The Woman in the Fifth Read Online Free Page A

said, 'I will return tomorrow to collect the payment for the room – that is, if you still want to stay.'
     
'As soon as I can stagger out of here, I will.'
     
' Très bien, monsieur . And by the way, thank you for pissing in the vase. Très classe .'
     
And he left.
     
I fell back against the pillows, exhausted, enraged. The latter emotion was something with which I'd had extensive personal contact over the past few weeks – an ominous sense that I was about to detonate at any moment. But rage turned inward transforms itself into something even more corrosive: self-loathing . . . and one which edges into depression. The doctor was right: I had broken down .
     
And when the flu finally moved on, what then? I would still be wiped out, beaten.
     
I reached back into my shoulder bag and pulled out the traveler's checks. I counted them. Four thousand, six hundred and fifty dollars . My entire net worth. Everything I had or owned in the world – as I was pretty damn sure that, thanks to the demonizing I'd been subjected to in the press, Susan's lawyers would convince the divorce judge that my wife should get it all: the house, the pension plans, the life insurance policies, the small stock portfolio we purchased together. We weren't rich – academics rarely are. And with a daughter to raise and an ex-husband permanently barred from teaching again, the court would rightfully feel that she deserved the few assets we once shared. I certainly wasn't going to fight that. Because I had no fight left in me – except when it came to somehow getting my daughter to talk to me again.
     
Four thousand, six hundred and fifty dollars . On the flight over here, stuffed into a narrow seat, I had done some quick calculations on the back of a cocktail napkin. At the time I had just over five thousand bucks. At the current, legal rate of exchange, it would net me just over four thousand euros. Living very carefully, I estimated I could eke out three or four months in Paris – on the basis that I could find a cheap place to live as soon as I got there. But forty-eight hours after landing in Paris, I had already spent over four hundred dollars. As it looked as though I wouldn't be able to move from here for another few days, I could count on paying out another extortionate hundred bucks a night until I was fit enough to leave this dump.
     
My rage was damped down by fatigue. I wanted to go into the bathroom and strip off my sweat-sodden T-shirt and undershorts and stand under a shower. But I still couldn't make it off the bed. So I just lay there, staring blankly upward, until the world went blank again and I was back in the void.
     
Two soft knocks on the door. I stirred awake, everything blurred, vague. Another soft knock, followed by the door opening a crack, and a voice quietly saying, ' Monsieur . . . ?'
     
'Go away,' I said. 'I don't want anything to do with you.'
     
The door opened further. Behind it emerged a man in his early forties – with rust-colored skin and cropped black hair. He was dressed in a black suit and a white shirt.
     
' Monsieur , I just want to see if you needed anything.'
     
His French, though fluent, was marked with a strong accent.
     
'Sorry, sorry,' I said. 'I thought you were . . .'
     
'Monsieur Brasseur?'
     
'Who's Monsieur Brasseur?'
     
'The morning desk clerk.'
     
'So that's the bastard's name: Brasseur .'
     
A small smile from the man in the doorway.
     
'Nobody likes Monsieur Brasseur, except the hotel manager – because Brasseur is very talented at la provocation .'
     
'Are you the guy who helped me out of the cab yesterday?'
     
'Yes, I'm Adnan.'
     
'Thanks for that – and for getting me settled here.'
     
'You were very ill.'
     
'But you still didn't have to get me undressed and into bed, or call a doctor, or unpack everything. It was far too kind of you.'
     
He looked away, shyly.
     
'It's my job,' he said. 'How are you feeling tonight?' 'Very weak. Very grubby.'
     
He stepped