Chapter Sixteen

Siaka and I knuckle down and make huge advances on the database. However, with our attempts to dig up online information about the Numa Army, their tattoos, or conspiracy groups that resemble M’s, we discover nothing new. Three days of non-stop work later, Bran and Gaspard urge us to take some time off. We jump at the offer.

We’re standing outside of a row of identical one-story buildings with pointed roofs. They look like Monopoly houses, but instead of green plastic they’re made of brown stone. Just above doorway-height, arched niches run the length of the buildings. In each one is a creepy white plaster head. I recognize Jacques Chirac, Frankenstein and Batman.

“Um,” is the only comment I can formulate.

Siaka laughs. “Those were plaster casts used to make party masks. When the mask factory closed, this guy Favand bought them and put them here so they wouldn’t be destroyed. The Museum of Fairground Arts contains his collection of antiques from old amusement parks.”

“What, like merry-go-rounds?” I cast around in my mind for what someone could collect from old amusement parks and come up with antique clown statues, derelict haunted house rides, and leering carnival barkers. None of which are reassuring.

“Oh, so much more,” Siaka responds. “But no spoilers. You’ve got to see it yourself.” He locks our helmets beneath the scooter’s seat and pockets the keys. How can he make such an ordinary gesture look completely hot? I squeeze my eyes shut to erase the image of Sexy Siaka and hope when I open them it’ll be Colleague Siaka standing there, just another teenage guy, totally unhot. I open my eyes. It didn’t work. He’s smiling at me, totally adorable, and touches me on the arm—which sends all my crush-resisting resolve straight to hell.

I try to focus on his words as we approach the entrance.

“There’s a guided tour, but I’ve been so many times, I’ve got it down by heart.”

“Awesome!” I deadpan. “My own personal guide on the creepiest tour ever.”

He laughs. “Let’s go.”

He presents his phone to the woman taking tickets, then leads me under an arched doorway overgrown with ivy. We find ourselves in a courtyard enclosed by a second row of Monopoly houses built behind the ones facing the street.

“These used to be old wine storage warehouses,” Siaka says, starting the tour, “when Bercy was still considered its own village outside of Paris. That’s what the train tracks are for,” he says, pointing to old rails embedded in the cobblestone. “Train cars transported the wine into Paris, where it was taxed. So, everyone came out to here to party on cheap, untaxed wine outside the city limits.