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A SUDDEN ILLNESS
LUCIEN WAS BREATHLESS.
The whore said, “Oh, Monsieur Lessard, I have seen your painting at Le Mirliton. It is so beautiful.”
Lucien bent over and braced his hands on his knees while he tried to catch his breath. The three whores in the brothel parlor were all waiting for him to say something. He’d just run all the way from Bruant’s cabaret, where he’d found the front door open, the bartender unconscious on the floor, and the Blue Nude gone.
“Toulouse-Lautrec?” he gasped.
“Fourth room at the top of the stairs,” said a tall, blond whore in a pink negligee. “Your bread is very good too, but I think you should have a go at painting.”
Lucien nodded his thanks for the advice and tipped his hat to the ladies before bounding up the swooping staircase.
The fourth door was locked, so he pounded. “Henri! It’s Lucien. The Blue Nude. It’s gone!”
A rhythmic yipping noise with bedspring-squeak counterpoint emanated from behind the door.
“One moment, Lucien,” called Henri. “I’m boinking Babette and if she comes I get a discount.”
The yipping and squeaking paused. “He does not.”
“Ah, she is such a tease. My allowance has not arrived this month, so I am—”
“He’s a little short!” the whore giggled.
“Oh, I will have my revenge now.”
“Would you two hold still!”
“Feel my wrath, tart!”
More squeaking, more giggling. It sounded like there was more than one woman in there.
Lucien felt as if he might faint, more from anxiety than the lack of breath; his pulse pounded in his temples. He fell forward, allowing his forehead to rest against the door. “Henri, please! Someone has stolen my painting. We need—”
The door was yanked open and Lucien fell headlong into the room.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Lessard,” said Mireille, the short, plump whore from Lucien’s last visit. She stood over him, naked but for an oversized black beret. Several colors of oil paint streaked her body here and there and she was brandishing a wide bristle brush loaded with Naples yellow, much of which had found its way to her nipples.
“Get off me, you horny puppet,” said a different woman’s voice from the bed.
Before Lucien could look up there was a thump and Count Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa was lying on the floor before him, quite naked, except, of course, for his hat and pince-nez. (He was a count, for fuck’s sake, not some crazed cannibal pygmy!)
“Lucien, you look distressed.”
“I am distressed. Someone has taken the Blue Nude from Le Mirliton.”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t Bruant? Perhaps he took it to a private showing. There’s been quite a buzz, you know. I heard Degas himself was interested in coming to look at it.”
Lucien moaned.
“I know how you feel,” said Mireille. “My painting is ruined.”
Lucien turned his head just enough to see that she was standing next to an easel, on which was propped a number thirty canvas painted with crude figures that looked to Lucien like dogs fighting. He moaned again.
“Oh my.” A woman’s face—a cute brunette with improbably large brown eyes—popped over the edge of the bed and looked down at Lucien. “He sounds forlorn, Henri. Shall I get him a drink or suck him off or something?”
“Lucien, have you met Babette?” Henri said.
