To start at the beginning go here.
I had a limited time in which to make some decisions – barring freezing conditions, corpses start to stink within a few hours. While the spring weather still kept the tenement relatively cool, the pimp wouldn’t last long.
Regardless of this knowledge, I sat on the couch and watched the body, trying to get the useless and countervailing voices in my head under control. Panic had set himself down in several sections of my brain, alternatively begging the pimp to get up or screaming at me that I had to do something now. I tried to ignore that voice to paw through my options, but I probably spent more time sitting on the couch, breathing deeply in and out of my nose, trying to regain focus.
I didn’t have to ask what had happened – the path of destruction through the apartment laid that out. Jardin had come to speak with Sophie (or maybe never left) and the pimp had either followed her back or leaned on one of the other girls for a location. He had shown up, angry and seeking recompense for his wounded pride and wanted a rematch with Sophie. Surprise had given him a temporary upper hand, wrecking what appeared to be most of our worldly possessions, only to realize he had made some wild miscalculations in regard to his own and Sophie’s abilities. Now he was dead on top of our flattened coffee table.
This was the result of Sophie’s actions, so I thought about calling Alon. He liked Sophie, after all. That was a no-go, though; being charmed by a woman was quite another thing from being willing to transport a corpse for her. And if he got a peek at the body he might panic. I considered trying to get a car from the casino, but most of the autos were operated by services, not the house itself. Hell, I even thought about calling Atwell, but decided doing that might end up with two bodies that needed hiding.
It might have been fatigue affecting my mental processes, but after a time I decided to change the body from a liability into an asset. The pimp might not have been anyone important in life, but he could cause trouble in death.
I left Sophie with instructions to find something to wrap the corpse in. I wasn’t hungry for breakfast, but I headed to Simon’s anyway. There was a small mid-morning crowd there which kicked up my agitation, as if I had the pimp in my pocket and everyone could smell him on me. I had to reassure myself that even if someone saw me and remembered me, it wouldn’t matter. I was just another customer.
I walked past Simon who was taking an order from a couple with the crumpled clothes and bleary eyes of those who have been out all night. A glance at the back mirror showed me more of the same in the goon who had just stumbled in. I gripped the umbrella tightly and went to the bar to sit and wait, trying my best to appear as if I were just very anxious for my morning’s first coffee.
I must have done a pretty good job of it as Simon set an espresso in front of me without me asking for it. “Petit déjeuner?” he asked while keeping an eye on his morning crowd.
I shook my head and replied, “Mobile?” I don’t know why it came out as a question, maybe some part of me afraid Simon had lost it or thrown it away. The question got his attention, though, and caused him to give me an appraising stare. I met his gaze and, after a moment, he nodded.
Wherever he was keeping it couldn’t have been far because he returned a moment later holding the black flip-phone in his hand. He set it down on the counter, across from my coffee, and walked away to tend to his other duties as if he had just forgotten it there.
I curled my fist around it and said, “Et je reviens,” even though I doubted he was still listening. I headed out the back. I swept around the bar, following the black and white tiles that crawled down from it to form the floor that led through the gray pots and silver cabinets of the kitchen. I found a small door at the back where deliveries came in and trash went out. It let out into an alley that I was satisfied was narrow enough that I couldn’t be seen without seeing.
I called the only number the phone had been used for, trying to shake the tension out of my shoulders and voice. I found myself pacing through the alley’s Old World filth, so compact and tidy compared to an America I hadn’t seen in years. A part of me suddenly very much wanted to be some place I had once called home.
The phone rang and rang until I was worried no one would pick up, panic becoming emboldened until it started clawing through my empty options if no one answered. I hoped that whoever picked up didn’t hear my sudden inhalation of breath.
“Da,” came the same inscrutable voice that invited me to Mitnick’s party. If there were any misconceptions about how much time they wanted to spend on the line it was cleared up with a quick, “What is it?”
Uncertain of the protocols surrounding requests within the Eurasian underworld, I stated quickly, “I need an automobile.”
To read the next chapter, go here.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
See the author’s published work here.
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