Masquerade Read Online Free Page B

mirror and makeup. She rubbed on makeup base until her natural rosiness turned to leather. She drew furrow lines around her mouth and across her forehead. She smoothed the lines. With a scarf, thick-lensed eyeglasses, and a sun-dried face, she would turn no heads in bustling Avignon.
    She felt a welcome rush of adrenaline. For three years she hadn’t worked. She’d missed it, although she’d be glad—no, “euphoric” was more accurate—when this operation was finished.
    Satisfied with her new appearance, she went outside. The calliope music was coming closer, which meant she had little time. She bicycled to an
épicerie
, where she filled the wicker basket on her handlebars with fresh carrots, strings of garlic, onions, and radishes. She paid with francs.
    She pedaled away again, this time heading up the avenue to a spot she knew the circus would pass. She established herself on a corner and called her wares like any good French countrywoman.
    â€œCiboules grand! Carottes! Radises! Ail!”
She held up a garlic rope in her right hand, and a bunch of plump red radishes in the other.
“Ail grand! Radises grands!”
    As the parade appeared down the avenue, a housewife bought garlic and onions. An office clerk looked over. He bought red radishes, dusted one off, and took a bite just as the first circus ponies pranced past.
    Then came the clowns, tumbling, playing tag, and stopping for exaggerated handshakes among the crowd. Clowns were always the best advertisement for a circus, and the watching throng seemed to swell with excitement as they rollicked past.
    The countrywoman was excited, too, and she rolled her bicycle closer so she was right on the curb. One of the clowns spotted her. Roly-poly and dressed like a Napoleonic sailor, the clown paused to juggle colored balls before her.
    The countrywoman laughed and clapped her hands. But as she did, her bicycle dropped off the curb and crashed forward into the grease-painted clown.
    The crowd gasped.
    The clown snatched the juggling balls from the air and fell.
    The woman grabbed her bicycle and dropped beside the clown.
    â€œMy apologies!” she cried loudly in French. “What have I done! Are you all right?” And then she whispered in rapid English, “How is everything?”
    â€œGoing as planned. And you?”
    She smiled. “We’re off to a good start then.”
    There was time for no more. The clown rocked back and bounced quickly forward onto huge buffoon feet.
    The crowd clapped.
    With a deep bow, the clown presented the blue juggling ball to the leather-faced countrywoman. She took it with a loud
merci
, and the clown raced back to join the jaunty procession.
    Although she was impatient to be on her way, the young woman stayed on the curb, remaining in character. At last, after the entire circus had paraded past, she pedaled off.
    In a different petrol station, she cleaned her face and changed back into her bicycling clothes. She cut open the rubber ball and removed a single rolled sheet of paper. She rolled the paper tighter and slipped it inside a ballpoint pen. Then she cut up the ball and dropped the pieces down the toilet.
    She emerged, studied her surroundings carefully, and rode away in the French sunshine, south toward Marseille, where she’d change identities again and fly to Paris. She was a very pretty woman, and she was smiling.
    In the smoky bar in working-class Paris, Quill bought beer for the French maintenance man until at last he staggered outside. Quill let another patron leave, and then
he
followed.
    The maintenance man climbed behind the wheel of his van and fumbled for his keys. Quill glanced up and down the street, now quiet in the aftermath of the demonstration. He took a small black case from his pocket, opened it, and slipped out the loaded hypodermic. He opened the driver’s side door.
    The maintenance man turned, his bleary eyes suddenly alert. He saw the hypodermic,