I darted after her. She pulled open the heavy doorway, and we both slipped inside.
“I hope you’re in shape,” she said as we began to climb. “Guillaume is in the penthouse suite on the twelfth floor.”
“The twelfth floor?” I groaned, craning my neck to look up at stairs that seemed to go on forever. “I didn’t think the French built tall buildings.”
“Evidently, they made an exception here,” Poppy said drily. “It’s where Guillaume always stays when he’s writing music.”
Six minutes and a dozen excruciating flights of huffing and puffing later, we emerged to find the maroon double doors at the far end of the hall flanked by two enormously beefy, stern-looking men, one of whom had a Salvador Dalí–style mustache that looked designed for twirling, quite an odd sight on a man who could probably snap me in half if he so desired.
“Thank God,” Poppy said, still panting from our climb. “Edgar and Richard are here!”
“Who?” I asked, gazing skeptically at the two strange-looking giants who stood between us and our errant rock star. This was getting weirder by the moment. But Poppy was already striding down the hall toward the enormous men, smiling and saying something in rapid French to the Dalímustached man. He stared at her for a moment, impassively, then reached out and pulled her into a bear hug. She exchanged a few words with the other beefy guy, who also broke into a grin and reached over to muss her hair.
“Emma,” Poppy said, finally pulling away from him and smiling at me. “This is Edgar.” I reached out hesitantly and shook his massive hand. “And this is Richard,” she added, gesturing to Edgar’s mustacheless twin.
“Nice to meet you.” I shook his hand, too, and then looked to Poppy for an explanation.
“Edgar and Richard are two of KMG’s bodyguards,” Poppy explained, beaming. “I had no idea they were here! This is fantastic!”
Edgar said something to me in rapid French, and I shook my head.
“Je ne parle pas fran?ais,” I recited—one of the only French phrases I had memorized, the one that meant “I don’t speak French.” “Sorry.”
“It eez not problem,” Edgar said, shaking his head and speaking in slow broken English. “I taked ze English in ze school. I just tell Poppy that no journalistes enter here. Me and Richard, we, how you say, we block ze way.”
“Well, thank you,” I said.
“Merci beaucoup!” Poppy beamed. She turned to me. “We’re in luck!”
I raised an eyebrow at her. Somehow, even with this latest turn of events, luck didn’t seem like the proper word to apply to a situation that involved standing on the twelfth floor of a hotel outside a crazed rock star’s room, while a gang of hungry reporters waited for us downstairs.
“So, Edgar, can you tell us what is happening?” Poppy asked.
“Oui,” he said, nodding solemnly. “After dinner, Guillaume bring four, how you say, er, young ladies to la chambre, er, ze room,” he began.
“You were with him?” Poppy asked.
“Oui,” Edgar confirmed. “KMG ask us to stay with him tonight. But he keep losing us.” The man rolled his eyes. “Now, on est dans un beau pétrin.”
“What?” I glanced at Poppy for clarification.
“It’s an expression that means ‘We’re in a fine mess now,’ ” Poppy translated softly.
“You can say that again,” I said.
Edgar looked at me strangely and shrugged. “Okay. Eef you wish. On est dans un beau pétrin.”
I took a deep breath and reminded myself to be careful using English expressions. “Edgar,” I said. “Can you tell us what happened once they got to the room?”
Edgar nodded. “The music, it go on,” he said, glancing at Richard, who was staring impassively forward. “And we hear ze laughter from ze room. Guillaume, he order ze food in ze room, and le serveur who deliver ze food, he notice ze girls. Les journalistes, they arrive twenty minutes later, so we think it was le serveur who call them.”
“Did any of the paparazzi make it up here?” Poppy asked.
“Oui,” Edgar responded. “But we make them to go away. Now they wait like—how you say—vultures, down ze stairs. They wait to catch Guillaume and his girls to leave.”
“Do you know what they’re doing in there now?” I asked, nodding toward the door. Edgar and Richard exchanged glances.
“Non,” Edgar said slowly. He glanced nervously at Poppy.
“It’s okay, Edgar,” she said. “Emma works with me. She’s going to try to help get Guillaume out of this. You can be honest with her.”
Edgar stared at Poppy for a moment then turned to look at me.
“There are drugs,” he said slowly. “But there are always drugs. Guillaume, he does not do ze drugs. He never do ze drugs. But the girls, they do ze drugs. Guillaume, he is just crazy. He does not need ze drugs to be crazier. As we say in French, il est marteau. And I think he make ze love with ze girls.”
“All the girls?” I asked, incredulously. I wasn’t sure whether to be disgusted or mildly impressed.
Edgar laughed. “I do not know. Is that not what ze rock stars do?”
I cleared my throat. “So Guillaume isn’t on drugs. But the girls might be?”