Business Trip

9

Business Trip

    Ben was fussing over their luggage, so he didn’t notice Isabella gasp and recoil when she caught sight of the shamrock on the tail of the Aer Lingus plane. He fell asleep once they were in the air—he hadn’t meant to, he’d meant to stay awake and enjoy every single instant of travelling alone with Isabella—well, Business Class, not exactly alone, but the plane was by no means full—but he’d hardly slept a wink the night before. He was never to remember the details of the Irish trip very clearly at all, and under appropriate conditions—say, filled with single malt, or alternatively put on the rack and tortured with hot irons for a fortnight—might in fact have admitted that he couldn’t swear to it that he hadn’t dreamt the whole thing. Luckily, however, whatever turmoil his emotions might have been in at the time he seemed to have taken copious and detailed notes on his laptop, so Fluss, Evert, Maze had no cause for complaint. Phew!

    Oddly enough, by the time they reached their hotel he was feeling quite frisky, and as his appointment with Whatsisname—some Irish name, yeah—wasn’t until tomorrow (not a coincidence, he assured Isabella) they had the rest of the day to themselves in this nice big hotel room, didn’t they?

    “Yes. So do we get into this nice big bed, now?”

    He gulped. “Well, yeah, sure. Uh—you sure?”

    Wasn’t that the procedure after all? “I don’t know, Ben, I’ve never been in a hotel room with a mor—with a man, before.”

    Oh, Jesus. It dawned— Ben took a very deep breath. “Isabella, honey,” he said very, very cautiously: “are you a virgin?”

    Isabella had to think about that one. Of course! That was what mortals said! Mother called it being an unopened flower.—Go AWAY, Mother! Leave me some privacy!

    You’re half a mortal already! came the cross reply, but she seemed to vanish.

    “Um—yes! Sorry; Mother calls it being an unopened flower, I’ve got so used to the expression—!”

    “Mm. Pretty,” he croaked. “Look, you are sure you want to do this, are you?”

    “Yes, of course I’m sure, Ben!” she replied with that sunny smile.

    Okay. So be it. Mortal flesh could only stand so much, after all! “Okay. Good,” he croaked. “I’ll take precautions, don’t worry.”

    “Um—yes.” She got the picture. Like a foxglove! What a quaint idea! “Yes, that would be very nice, Ben,” she said politely. Um, was that enough? –No. “Thank you,” she added quickly.

    “Mm. Come here,” he said hoarsely.

    He was standing right in front of her anyway, but Isabella took a half step closer.

    Ben put his arms round her gently and kissed her very softly. Then he found he was kissing her rather more eagerly. Then he found he was panting, and—

    “Come on, honey,” he said huskily.

    What followed was rather surprising, though of course Isabella had known all about it, though she’d never participated, herself. In fact, come to think of it, she and Robin had actually watched Mother and the Tom mortal. Robin had found it very funny, she couldn't quite see why. It had been quite interesting, but she couldn’t see what was funny about Mother undressing the Tom mortal, it was no different in essence from her undressing an elf who had fallen into a stream, or one of the lizards who’d eaten too much and wasn’t going to bother to take his nice suit off before going to bed, or herself and Robin when little. They had made quite a lot of noise, but it was nothing to the racket Mother and Father made when they were in her flowery bower together.

    So it wasn’t the actions that were surprising, it was the feelings. And Ben’s feelings, as well. Well, for a start he got very hot physically: his body seemed to heat up all over, that was very strange. And then, though her heart had beat very fast and she’d felt very happy and excited when he kissed her, her own body started to react in a very strange way. For a moment she suspected it was Mother playing tricks. So it was quite reassuring to hear a faint, faraway: No, darling, it’s supposed to be like that! Enjoy...ee...ee.

    So Isabella just lay back and enjoyed it. It got very exciting indeed and Ben got very loud and very energetic—and, strangely, Isabella found she’d stopped thinking altogether!

   Afterwards he lay on top of her and panted for ages and ages. She could feel his heart hammering and then very gradually slowing. He felt very heavy, in fact he seemed to get heavier and heavier, but she remembered one of Father’s lighter spells and concentrated on that. Then he rolled off her and said, more or less: “Muh?”

    Isabella was going to reply: “That was wonderful, Ben!” But all she managed was: “Mm!” In a sort of squeak.

    “Mm,” Ben agreed, pulling her close.

    Quite some time later he looked round at her and said with a smile: “I guess that was okay, then?”

    “Mmm, wonderful, Ben!” she sighed.

    He grinned and kissed her nose delicately. “Thought it musta been, with all that yelling that went on!”

    “You yelled, too,” said Isabella seriously.

    “Yep!”

    “Your heart beat very, very hard.”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, yeah, I guess it does. Sex takes a lot of energy!” he finished with a twinkle.

    “Yes.”

    Ben sighed deeply “Mm... Some time—well, not promising it’ll be tonight, might turn out I’m feeling eager again!—only some time, I’ll show you what foreplay really means.”

    “Four play?” They played games in the Faerie Realm with three or five, but four wasn’t such a popular number. “Like with four?”

    “No!” he said with a startled laugh. “Hell, no! Like, with before. Don’t tell me you haven’t ever heard of that, Isabella!”

    As he now had a pretty clear picture—Help! Several pretty clear pictures in his mind, Isabella replied: “Yes, but I didn’t know it had a name. Mother calls all that ‘naughty little things.’ So, um, do you do it before?”

    “A guy does if he can hold off long enough—yeah!”

    “I see.”

    “Uh, sometimes it gets kind of urgent for a guy,” said Ben uneasily, raising himself on an elbow and peering at her anxiously.

    Why was he worried about it? Mother always liked it when it got urgent for them. “I see. That’s okay, Ben,” said Isabella kindly.

    “Yeah. Good.” Ben lay down again, mentally vowing to show her what real great foreplay was if he died in the attempt!

    Rather fortunately, because she’d never had to do a “Go away, memories” spell on a mortal, and it had only half worked when she’d practised on Bertie Beetle, Mother didn’t actually appear until she was by herself in the bathroom.

    “He wasn’t at all bad, darling!”

    “Ssh!” hissed Isabella frantically.

    She looked down her deliciously straight little nose. “He can’t hear us, silly one. So you liked it?”

    “Yes, Mother; I am your daughter, after all!” replied Isabella, starting out lofty but ending in an explosive giggle.

    “Of course!” said Titania smugly. “Well, he may—in fact I’m very sure he will—ask you to do some other naughty little things, but just make sure he always wears the foxglove when he puts that lovely stalk of his into you, and everything will be all right!”

    “I see, it’s so as not to make mortal babies, as well as those germ things he was worrying about?”

    “Yes.”

    “The Tom mortal’s stalk was a bit smaller, I suppose, but then it got very big, too: I don’t see what Robin was giggling about,” said Isabella dubiously.

    “Mm? Oh! Not its size, but because it wasn’t sticking up properly at first, and I had to encourage it! –He was nervous, poor Tom,” she smiled. “They do like it when you encourage them, darling. But with mortals it’s usually best to see if they want to make the first move.”

    “First move,” echoed Isabella obediently, if blankly.

    Titania emitted her silvery tinkle of laughter, patted her cheek, cooed: “You’ll learn, darling! It’s all delicious!” and vanished.

    Isabella was now very hungry but luckily Ben was, too, and explained that you didn’t have to go downstairs to eat in the dining-room, you could order up Room Service! Sure enough, the marvellous Room Service produced plates of steak and chips for them. It was almost like magic! Ben was really pleased that for once she felt like eating meat. Well, mortals were odd.

    He had something called Irish coffee afterwards, explaining with a laugh that it seemed appropriate, though he didn’t usually indulge—she could see quite clearly in his head that the awful Tracy not only didn’t let him have drinks with cream in them, she thought it was down-market—while she had chocolate ice cream, mmm! He wanted her to have a sip of his Irish coffee, so she tasted it. Very nice, though very alcoholic. It certainly improved the coffee!

    “So what do you think?” asked Ben.

    “I think it’s the nicest sort of coffee!” she decided.

    Somehow this made him laugh and then get very passionate.

    ... Well, all you say about that, reflected Isabella, laying back sated quite some time later, as he lay sprawled beside her, fast asleep on his back with his mouth open, was that mortal men were very, very odd. Lovely, but odd.

    Yes, and if you let him sleep like that a spider’ll fall into his mouth and then you’ll see odd!

    “Go ’way, Father,” murmured Isabella sleepily.

    There came a cross hiss of: “For goodness’ sake, Father! Leave the poor girl alone!” in what sounded like Robin’s voice. And then both presences seemed to vanish—though with Father, you could never really be sure.

    Oh, well, at least they cared, reflected Isabella, as she recited the rime:

“Weaving spiders, come not here;

Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!

Naughty weavers, be not near;

If you cause Ben grave offence,

Then I’ll curse your webby lair,

And you’ll vanish in thin air!”

    Closing her eyes, she floated off to sleep, smiling.

    Ben had arranged for Isabella to meet up with him and Jimmy O’Connell—that was the Irish guy’s name—in a pleasant bar around five. Danny O’Connell’s. Well, no doubt it was a common name in Ireland. The cheery, red-cheeked Jimmy seemed an okay guy—bit over-persuasive, maybe, bit too ready with his tongue, and maybe a little too charming, but Ben guessed that was the Irish blood, the manner was natural to the guy. His proposition was quite interesting. He ran a small electronics business and had an innovative new designer on board who’d come up with a new wrinkle for one of the electronic gizmos in central-heating systems. They had the patents, so that was okay. The cost of labour was the main problem: these days the Chinese were undercutting almost everybody for that sort of thing, with the Indians following close behind and the South Koreans starting to fall back, meantime the Japanese standard of living had shot up so much they were falling way behind. But in the wake of the global recession there was a lot of unemployment in Ireland—at all levels, kids with degrees were on unemployment, “on the dole” as the whole of the British Isles said, same like the ones who only had the qualifications to work at McDonald’s and, like everywhere, were out of a job because they’d gotten too old to qualify as junior staff, poor goddamned kids. So, while Jimmy O’Connell didn't propose using slave labour, his wages costings would probably stand up. Well, they had people at Fluss, Evert, Maze who would go over them with several fine-tooth combs before the bank put a penny into the business. The market would mainly be Britain and the rest of Europe, of course, but God knew they needed central heating here! And who knew? Long-term they might well receive an offer too good to refuse from one of the big boys who supplied the huge U.S. market. Probably a multinational that got its parts made and assembled in China, true, but that was business, twenty-first-century-style, for you.

    Isabella was a bit late—well, Ben and Jimmy had been early getting to the bar—and after fidgeting for a while Ben went out onto the pavement to look for her.

    “There you are!” he said with a sigh of relief as a taxi disgorged her and shot off into the snarl of Dublin traffic. “You’re late, honey.”

    “Yes; we ran into a big traffic jam and had to go round in a circle. Never mind, he didn’t cheat me too much, and the poor man has got nine kids to support,” she reported happily.

    Ben grimaced. “Catholic country. The people who believe the Pill leads straight to Hellfire are still living in the Dark Ages,” he replied sourly.

    Isabella blinked. Help, chemicals and things? Poor mortal ladies, how terrible! It was just as well that nice Margot had Daniello, wasn’t it? “That’s terrible,” she said sincerely.

    “Yeah. Come on, come inside out of the cold. It’s a real nice bar, you’ll like it.”

    “As nice as Mike’s?” she asked with a smile as he hurried her inside to the dark panelling, bottle glass, gleaming brass doodads, and ubiquitous ads for Guinness.

    Huh? As usual in her company Ben’s hormones were doing a kind of crazy dance, and he wasn’t thinking too clearly, but— Had he told her about Mike’s? Uh—must’ve.

    “Yeah, sure. Same kind of place, really: dark and cosy. Not a diner, though.”

    “No, I see.” Isabella looked round her uneasily. She had a very odd feeling—the same as she’d had on catching sight of the shamrock painted on that aeroplane... They could be unlucky, of course. The myth of four-leaved ones was a mortal thing, though Merlin had a story of a young fairy who’d driven himself mad looking for them, and had had to be cured by Mother—and which would have been worse, the disease or the cure, was hard to say! But fairies had to be wary of them, because although they were relatively harmless in themselves their symbolism had largely been appropriated by— Oh, no! Leprechauns! Isabella stood stock-still in horror.

    “What’s up?” asked Ben.

    “Ben,” she gasped, grabbing his arm fiercely, “don’t do business with him! He’s a leprechaun!”

    Yo, boy. “What have you been drinking?” he sighed.

    “Tea—it was stewed, and very strong, I didn’t like it, but the lady in the teashop said it was their good Irish tea, I’d like it, so I drank it to please her, and then a little bottle of fizzy water from a different little shop. It was nice.”

    “Isabella, have you been drinking alcohol?” said Ben clearly.

    “No, I’m not very fond of it; I thought you knew that?”

    He took a deep breath. “Irish coffee, then?”

    “Not today. Only a sip of yours last night,” replied Isabella conscientiously.

    “Then why the Hell are you going on about leprechauns? Are you kidding me?” he hissed crossly.

    “No.”

    Ben had to take several very deep breaths to stop himself shouting at her. “Isabella, this is not funny! Irish people take offence when foreigners prattle on about leprechauns. They belong to their genuine old folklore, and the modern crap is just so much commercialised crap. So do us all a favour—not least me, the bank’s expecting me to find some business here—and shut up about them, okay?”

    “But Ben, he’s leading you on, making you think you’ll get his pot of gold, and all the time it’s a malicious trick!”

    “Stop that immediately,” said Ben through his teeth. “I warn you, Isabella, I am starting to get real mad with you.” Too late, it dawned that that wasn’t an English expression. “Angry. Very angry,” he amended tightly.

    What did we tell you? came the voice.

    Shut UP, Father, none of you breathed a word about leprechauns!

    I can make it all go away, Oberon offered, ignoring this last.

    NO! Isabella’s jaw firmed. “Ben, cast your mind back. You didn’t believe me and Edison when we told you Mike was a goblin, did you? And then he turned out to be one.”

    Jesus! Ben ran his hand through his curls. Dreaming again! Must be! Should’ve picked it up straight away when she mentioned Mike’s. No, well, it all seemed so realistic, with Dublin taxis driven by unscrupulous characters with nine kids—but then, dreams were exactly like that.

    “I’m real sorry, Isabella: see, I didn’t realise this was a dream—I mean, if I’da known it was a dream I’d never have bawled you out—um, do you get it?” he ended miserably.

    She hugged his arm. “Yes, of course I get it, darling Ben! But this isn’t a dream, and the leprechaun really is just leading you on! Leprechauns never give up their pots of gold! See, he’s trying to get your gold to put into his pot, and then he’ll vanish with it and you’ll never see him again.”

    She would say that, in a dream. Ben smiled at her. “Uh-huh. Well, come meet him, then see what you think.”

    Jimmy O’Connell got to his feet, beaming all over his red-cheeked face, as they approached his little table. “Glad to meet you, Isab—Princess!” he gasped in horror, recoiling.

    Yeah, well, that proved it was a dream, if we needed further proof. Ben sat down, sighing.

    “Hullo, Leprechaun,” replied Isabella steadily.

    Jimmy O’Connell muttered something in Irish Gaelic. Isabella replied with a short speech in the same language, waving her hand at him in a series of intertwined loops.

    “Don’t worry, Ben,” she added. “He understands.”

    “Does he? I sure don’t. What did you say to him?”

    “Oh, was I speaking his language?” she replied in mild surprise. “I said the spell to stop a leprechaun. But don’t try it yourself, it only works for fairies.”

    Yeah, yeah, sure. Fairy princesses, that’d be.

    “I don’t speak Irish, so I can’t say it in any case, can I?” he sighed.

    “The language doesn’t matter. If you’ve learned the spell, you’ve learned the spell.”

    “Yeah. Whatever. Well, leprechaun or not—and gee, Jimmy, never mind I’m dreaming, I’m apologising to you—sit down, Isabella, and let’s have a drink. Jimmy and I are trying Irish whiskey, but you don’t have to have anything alcoholic.”

    “I’ll get you a nice spring water, Princess Isabella. I don’t think they can do you a twist of lime, but I’ll ask,” said Jimmy humbly, getting up and going off to the bar.

    Isabella sat down. “Just don’t go off with him to where he says his pot of gold is, Ben, because then he’ll have you in his power.”

    “He hasn’t got a—” Ben broke off. Useless, this was a dream! “Okay. Small manufacturing business, not a pot, but same difference.”

    “Yes.”

    “If I don’t go off there,”—gee, the whole thing was nuts, why not join in?—“if I don’t go off there, how will I see if it’s a decent business?”

    Isabella thought about it seriously. “I’ll come with you. Then you’ll see it’s all a... how do mortals put it? Oh, yes, all a front.”

    “Uh-huh. Good; okay. He wants me to come out tomorrow. But since we’re on the subject, just promise me not to say anything about leprechauns or pots of gold or spells while we’re there. Just—uh—” This was crazy, why was he bothering? “Just act as if it’s all normal, okay?”

    “You mean pretend it’s normal mortal things? Okay,” she said meekly.

    Dream or no, Ben sagged where he sat. He looked dubiously at his whiskey glass. Okay, this was a dream and boy, did he feel he needed it! So he drank it off and let Jimmy give him another. And another...

    He came to, more or less, round about the stage where he and Isabella were sitting in the dining-room of a different pub entirely, eating enormous platefuls of what was possibly genuine Irish stew but possibly not, plus a concoction of cabbage and potatoes which had to be genuine Irish, he didn’t think any other cuisine could have dreamed it up. As a matter of fact it was surprisingly tasty.

    “How much Irish whiskey did I let that Jimmy guy pour into me?” he groaned.

    “Four glasses while I was there, but you’d already started drinking it before I got there,” replied Isabella with the utmost calm.

    “Yeah. Right. If you can’t manage all that mash or whatever they call it, honey, I better finish it for you, because I sure need something solid to sop it up! Boy, can that guy drink!”

    Of course he could, he was a leprechaun, it was one of their favourite tricks! Alcoholic drinks didn’t affect them at all, so they got mortals drunk and then stole everything they had. And in known instances threw them into the sea! Which was the end of them, unless there was a friendly mermaid very near. However, she refrained from pointing any of this out and agreed that they’d better get a taxi straight back to their hotel after the meal, and that she wouldn’t let him drink any more tonight—no.

    In the taxi he lay back against the upholstery and sighed. “What a day... Hey, listen. If that guy was what you claimed, how come he was wearing a red windcheater, not green?”

    Since it was still today, not tomorrow, and she hadn’t made any promises about today, Isabella replied calmly: “It’s a mortal myth that leprechauns wear green. Real leprechauns usually wear red coats. But they can wear any colour when they’re out to trick you.”

    “That explains it,” Ben conceded, allowing his eyelids to droop...

    O’C Electronics’ small factory was way out on the outskirts of the city, in a small area which bore all the earmarks of having been developed as a “manufacturing park” or some such during the boom, and then pretty much abandoned when the recession hit. New-looking structures, more or less crazy architecture. Jimmy’s building was relatively normal, a lowish, pale grey oblong, except that the windows on its second floor were set askew and its outside was adorned with coloured tubes. Uh—ducts, maybe. Whatever. Inside it was quite bright and cheerful. The administration area wasn’t very busy, but clean and pleasant, with a few potted plants, their leaves well shined, a perky-looking receptionist with bright ginger hair, and several youngish people at desks. Ben had drunk three cups of black coffee this morning and taken three paracetamol for the head—what a moron: he’d wasted what could have been a whole evening with Isabella: he had no recollection of anything after falling into a taxi full of stew and mash—and though he wouldn’t have claimed to be completely compos mentis, he was with it enough to grimly banish the thought, were these all young leprechauns?

    The factory area was spotlessly clean and dustless, with another scattering of young people, bent over their benches, busy soldering minute components. Well, Ben was no electronics engineer, but it all looked okay. The drawing office, as Jimmy called it, was also okay, extremely tidy and organised; and the designer, a pleasant dark-haired young man by name Liam O’Flynn, seemed on top of his job and was very ready to explain the intricacies of his new design.

    Jimmy and Liam then took them off to lunch at the local pub, neither young man appearing sorry that Isabella was with them—on the contrary. Well, no: given that there were no such things as leprechauns and that she was not a fairy princess— Quite. Firmly Ben refused alcohol. The lunch was a real surprise: grilled trout, excellent French fries and a crisp side salad.

    Jimmy had happily provided copies of the firm’s books for Ben to go over at his leisure, so they drove back to town after lunch. It was very cold but not actually raining or snowing, so Isabella thought she would go out and look round the city. Ben made sure she had a map and was well wrapped up, and then settled down to it.

    At first everything looked fine—just as it should. Well—accounts prepared by any halfway decent accountant would. But anybody could fake up a balance sheet. Who, exactly, were these clients that were all paying up so regularly? He got out his laptop and connected to the Internet.... Ye-ah. Well, anybody could fake up a website. He called a few of the numbers. Pleasant female receptionists replied, and he got to speak to a handful of the bosses. Well, maybe not the top bosses, but management, at all events. They all knew O’C Electronics and most of them knew Jimmy personally, and warmly recommended him. Too warmly? There had been instances of cunning guys getting their buddies to give just precisely this sort of reference... There had even been instances of very cunning guys setting up fake websites with phone numbers that merely connected to their buddies’ personal phones. If the numbers on the web pages had been cell phones Ben would have been real suspicious, but they weren’t, they were all landlines. But... well, for a start, four guys, yes, four, had used the exact same phrase when speaking of Jimmy O’Connell: “You can trust Jimmy, he’s solid gold.” Maybe it was just something Irish business guys said, but...

    Ben got up, frowning, and paced round the room. His eye returned to the phone. No phonebook. He looked in all the drawers, but no. Okay, Irish laissez-faire. He needed to stretch his legs in any case; he went downstairs and asked at the desk. Apologies, oversight, more apologies, and a phonebook was produced. He had the list of the customers’ names in his pocket: he sat down in the pleasant lobby bar, ordered a coffee, and began to check through it...

    He closed the phonebook and looked blindly across the lobby. Jesus! Not a single one of the so-called customers was in the book! He could just have believed that a handful might be new businesses, not yet listed, but all of them? And the suppliers? He had the list upstairs—Jimmy had seemed mildly surprised that he wanted it, but had provided it readily enough. Not all of them were local, but enough. The bar was fuller than it had been: he looked at his watch. Yeah, the sun was over the yardarm, these would be business people dropping by for a drink after work. Uh—no, he wouldn’t have anything, though he sure did feel he needed fortifying: he’d go right on up and check out those suppliers.

    Some of them were in the book. First one Ben called he got the machine, the office was closed for the night. The second firm was more on the ball. Ben didn't let on who he was and why he was calling: he said he was ringing for O’C Electronics, checking up on their last order, which hadn’t arrived. There was a pause, and then a very puzzled male voice came on the line. What was the firm’s name, again? Ri-ight. And the order? Ben was giving Jimmy the benefit of the doubt: he read out the details of the last order listed in the books, which purportedly had arrived last month. The guy was terribly sorry, Mr—Uh—but they had no trace of such an order being placed. What was the firm’s name, again? –No. Definitely not one of their customers. Um, look, maybe the order had gone to So-and-So’s?

    Somehow the naïveté of this reference to a rival firm utterly convinced Ben, and he thanked the guy warmly, said there must have been a mix-up this end, and rang off. Okay. Right. There was something very wrong with Mr Jimmy O’Connell and all his works, and he’d get right back there first thing tomorrow and grill him!

    Speaking of which— He grabbed the menu that the hotel, surprisingly, hadn’t forgotten to put by the phone. Yeah. Okay, not bad. They’d try it. And tonight he wouldn’t drink too much, and he would spend the rest of the evening making love to darling Isabella, and gee, if ever there was a—what was that word of Bob’s? Not a mug. Uh, a chump, that was it! If ever there was a chump, it was him, Ben Anderson!

    Only not, thank God, chump enough not to have checked up on every syllable of goddamned Jimmy O’Connell’s so-called books! Phew!

    They took a limo out to the manufacturing park or whatever it was—if Mr Jimmy O’Connell was a conman, Ben’d be more than saving Fluss, Evert Maze the cost of a limo for the day. The building was still there, coloured tubes and all—why he had had a sort of feeling it might have vanished in the night, God only knew. The plaque reading “O’C Electronics” in the corporate colours, had, however, vanished from beside its glass front door. And the door itself was locked.

    Ben peered through the glass. “Looks empty. Can’t even see a potted plant.”

    “No,” agreed Isabella, flattening her nose to the glass. “There was a very pretty one just over there, with big oval leaves: very flat and shiny, with the sides pinched in.”

    “The sides—Oh, sure! Fiddle-leaf fig: Mom had one of those.”

    Of course she had! And the leprechaun had found it out and put one there to give Ben a comfortable feeling of familiarity and rightness!

    Ben straightened. “Okay, the whole thing musta been a scam—con job.”

    “Mm.”

    “But Jesus, a whole office—and the factory?”

    “Ye-es... but were they really making anything?”

    He made a face. “Dunno. Not enough expertise to say. Well, we better get back to town, I guess, and I better email the bosses—no, better speak to James Kingston, I guess.”

    They were just about to get back into the limo when a man emerged from the next building. He was in tired blue overalls and he was holding a large bunch of keys—some kind of janitor, building superintendent?

    “It’s locked,” he said helpfully. “They went out of business. Would you be thinking of  leasing it?”

    “Uh—well, we were here yesterday and it seemed to be occupied,” replied Ben cautiously.

    “Yesterday... Oh, to be sure! That was the fillum company,” he said helpfully.

    Ben and Isabella exchanged glances. “Making a movie, were they?” he managed.

    “So they said. They took it for the two days, in and out. Had it looking quite realistic-loike.”

    Ben swallowed. “Did you actually see any cameras?”

    “Cameras, now...” he said thoughtfully. “Well, no, I don’t know as I saw any cameras, not with me own eyes, loike. Big crates, they had, though,” he offered.

    “I see. Well, thanks very much. This isn’t what we’re looking for; I think we must have been given the wrong address. Come on, Isabella, you mustn’t stand around in the cold.”

    And that was that.

    “Boy, that was some con job!” he said feelingly as the limo headed back to town. “A dozen websites, all as convincing as you please, and his buddies on the other end of the phones, waiting for my call.”

    “Mm. What made you suspect him, Ben?” asked Isabella cautiously.

    “In the first place? I honestly don’t know. It all seemed convincing, didn’t it? The plant was real, and the designer was a nice guy, seemed very bright, and the patents looked good... I just had a weird feeling, nothing to put your finger on. And then, four of the guys that were supposed to be his clients used the exact same phrase: ‘You can trust Jimmy, he’s solid gold.’ It struck me as... spurious.”

    “Solid gold?” echoed Isabella faintly.

    “Uh-huh.”

    In that case they must all have been leprechauns! They never could resist the temptation to bring gold into the conversation. “I see,” she said faintly.

    “Then I really started checking things out,” he said happily, getting an arm round her. “Listen, if we grab our luggage and go straight to the airport, we can be in Paris for—well, late lunch! How does that grab you?”

    Given that this was the mortal realm, where things were always going wrong, it didn’t, really. It might be hours and hours before they got any lunch. They’d have to—to check out, that was the expression in his mind—from the hotel, with silly cards and lists of things they’d ordered up and he’d signed for instead of paying with mortal money, and then they’d have to get to the airport through the traffic, and the plane could be delayed for any number of reasons—well, the weather, for one, mortals couldn’t control their weather—

    I WILL FIX THE WEATHER! Go, Isabella! came the voice. Get away from the cursed leprechauns!

    Ben rubbed his ear. “What was that?”

    Wincing, Isabella murmured: “I heard something, too.”

    “Probably the intercom arrangement, don’t think it’s working properly, I noticed it before. So, Paris?”

    “Yes, lovely! Away from all the scams and the fiddles!”

    And if that fiddle-leaf plant wasn't an indication that the whole thing was a trick by that cursed leprechaun, I don’t know what could be!

    Shut up, Father! His mother had one, and she’s a harmless mortal!

    She thought she heard a huffy “Nevertheless!” and then a giggle that sounded like Robin’s. Then there was just the sound of faerie violins and Titania’s voice, singing a lullaby.

    She’d dropped off. Well, last night sure had been good, they hadn’t gotten much sleep! Ben leaned back in his seat, smiling.

    Paris, in sharp contrast to the Irish experience, was pure delight. They had a lovely little hotel in the 10ième, warmly recommended by John Murtrey himself as quiet, discreet and extremely comfortable. Naturally Ben hadn’t asked the senior exec what, exactly, he meant to imply by “discreet” but he had wondered, a tad. The more so, really, as Murtrey had been his usual cool, calm, controlled self as he said it, with not a trace of innuendo about him. The place was only about as wide as your average brownstone; Ben didn’t know how many rooms there would be but he guessed not many. It was, indeed, very quiet and the other guests seemed to be middle-aged, well-off French couples muffled up in heavy greatcoats, scarves and fur hats. Both sexes: the men seemed to favour neat Astrakhan hats. It had its own small dining-room that was not very heavily patronised, a tiny bar, and that was it. Well—boutique hotel, really. The room was very old-fashioned-looking, mainly shades of cream and oatmeal, touches of old gold here and there, old-fashioned brocade armchairs that were Heaven to sit in—stuffed with feathers, not plastic foam? Old-fashioned silk lampshades on gold lamp stands not unlike Grandmother Anderson’s. And a real dressing-table for Isabella: bow front, ormolu on its curved legs, an’ all. She went and sat on its pretty little stool immediately, beaming.

    The hotel couldn’t provide a meal at this hour but they managed to produce a couple of “croques monsieur”, cheese and ham on toast by any other name. Isabella’s French seemed to be very good, kind of a relief, really, because his wasn’t. And after the croques and the red wine or Perrier water, and the tiny cups of gaspingly strong French coffee—couldn't blame her for putting four cubes of sugar in hers—they tried out the bed for size. It fitted real well.

    Ben had bought a Guide Michelin to Paris at the airport but it didn’t have much of a map. After some puzzling he worked out they were just a block back from the grands boulevards. The immediate area was residential with one or two corner bistros, kind of thing. “Let’s see... Yeah, we’re quite a ways from the Champs Elysées, Place de la Concorde, all that. Same side of the river, but way over, see? The American Embassy’d be— Hang on. Yeah: here.”

    “Do we need to go there, though?” she wondered.

    “Uh—no! Thing is, I don’t know Paris well; that’s the area I guess I’m most familiar with. Well, it’s on this side of the river, too, what they call the Right Bank, see?”

    “Yes. Margot said,” she replied cautiously, “that the Paris Tube is good.”

    “Sure, their subway: the Métro. Yeah, but you have to know where to change and all that.”

    “Margot gave me this little book,” she offered hopefully.

    Ben grabbed it eagerly. “Jesus... Well, guess I can work out— Uh, yeah. We’re quite close to this station, ‘République,’ think that’s Place de la— Uh, yeah... No, hang on, this one’s closer: ‘Strasbourg-St. Denis.’ Um, names of two streets, I guess. If we walk up this street, that’s the nearest side street to the hotel, that gets us to the boulevard, and then turn left.”

    And the station would be there: yes. But the book was giving Isabella a vision of an immensely complicated network of lines, over, under and in between.

    How would they know which train to take? It was like a tangled skein of yarn!

    Ben was working it out—with some difficulty concentrating, she was looking over his shoulder and she smelled lovely—a faint smell of... something flowery? Lilacs? Forever after he was to associate Paris with a soft scent of lilacs.

    “Yeah, look, we can go straight to the Place de la Concorde, and then change— Yeah, I know this line!” he said with relief. “It goes straight to the Louvre—all the tourist spots! Then maybe we could walk on over to the Left Bank, they got some real convenient restaurants there. Let’s see... Shit, the Louvre stop isn’t an interchange! The next one is, though. Jeez, this is complicated. ...Châtelet,” he muttered. “Never heard of it. Oh—right. Look, if this is right, we can get straight onto this line, here, at this Strasbourg-St. Denis station—must be two street names—and go right on over to the Left Bank!”

    So they did that. The line took them to a station with not the moving staircase that Isabella was by now expecting, but a giant elevator—giant. They emerged onto a large, busy square. It was already dark but they could see some cafés full of lights and people. Ben consulted the guidebook. “Uh—is that the place where Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir used to... Well, it’s Left Bank, anyroad!” he concluded with a laugh. “Okay, why not try it? Looks popular, huh? I guess the food might not be that exciting, but we don’t want anything five-star, do we?”

    “Five stars are lucky,” said Isabella cautiously.

    Ben laughed. “Ya could say that! These days, you couldn’t call it classic French cuisine at all: minute servings in weird little piles. Not real food at all. Mushed up like you wouldn’t believe!”

    Isabella was getting the picture. She nodded dazedly.

    “Don’t think we want that, do we?” he concluded, grinning.

    “No. Let’s just be ordinary, Ben!” –It was certainly the word in his head.

    So they went over to a large café and, after some covert watching of what the nearest French people were ordering—not the nearest people, they were tourists, too—had a fairly ordinary meal. Radis au beurre for Isabella to start and a slice of pâté with crisp French bread for Ben, then the beef Bourguignonne for him and a cod “brandade” for her. The French people weren’t having dessert, they just had cheese with more of the crisp French bread, and coffee. Ben looked sideways at the nearby tourists.

    “Okay, it’s a cliché, but let’s be real tourists and have crêpes Suzette!”

    So they did that, skipping the cheese course. Isabella could see that the waiter despised them for not having the cheese, and the nearby French group thought they were typical tourists that didn’t know what a proper meal was, but never mind: Ben was happy! And the thin pancakes, folded up neatly in their sauce that the waiter set alight, were really yummy. And Father was on hand to see that no disaster happened with the flames, so that was all right.

    “We might come back here tomorrow, lunchtime—to the square, I mean—and have a good look round, huh? Think this is the place that James Kingston recommended as a jumping-off point if you want the real interesting little cafés... Yeah, down the side streets, that's right,” he said, getting out his cell phone.

    “Are you going to call him now?” she asked faintly, wondering what the mortal time was in New York

    “Huh? No, just looking at these names he gave me.”

    “I see, your phone does lists as well,” said Isabella limply.

    Mortals are besotted with lists, I told you!

    Isabella ignored him, sometimes you just had to.

    Happily Ben decided they would come back, suss out the place in daylight: but they wouldn’t wander round in the dark—didn’t want to get hopelessly lost.

    Not saying that he couldn’t get lost with her, Isabella agreed that tomorrow would be nice, and after Ben had carefully read the bill, apparently so as to check whether he had to leave the waiter a tip or not, had concluded it was all included, and paid it, they went outside into a frosty Paris night.

    Ben looked around him with a smile. The square was still quite busy, the café lights were glowing, and all in all it felt like a real good place to be! Mmm, and still that faint scent of lilacs in the air!

    “Not too cold?” he said anxiously, putting his arm round her.

    “No, I’m quite toasty, Ben!”

    “Me, too. Tell you what, let’s walk back this way, see Notre Dame at night, okay?”

    A big church? Well, if he wanted to, why not?

    They did that. From the river bank you had a wonderful view of it, as it must have looked hundreds of mortal years back. Arches and towers, lovely. But the busy city had encroached on the poor old building, almost jostling it out of its little square, so that from the front the view was quite disappointing.

    “Oh, shit,” said Ben limply. “How could they let that happen?”

    Very easily. It’s the sort of thing that mortals do all the time! came the mocking voice.

    “Uh—did you hear something?” said Ben.

    “I can hear cars,” replied Isabella truthfully.

    “Yeah. Right. That’s the twenty-first century for you.”

    “Never mind,” she murmured, hugging his arm. “It was lovely from the other side. Maybe you could take a picture of it tomorrow.”

    “Why not? Since we’re coming this way for lunch! Um, let’s see... Gee, I dunno how to get back from here!” he realised in dismay.

    “We’re only on the little island.”

    “Yuh. Okay, retrace our steps and grab the subway—the Métro, I mean!—at the St. Michel stop, I guess. It’s really too cold to walk back to the hotel. Anyroad, I’m not too sure I can find the way. Wish that goddamn guidebook had a decent map. Maybe if I google—“

    Isabella was learning to dread that word. “No,” she said quickly as he got out his cell phone. “Let’s take the subway, Ben, it is a cold night.”

    “Yeah, sure, honey: you mustn’t take a chill,” he agreed, putting his arm round her tightly. “Come on, then, let’s hurry.”

    And they hurried back the way they’d come, Isabella firmly ignoring the voice that was saying: Managing him for his own good already! I told you so!

    They had a whole day to themselves before Ben had his first business meeting, so why not spend it like real tourists? So they just did touristy things, taking the Métro line he knew and hopping off for a peek at the Champs Elysées, and the Place de La Concorde, and the Louvre, all of them soft misty grey in a misty grey morning; and walking across an old stone bridge, heading back to the Place St. Michel for a lovely wander down the entrancing little side streets before picking out a likely-looking little restaurant for lunch. Not too fancy but not too touristy: according to the intel Ben had from James Kingston if they had the menu outside in three languages or more they’d be tourist traps. The place he chose was quite busy, some obvious tourists but a lot of young people who must be students from the nearby Sorbonne.

    “Onion soup: why not?” said Ben with a laugh, rubbing his hands. “It’s traditional!”

    At least it was vegetable, and wouldn’t be bad for that chol thing he worried about; Isabella agreed thankfully that that sounded nice.

    “And after lunch, might take in the Eiffel Tower. Uh—you can go up it if you fancy it...”

    Isabella could see he didn’t, much: it wasn’t like the London Eye, with its cosy enclosed pods, it was all open grillwork that he found rather frightening. “Isn’t it awfully high? I’d rather just look at it.”

    With relief, Ben agreed. So after the delicious onion soup, quite as good as its reputation, they did that, taking a long walk, it was on this side of the river but quite a ways off, and viewing the Eiffel Tower in the grey mist of a Paris winter.

    “Gee, Paris is just so beautiful in winter,” said Ben dazedly. “I was here in summer before: it was okay, I guess, but I couldn’t see why people rave about it. But this pale grey effect—!” He waved his hand helplessly. “Makes you want to be an artist!”

    Isabella hugged his arm. “Mm.”

    Ben sighed blissfully as the soft scent of lilacs reached him. “I’ve seen hundreds of paintings of Paris, but never one that actually got this effect. –Glad you came, honey?”

    “Yes, very.”

    “Good. Let’s get back to the hotel and make sure that bed’s still okay, huh?” he said in her ear, nestling his face into the silky black curls that on this trip were encircled by the fake-fur-lined hood of her new coat, a deep purple shade, maybe you'd have called it violet. The fluff itself was kind of pale mauve—well, lilac, yeah! Went with the scent. Mmm-mm!

    The first business meeting was with a guy called Jean-Paul Duvallier. It went very well, he seemed genuine, and so did his company. He took Ben and Isabella to lunch; this time Ben was careful not to drink and the subject of leprechauns didn’t come up, thank God. Jean-Paul seemed very taken with Isabella but gee, he was a hetero French guy, what would you expect? She liked him, she revealed afterwards. No, Ben, she didn’t think he was suspicious in any way. Why he was so worried that she might think so, given that all that leprechaun crap had been a dream, Ben refrained from asking himself. Well—as far as his hazy recollections went she hadn’t been keen on the Jimmy guy, had she? No. So her instincts must be pretty reliable.

    Jean-Paul’s firm was into design of household wares. Not too extreme, but a little different, y’know? They wanted to expand, had the chance of a good contract with a European-based firm with an international client base that was always on the look-out for something unusual but that would sit well with their standard lines. Had to be easily reproducible, cheap to manufacture, but not tawdry. Coloured kitchen ware was coming back and the contract would include it, but they didn’t have the testing facilities to produce the prototypes that the potential client demanded. It looked like it would be a good move for them and for the bank: a small investment, with a good return. It wasn’t a field they’d put money into before, but why not? Ben spent some time really sussing the firm out, but it was solid as a rock. Grab it before someone else did, his recommendation amounted to.

    The second French firm was different: manufacturers of components for heavy machinery, based quite a long way out of the city. Mostly parts for earth-movers or digging and drilling equipment. Any change there would entail extensive retooling—very expensive to set up, not the sort of thing you wanted to do on spec. Catch 22: if you wanted the contracts you had to have the capacity. The factory was obviously very genuine: giant machine shops, several hundred workers, two shifts, they could add another if need be. Hmm... Well, modified rapture. They had one good contract with a big mining company and wanted to move into deep-sea drilling components. Ben spent a week going over their books and then sent in a recommendation that the competition would need to be checked out very carefully, but there was no doubt that deep-sea drilling was a developing industry. The boss, Guy Moreau, was a go-getter, but with his head firmly screwed on: all in all, a risk, but one worth taking.

    He’d been afraid that Isabella would get bored, left on her ownsome in a small town a good half-day’s drive from the capital, but no: she seemed really to take to Guy’s wife, Hélène, and spent most of the week at the nursery school where the woman taught.

    And so back to Paris! They had another dreamy two days with the soft misty grey city as beautiful as ever, and Isabella even lovelier, if that was possible!

    “There!” said Ben, writing on the back of one of the cards he’d bought at a funny little stall selling battered second-hand books. “Postcard for Mom! Shows just what it’s like!”

Next chapter:

https://isabelladowntoearth-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/not-so-grimm.html