“Well, it’s simple. He’s a thief. He happened across a very expensive item that none of the fences in Montreal could afford. So he went off to Paris to sell it. I don’t think he’s coming back. He’s always really wanted to be a European.”
Poppy knew she had to tell a lie the pimp had never heard before. He wasn’t particularly bright, so he was used to accepting that things might be going over his head. As they walked back to the building, the pimp put his arm around her.
“Will you please tie me up?” she asked once they were in the apartment.
“Is that what you like?”
“Well, I can’t really say. But sometimes I like to try something new.”
“All right. I mean, I don’t care. I’m always up for anything.”
She handed the pimp a box of old ties she had collected when she worked at the brothels. Men often forgot them when they were drunkenly getting dressed. They were like a group of slithering eels. The pimp tied her arms to the chair and then fastened a gag around her mouth. She kept hoping Pierrot would walk in at the right moment to rescue her.
They both heard Pierrot’s whistle as he came down the hallway. Everybody in the hotel paused what they were doing to hear the bar of music Pierrot was whistling. It was a refrain from the tune for Rose. He was always working on that tune, even subconsciously.
When Pierrot opened the door, he saw Poppy tied to the chair at her wrists and ankles. She had a pair of yellow underwear stuck in her mouth. Poppy’s eyes were wide, wide open. She watched the scene unfolding in her own little hotel room as though it were the most riveting movie ever made.
“Poppy!” Pierrot yelled. “What is happening?”
He twirled around to look at the pimp.
“You are a criminal, sir! How dare you! Get out of here!”
“You get out of here! You don’t deserve your lady. You just make money off her. And you take off to Europe whenever you fucking please.”
“I don’t even know where Europe is!” Pierrot exclaimed.
“Anyway, I have more respect for her than you’ll ever have.”
“You’ve got her tied to a chair!” Pierrot attempted to push past the pimp, to untie Poppy.
The pimp reached into his back pocket and pulled out a knife. “I’m going to have to kill you now, buddy. I wasn’t going to touch you, but you touched me first.”
Poppy started to squirm about wildly in her chair, hoping to escape, trying to save Pierrot. It had all gone wrong. Pierrot didn’t have a chance, and he was about to be cut into pieces. The underwear fell from her mouth.
“Run, Pierrot!” Poppy yelled.
There was nowhere exactly for Pierrot to run. The pimp was blocking the door, and the hotel room was too tiny for Pierrot to do anything other than run in circles. The pimp jutted his knife out and Pierrot had no choice but to go out the window.
? ? ?
HE CLIMBED UP the iron fire escape attached to the side of the building like a vine. Why he decided to go up instead of down might be regarded as either a metaphysical or theological question but is, in any case, unanswerable. Up he did go, with the pimp following close behind.
The pimp had the knife in his hand. He held it out in a stabbing gesture toward Pierrot. A little girl leaned out her window and handed Pierrot a butter knife to defend himself with. She had just been using it to spread strawberry jam on her toast. The red jam on the end of the knife made it look like it had just committed a bloody deed.
At the top of the fire escape, Pierrot twirled the butter knife around as if it were a baton. The children on the third-floor balcony began to applaud. Although this was rather esthetically impressive, it raised no fear in the heart of the pimp. The pimp seized the knife from Pierrot’s hand. He held both of the blades toward Pierrot—like they were the horns of a bull that was about to charge him.
The sheets hung down from the laundry lines like they were the ceiling of a great, colorful, patchy circus tent.
Pierrot arrived on the roof and sprinted across, the pimp scrabbling up close on his heels. When Pierrot reached the opposite end of the roof, he momentarily considered himself trapped. He spotted a ladder and laid it down so that it extended from one building to the other, over the abyss. A girl looked up, let her skipping rope go slack and yelled, “Regardez en haut!”
Everyone came out of their houses to see. People crowded onto fire escapes as though the landings were theater boxes. They sat on the opposite roof with their legs hanging over the edge like they were in the very cheap seats in the balcony. Other people began shouting too. They yelled at Pierrot to not try to cross the ladder. They hollered that he would never make it.