Of course, he left his ticket and passport in the pocket of the coat draped over his chair, and when the announcement came that we were about to board, I got an urgent text message on my pager that no one would let him back inside the lounge. He was waiting at the desk, face flushed with anger, a security guard beside him.
“Sorry,” I said, handing one of the attendants Marino’s passport and ticket.
“Let’s not begin the trip this way,” I said to him under my breath as we walked back through the lounge, following other passengers to the plane.
“I told them I’d go get it. Bunch of French sons of bitches. If people would speak English like they’re supposed to, this kinds, shit wouldn’t happen.”
Our seats were together, but fortunately, the plane wasn’t full, so I moved across the aisle from him. He seemed to take this personally until I gave him half of my chicken with lime sauce, my sponge roll with vanilla mousse, and my chocolates. I had no idea how many beers he drank, but he was -up and down a lot, making his way along the narrow aisle while we flew twice the speed of sound. We arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport at 6:20 P.m.
A dark blue Mercedes was waiting for us outside the terminal, and Marino tried to strike up a conversation with the driver, who would neither let him sit in the front seat nor pay any attention to him. Marino sullenly smoked out his window, cold air washing in as he watched abject apartments scarred with graffiti and miles of switchyards draw us into a lit-up skyline of a modern city. The great corporate gods of Hertz, Honda, Technics and Toshiba glittered in the night from their Mount -Olympian heights.
“Hell, this may as well be Chicago,” Marino complained. “I feel really weird.”
“Jet lag.”
“I been to the West Coast before and didn’t feel like this.”
“This is worse jet lag,” I said.
“I think it’s got something to do with going that fast,” he went on. “Think about it. You’re looking out this little porthole like you’re in a spaceship, right? You can’t even see the damn horizon. No clouds that high, air’s too thin to breathe, probably a hundred degrees below zero. No birds, no normal planes, no nothing.”
A police officer in a blue and white Citroen with red stripes was pulling a speeder near the Banque de France. Along the Boulevard des Capucines shops turned into designer boutiques for the very rich, and I was reminded that I had failed to find out the exchange rate.
“That’s why I’m hungry again;” Marino continued his scientific explanation. “Your metabolism’s got to pick up when you’re going that fast. Think how many calories that is. I didn’t feel nothing once I got through Customs, did you? Not drunk or stuffed or nothing.”
Not much decorating had been done for Christmas, not even in the heart of the city. Parisians had strung modest lights and swags of evergreen outside their bistros and shops, and so far I had seen not a single Santa except the tall inflatable one in the airport that was flapping his arms as if he were doing calisthenics. The season was celebrated a bit more, with poinsettias and a Christmas tree, in the marble lobby of the Grand H8te1, where our itinerary let us know we were staying.
“Holy shit,” Marino said looking around at columns and at a huge chandelier. “What do you think a room in this joint costs?”
The musical trilling of telephones was nonstop, the line at the reception desk depressingly long. Baggage was parked everywhere, and I realized with grooving despondency that a tour group was checking in.
“You know what, Doc?” Marino said. “I won’t even be able to afford a beer in this place.”
“If you ever make it to the bar,” I replied. “It looks like we may be here all night.”
Just as I said that, someone touched my arm, and I found a man in a dark suit standing next to me, smiling.
“Madame Scarpetta, Monsieur Marino?” He motioned us out of line. “I’m so sorry, I just now saw you. My name is Ivan. You’re already checked in. Please, I will show you to your rooms.”