the phone.”
The woman closed her phone and put it in her bag. Colin and the Gorgon inhaled their victory.
“If you use it again, I’ll report you.”
“All right,” said the woman as she looked up and read his name tag. Colin and the Gorgon turned and walked away. The woman called after him.
“Colin?”
He turned.
“May I have some peanuts and a glass of Chardonnay?”
Colin thought for a moment, then nodded to the Gorgon and they both headed to the galley to fetch the nuts and wine before they did something really stupid.
The woman sighed and opened the in-flight magazine.
Fraser couldn’t resist it. Without opening his eyes he said, “That was magnificent.”
She smiled. “Thank you.” She flitted through the magazine for a moment, then said, “I know who you are.”
He didn’t reply.
She unbuttoned her jacket. Her lacy bra was visible through her white shirt.
“My mother loves your show. I’m sorry about all your trouble. I don’t think there is anything wrong with what you did. I like a man who enjoys sex.”
Fraser missed all of this. After he heard “Thank you,” the Xanax finally clashed with the whisky, and put him to the canvas. He was out.
The woman turned and looked at him. A little pool of spit that had been collecting in his mouth overflowed into a long, wet string that connected to his cardigan. She went back to the magazine, finally settling on a travel piece about the shopping delights of Old Town Helsinki.
The sun was a pale green as it dropped behind the northern horizon. Fraser sauntered across the medieval square in the center of the small Dutch town of Maastricht. He headed toward some little tables set outside a cutesy café. Jung was seated at a table on his own sipping a small lager and Fraser immediately recognized him even though he had taken the form of the late Jack Benny, an American entertainer who had been famous in his lifetime for his caustic wit, his meanness, and his comedic ineptitude on the violin.
“Fraser, what a charming spot, don’t you think?” Jung beamed.
“I’m dreaming about you a lot right now, even in naps. Even when I’m drunk. What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure,” Jung said in Benny’s burlesque American drawl. “I think you may be approaching some sort of crisis.”
“I’ve already had a bloody crisis,” snapped Fraser as he sat at the table, a little embarrassed to see he was wearing tight red panties and a peephole bra. “I’ve lost my job.”
“I’m talking about a bigger crisis. A psychic event.”
That’s all I fucking need, Fraser thought.
“Nice outfit,” smiled Jung, with a wink to a foot soldier from the army of Attila the Hun who had limped out of the café to serve them a generous salver of corpulent and glistening raw eel.
At the other side of the cobbled square was a magnificent Gothic cathedral. Unseen by Fraser and Jung, a man was trying, and failing, to open its large wooden doors by sticking his fingers in the giant keyholes and pulling. The man was deeply distressed, crying, his heart breaking on every exhale, tugging at the doors until his fingers started bleeding. He was so intent on his task that he noticed nothing and no one around him. He didn’t even know what country he was in.
This was George, who was asleep in seat 16A of Coach 13 of the 1915
Eurostar
. Waterloo to Gare du Nord.
PETIT MORT
GEORGE HAD TRAVELED ENOUGH TO KNOW that no town has its most interesting neighborhoods near its large railway stations, so when he got off the
Eurostar
at Gare du Nord, he thought about taking a taxi somewhere, but he knew he’d end up asking for something predictable like Notre Dame or the Eiffel Tower and he’d probably be ripped off by the driver, who would be able to tell he was from out of town by his Scottish high-school French.
He looked around the big station and saw a sign for the Metro. The Parisian underground rail system. He walked down to a ticket booth, bought a zone one fare