued honestly, turning my attention back to the pictures to stop myself noticing her body.

‘Merci. I spend so much time waiting for set-calls, it is nice to have my own things here.’

I cast my eyes around the spotless trailer. ‘It’s better than my apartment.’

She fished out a white umbrella with a ebony handle from a closet. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘Don’t bank on it.’

‘You live alone?’

I nodded and took the umbrella from her and opened the main door of the trailer. Outside the weather continued in it’s unrelenting fury; the rain was now bouncing off the tarmac in miniature fountains. In a rare moment of gentleman-style conduct I stepped out it the downpour and opened the umbrella before beckoning Virginie to step under the protective shield of canvas, which she did, closing and locking the door behind her. She pointed to the main area of the set and we began to walk, me holding the umbrella over her in my first act of protection that day.