As Kingsley expected, Madame didn’t call him back right away.

Not for one hour.

Not for two hours.

Not for three hours.

Not for four.

She was testing him. He knew it. She was testing him, and he had to pass this test if he were to be allowed to meet her.

Kingsley waited.

He waited and he waited and he waited. Luckily he’d picked the payphone booth next to an alley where few people ventured. He didn’t have to fight anyone for custody of the phone, but that didn’t make the wait any easier. He paced the alley, never walking out of earshot of the ring. He sat down in the phone booth and read the phone book until he almost fell asleep. And he would have fallen asleep if it were three degrees warmer outside. An old man walking his dog gave him increasingly suspicious and disgusted looks all four laps he made of the alley. Even the dog seemed to be judging him. Finally Kingsley leaned out of the phone booth and yelled to them both, “It’s for work, all right!” The old man muttered something about “bizarre young people these days” and took his dog away—briskly.

By late afternoon, he’d been waiting for the phone to ring for six hours. At least it had warmed up enough that he could almost, perhaps, maybe take a quick nap while sitting on the floor of the phone booth with his coat wrapped around his knees. He got settled in and closed his eyes. Just as he was about to drift off, someone knocked on the phone booth door.

Kingsley sprang immediately awake. And when he saw the girl standing outside the door, he leapt to his feet, a smile on his face.

“Pardon me, sir,” she said. “Do you live here?”

She spoke French like a native. He knew he was supposed to play dumb, to act like he only spoke English or stilted French, as part of his cover.

But.

The girl was magnificent. Black hair in a loose bun. Onyx eyes. Skin a deep olive like his, maybe even darker. She had a little beauty mark on her chin and her lips were a dusky hue, full and mischievous as if they wanted to slide into a smile but knew better than to encourage him. All her clothes were chic. Chic brown leather knee boots with a little heel. A brown skirt, a belted brown coat, and a red newsboy cap tilted rakishly over her right eye. She didn’t look very old—maybe eighteen or nineteen—but she carried herself with a sophistication beyond her tender years.

Since she was so very magnificent, he was compelled to respond with his own fluent French. So what if he blew his cover? He’d blow anything for this girl.

“Do I live here?” he asked. “On this street?”

“In the phone booth?”

She smiled and he decided they should have two children. Both girls. Or maybe one boy and one girl. He wasn’t picky.

“No,” he said. “I’m waiting on a call.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’ll find another phone then.”

“You can use this one,” he said. “It’s not mine. I don’t own it. It’s public. You’re the public.”

“But I’m not public. I’m very private,” she said.

Maybe three children, he thought. The third would be an accident. Unplanned. Likely the result of him ravishing her one time too many while on holiday in Saint Croix. He wondered if she liked being spanked. He would try to find that out before tomorrow morning.

“Then you shouldn’t use my public phone,” he said. “We should find you a private phone. I have one back at my place.”

“If you have a phone, why are you using a phone booth?” she asked. She was looking at him with unabashed appreciation. She might even find him as attractive as he found her.

“It’s for work. I think.”

“If you’re working I should leave you alone then,” she said. “I’ll find another phone on my own.”

“You’re Jewish.”

She furrowed her beautiful brow. “Are Jews not allowed to use phones?” she asked.

“I noticed your necklace,” he said. A gold Star of David pendant danced in the hollow of her throat. “I like it.”

“Are you Jewish?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m just so happy you aren’t Catholic.”

She laughed and her laugh bounced off the sidewalk into the sky and jumped into the nearest passing cloud. Kingsley hoped wherever that cloud went it would rain her laughter onto the world.

“Is it so bad to be Catholic?” she asked.

“I went to Catholic school,” he said by way of answer.

“Is it like I hear it is?” she asked.

“Worse. We can raise our children Jewish. I’ll convert.”

“Are you circumcised?” she asked.

“Not yet, but if you’ll give me a minute, I have my Swiss Army knife on me.”

“You’re awful,” she said, grinning.

“I’m half-American. That’s where my rude behavior comes from.”

“What if I like rude behavior?” she asked.

“God bless America,” Kingsley said.

“Does he?”

“What?”

“Bless America?”

“I don’t know, but Americans say it all the fucking time. There’s another American saying: What’s your phone number?”

“I don’t have a phone,” she said. “That’s why I was looking for one.”

“Then what’s your address? I’ll write you letters. Long letters. Stirring letters. Letters that will break your heart,” he said.

“What if I don’t want my heart broken?”

“Then I’ll write you another letter to put it back together.”

“Sounds dangerous to my cardiovascular health. I don’t know if you should write me.”

“Can I write your beauty mark then?” he said, nodding at the little black dot on her chin. “I have a lot to say to it.”

“Oh, that’s not a beauty mark,” she said.

“What is it then?”

“It’s a tick,” she said.

He laughed so hard he mentally impregnated her a fourth time. C’est la vie. He’d always wanted a big family.

“Then I’ll write letters to your tick.”

“His name is Georges,” she said.

“Does Georges like boys?” Kingsley asked. “Because I want to kiss him.”

She shook her head in that way women did to tell men they were both cute and annoying.

“Would you like to go have coffee with me?” she asked. “There’s a café on the next street.”

“Yes. Yes, I would. I would like that…but not today. I’m, well…” He pointed at the phone booth.

“Working?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I’ll be gone tomorrow. I should go now,” she said, glancing at the end of the street, a pretty pout on her face. “It was nice to meet you, Monsieur. Good luck with your work. Georges and I will miss you. Au revoir.”

The girl in the red cap and the brown boots walked away and Kingsley watched her go. At the last second before she disappeared from view, she turned around and waved at him. Then she was gone. She’d been so insanely, indescribably stunning that he could only think that she’d been a test. Madame had hired a teenaged model to charm him and tempt him with coffee at a café and the promise of more.

Madame better fucking call him soon if he gave up the most beautiful girl in the world for this job.

He waited four more hours.

Four.

More.

Hours.

Kingsley was five minutes away from giving up on this assignment, going back to his apartment and taking a long hot bath when the payphone rang.

He’d been sitting on the concrete until his tailbone had gone numb when the shrill sound pierced the cold evening air, and he jumped up so quickly one might have thought someone had shot a gun at him.

Kingsley picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Don’t talk,” came the woman’s voice over the line. “I have no time for mindless chit-chat.”

Kingsley stayed silent.

“Good,” she said. “You can take an order. Here’s another. There’s a hotel in the thirteenth arrondissement. It’s called The Opulent. It isn’t.”

Kingsley smiled.

“Be there in an hour on the hour. Precisely on the hour. Come unarmed and alone or do not come at all. Room four. It will be unlocked. Go in. Shut the door behind you but don’t lock it. Face the window, curtains closed. Wait for me on your knees.”

“What’s the address?” Kingsley asked but she’d hung up again already.

He put the phone on the receiver and leaned back in the booth. The call happened so fast and was so bizarre, he almost didn’t believe it had happened. He repeated what she’d told him. The Opulent. 13th arrondissement. Room 4. Close the door, kneel by the window, facing the window, curtains closed. He looked up the address in the phone book. It would be an easy trek on foot. He’d make it in plenty of time if he left now. He ran his hands through his hair, retied his scarf, and was about to leave the booth when the phone rang again.

He answered it but this time he didn’t speak.

“You learn quickly,” the woman said.

He still didn’t speak.

“Your ability to learn quickly has earned you an answer. Ask me a question. Don’t waste my time or yours on something stupid like what my name is.”

Kingsley opened his mouth and didn’t know what to ask at first and then he knew in an instant. “How do I pass the test?”

“Ah,” she said as she had before. That pleased little “ah” again. He was glad he’d given up the girl in the red cap. He’d needed that “ah.”

“There is a test, isn’t there? When men try to find you,” Kingsley said, “you test them. I heard this. How do I pass the test so I can be with you?”

“You pass the test by taking the test,” she said.

And, of course, she hung up again before he could say another word.

Kingsley checked his watch. Head down against the wind and feet moving fast, he made it to the 13th in half an hour. Ten minutes and two wrong turns down blind alleys later, Kingsley found The Opulent. A nondescript building, he hardly would have noticed it unless he’d been looking for it. Three stories high, gray stone facade, simple glass front door.

He went inside and nearly collapsed from the relief of being immersed for the first time all day in real warmth. The radiator in the lobby groaned and sang, and he stood by it, warming himself as if it were a roaring fire. In the faded red velvet lobby, he shucked off his overcoat and shed his scarf. A long-legged girl in a short black skirt eyed him with avarice and interest from across the room. There were two other girls there, wearing more lipstick than clothing. The Opulent was clearly the sort of hotel that rented out its rooms by the hour. Kingsley was surprised he’d never heard of it before.

Without a word to the sleeping clerk, he headed up the narrow stairs beside the front desk and walked down the threadbare carpet to room 4. The door wasn’t locked. He entered it, as ordered, and shut the door behind him. There was no overhead light. When he flipped the switch by the door, only the lamp on the bedside table came on.

By its weak and jaundiced light, Kingsley could see the room wasn’t nearly as squalid as he’d been expecting. It even smelled like someone had cleaned in there sometime in the last two weeks. The wallpaper was dark green, with golden vines entwined with golden apples. The bed was large, a queen-size, and covered in a forest green comforter and gold tasseled pillows. The rug was also a deep green and under it lay an ancient wood floor full of pockmarks from a hundred years of boots and high heels. Across from the bed hung an ostentatious gilt mirror, a cheap rococo replica that had likely acted as the sole witness to a hundred years of depravity in the bed it reflected. The only other item of interest in the room was the telephone.

Kingsley knew he ought to call his superiors and make a report. Yet something stopped him. Something in him didn’t want this to be about work. It already felt more like pleasure than business. Besides, he knew nothing yet. To call now would be to waste their time.

Thoughts of work faded from his mind as he tossed his coat and scarf over the back of an old and humble-looking red leather armchair. He faced the window and closed the gold curtains. He knelt on the rug and waited, ready and willing. And if the readiness was perhaps feigned, at least the willingness was not.

Right on the hour, the door opened behind him.