When I woke up the women were gone. The silence was so complete that made the walls of the apartment feel thicker, nothing permeating them, not even birdsong from the few windows in the kitchen. The only thing that came through was sunshine filtered to a sepia through the glass stained with years of dirt.
I stumbled around for a few minutes calling for Sophie. Although I was mostly certain it wasn’t the case, there was a part of me that worried she had left with them never to come back. It was one of the few times I regretted the decision not to have mobile phones.
Maybe because that was eating at me, or maybe it was just old-fashioned hunger, that I decided to head to Simon’s and check on the phone I had left with him. Despite all of the noise that this knotted affair was producing, Mitnick was still at the middle of it; the mysterious girl, the casino, the dead man, Atwell. Mitnick seemed to touch all of it. A part of me warned the rest that if Sarti knew about Mitnick, Mitnick might know about my contact with Sarti. I decided to get cleaned up and head that way, regardless.
In the shower, what I was sure was the mostly imaginary smell of the dead Belarusian stuck to me, compelling me to wash out the inside of my nose. Examining the possible motives for the phantom smell, I knew it wasn’t guilt (I hadn’t killed him), or regret (odds were better people had died in worse ways that day), but something I couldn’t quite nail down. On the way to Simon’s whatever it was compelled me to thumb at the passport in my pocket, wondering who he had been and why he had been killed.
On the tram I took it out and examined the document. The name of its former owner had been Sergei Molotov. He had come from Sevastopol to die in a foreign land for sins unknown. He was a big blonde bruiser of a man, seemed to have hunched himself into the small rectangle of the passport photo. He didn’t smile, but his eyes weren’t without humor. That last part felt like biggest difference between the two of us. But then that smell came back and Cheryl’s voice reminded me that Sergei was lying on a slab somewhere and I was in a nice, smooth tram in a sunny country filled with tourists and money.
Trying to shake whatever phantom hold the photo had on me, I spotted an office supply store and hopped off. I went in for a few minutes and was quickly pointed to a copier by squat and tanned young lady whose name tag pronounced her with the unfortunate name of Candida. After making copies of the passport I remembered I had given Sophie the vast majority of the cash. I sighed, wishing I had thought better of it, but was grateful enough that I still had enough to buy breakfast.
Back on the tram, I headed to Simon’s. He had gotten most of the graffiti off his front door. Whatever cleaner he had used left a lighter spot than the rest of it, the corrosive agent having taken the top few layers of wood with it, like some kind of bad tattoo removal. Chairs were stacked up on either side of the door, ready to be carried inside, signaling that it was near the end of the day. Close at hand should any of the neighborhood miscreants decide to get themselves a free chair, Simon stood sweeping the cigarette butts and dropped bits of food from his sidewalk.
After a polite hello and an exchange about our days I asked him if I could still get breakfast. He smiled, pleased that I had thought of his establishment despite my change in hours, and ushered me in. Sat at the back of the cafe, he presented me with a cup of coffee and I asked to borrow some scissors. He nodded, thinking nothing of it, and brought scissors with him when he returned with a small glass of juice. I was cutting the pictures out of the passport copies by the time he had come back with the eggs. He stood there for a moment, holding the plate hostage, eyeing me with an uncustomary curiosity. I couldn’t blame him – the last few days had been strange.
But I could tell he was smiling. Surprisingly, Simon didn’t say anything straight off, but set the plate down and went outside to finish bringing in the last of his chairs. The smell of the eggs, riding that perfect edge between the bland smell of undercooked and the sulfur of overdone, hit me and I set the scissors down. I scarfed the eggs and most of the croissant before Simon returned.
With my thick fingers making the scissors feel like a toy and the cutting like some kind of collage project, Simon’s minor reprobation at the speed of my meal made me feel small. Not accustom or comfortable with this, I returned his stare. His eyes moved off mine towards what I was doing and his expression became one of inquiry. He sat down across from me, produced a cigarillo from his breast pocket and lit it thoughtfully.
Waving out a match he spoke to me in French. “The rains have become less frequent.”
Returning to my scissor work, I found myself without much to say. “Oui,” may have been my insightful reply.
My lack of engagement with the usual topic of our French lesson, though, only enabled Simon to ask what was really on his mind. “What are you doing? Do you know this man?” He indicated the photocopies of Sergei with a smoky motion of his hand.
I thought about it, my tongue sticking out in the slightest bit of concentration, focusing on the paper as well as what I could tell Simon. “He’s gone missing,” I said as I freed another Sergei from the borders of his passport.
Simon took one of the copies, pinning it to the table with his forefinger and sliding it to him. He examined the dead man’s photo with an appraising raised eyebrow. “I don’t recognize him.”
“That’s probably for the best,” I said without thinking, causing Simon’s evaluating expression to turn to me. Searching for an explanation I could manage in French I added, “He’s not a good person.” I didn’t know that, of course, but given what I did know, it was the most likely conclusion.
“Then why are you trying to find him?”
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