“Then why are you trying to find him?” From Simon, the question didn’t come out as judgmental, but admonitory. His expression suggested he could smell the trouble I was getting myself into.
I thought about saying he owed someone money, which may or may not have been true, but it felt too much like a falsehood to share. I went with a stripped down version of the truth. “My boss wants me to find him.”
Simon set the picture back down with a humph. “That should be a job for the police.” He flicked ash from his cigar. “But they do not do that anymore.” I didn’t know if that was official policy or merely an informal practice, but Simon’s statement seemed to indicate some kind of actual experience in the matter. The French police were stretched thin with border control and terrorist watch, with more and more funds going to the gendarmerie every year for these things and little else. Adults searching for adults were told that others had “the right to disappear”.
I watched him smoke. Unable to resist the gravity of this small mystery I asked, “Someone you know vanish?”
Simon crossed one arm along his chest, holding the arm with the cigarillo up by the elbow. Despite the defensive position he frowned intimately and replied, “My son. A long time ago.”
“I didn’t know you were married.”
He chuckled a little then, seeming not able to believe it himself. “Once. Also a long time ago. She died when we were still young and happy.” Simon was no longer looking me in the eye, but staring at the mirror behind me again, wistful and waiting for a ghost. I wondered then if he had somehow sensed the same loss in me, or maybe me in him.
Blinking something out of my eye I decided I had just come for breakfast. In an attempt to move the subject towards what I wanted to talk about I asked, “Has the mobile rung?”
Simon turned his head, putting him into a profile of disinterest. He only shrugged, indicating that even if it had rung he hadn’t bothered to notice.
“May I see it?”
Simon shrugged again, his indifference almost appearing genuine. He got up, though, and walked across the tiled floor to behind the marble counter. A few seconds later he returned with the small flip phone and set it on the table. Opening it I noted it was still charged. If Simon didn’t care about the mobile, he was still kind enough to plug it in for me.
Going over the screen I quickly familiarized myself with its miniature landscape, little more than a digital display of the time and date. In the upper right corner were two icons, one a telephone handset, one like only the oldest hotels in town still had. The other an envelope, which with some fat thumbed navigation I found indicated a text message. It read: “Missed you. Ring back soon.” The ambiguity of the language impressed me – it could have been a message from anyone, a forgotten appointment or an absent lover.
Rather than use the mobile I took note of the phone number and closed the phone. Setting it back down, I thanked Simon, but didn’t explicitly ask him to take the mobile again. Instead I counted out what I owed him for breakfast. I wanted to tip him, but that wasn’t the custom here and he would likely take it as an insult. Instead I ordered something expensive off the menu, then told him I had changed my mind. I paid for it and left before he came back out of the kitchen.
As the light began to turn its way to evening, the flat gray square out in front of the church was filled with tourists and pigeons. Both the birds and the people gathered in small bunches, enjoying the rounded shade of trees or the square profile of the basilica. None of them paid me any mind as I walked through, just a local enjoying a walk once the afternoon rains had passed. The telephone booth was unoccupied, but the telephone in it functioned, which was a continual surprise. I thought about dialing the number from the mobile, but then thought better of it, wondering if Mitnick’s crew might be able to trace it here. While it wasn’t likely, that might compromise the dead drop. Instead I pretended to make a phone call while running my hand along the bottom side of the phone. My finger hit the crinkly edge of something that could have been wrapping paper but was the solid square of a post-it note. I pulled it up and out to read in thin letters of English:
“Breakfast, 4:00.”
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