Flick took a thousand-franc note from her jacket pocket. “Buy yourself another.”
She looked at Flick with new eyes, realizing she had too much money to be a prostitute. With a shrug, she accepted the money and handed over the wig.
“Thank you,” said Flick.
The girl hesitated. No doubt she was wondering how many more of those notes Flick had. “I do girls, too,” she said. She reached out and brushed Flick’s breast lightly with her fingertips.
“No, thanks.”
“Maybe you and your boyfriend-”
The girl looked at the thousand-franc note. “Well, I guess this is my night off Good luck, honey.”
“Thanks,” said Flick. “I need it.”
She found her room, put her case on the bed, and took off her jacket. There was a small mirror over a washbasin. Flick washed her hands, then stood looking at her face for a moment.
She combed her short blonde hair back over her ears and pinned it with hair clips. Then she put on the wig and adjusted it. It was a bit big, but it would stay on. The black hair altered her appearance radically. However, her fair eyebrows now looked peculiar. She took the eyebrow pencil from her makeup kit and darkened them. That was much better. Not only did she look like a brunette, she seemed more formidable than the sweet girl in the swimsuit. She had the same straight nose and severe chin, but that seemed like a family resemblance between two otherwise different-looking sisters.
Next she took her identity papers from her jacket pocket. With great care, she retouched the photograph, using the eyebrow pencil to draw faint lines of dark hair and narrow dark eyebrows. When she was done, she looked hard at the picture. She did not think anyone would be able to tell it had been doctored unless they rubbed it hard enough to smear the pencil marks.
She took off the wig, stepped out of her shoes, and lay on the bed. She had not slept for two nights, because she had spent Thursday night making love to Paul and Friday night on the metal floor of a Hudson bomber. Now she closed her eyes and dropped off within seconds.
She was awakened by a knock at the door. To her surprise, it was getting dark: she had slept for several hours. She went to the door and said, “Who is it?”
“Ruby.”
She let her in. “Is everything all right?”
“I’m not sure.”
Flick closed the curtains, then switched on the light. “What’s happened?”
“Everyone has checked in. But I don’t know where Diana and Maude are. They’re not in their room.”
“Where have you looked?”
“The proprietress’s office, the little church next door, the bar across the street.”
“Oh, Christ,” Flick said in dismay. “The bloody fools, they’ve gone out.”
“Where would they have gone?”
“Maude wanted to go to the Ritz.”
Ruby was incredulous. “They can’t be that stupid!”
“Maude can.”
“But I thought Diana had more sense.”
“Diana’s in love,” Flick said. “I suppose she’ll do anything Maude asks. And she wants to impress her paramour, take her to swanky places, show that she knows her way around the world of high society.”
“They say love is blind.”
“In this case, love is bloody suicidal. I can’t believe it-but I bet that’s where they’ve gone. It will serve them right if they end up dead.”
“What’ll we do?”
“Go to the Ritz and get them out of there-if we’re not too late.”
Flick put on her wig. Ruby said, “I wondered why your eyebrows had gone dark. It’s effective, you look like someone else.”
“Good. Get your gun.”
In the lobby, R‚gine handed Flick a note. It was addressed in Diana’s handwriting. Flick ripped it open and read:
We’re going to a better hotel. We’ll meet you at the Gare de l’Est at 5 a.m. Don’t worry!
She showed it to Ruby, then ripped it to shreds. She was most angry with herself. She had known Diana all her life, it was no surprise that she was foolish and irresponsible. Why did I bring her? she asked herself Because I had no one else, was the answer.