To start from the beginning go here.
I watched the driver to see if his elephantine ears or gray stubble gave any twitch of recognition. Nothing did. Just before I was afraid the cold sweat creeping out of my scalp might give me away he repeated his question of my nationality.
I nodded. Playing as if we hadn’t met I asked, “You’re from Mitnick?”
He smiled at the simple assumption but nodded.
There could be a thousand things behind that cryptic grin and thinking too much on it would only drown me in the possibilities, so I continued with, “I need to bring something out,” I pointed a thumb over my shoulder to indicate the tenement, then a finger to the trunk. “Pop the trunk.”
Something that was either suspicion or confusion contracted the space around his eyes, causing his eponymous lobes to move like some kind of weasel. Hoping it was misunderstanding I tried a different phrasing, “Open the boot.”
Whatever his concerns, Ears reached down to the car’s floorboard and I heard the trunk open. “Be right back.” I held up a finger in case I wasn’t understood.
Despite an urge to run up the stairs, I took the elevator. The out-of-order sign would probably keep tenets away, but occupation was the best assurance. It moved with a dilapidated slowness that made me itch, but I forced myself to stand still. At the fourth floor, I hit the ‘stop’ button again and headed to our door.
Sophie was waiting for me, guarding the front door, or both. She wore a floppy sunhat which drooped over her face and clothes that were unisex in their utility, a pair of work pants cinched up around her waist and a baggy shirt. Nothing could really hide Sophie’s femininity, but that outfit was as close as she could get.
I moved to the corpse without a word and stood at its head. She moved to the feet and we picked it up, involuntarily groaning as we shifted it under our arms, like you would if you were carrying a carpet and not a body you wanted to hide one in.
Whatever he was in life, I was grateful that in death the pimp wasn’t as heavy as any hearts he might have broken. We shuffled our way to the elevator where I managed to hold onto him with one arm long enough to disengage ‘stop’ and hit the lobby button. The elevator rattled all the way down, minute vibrations shaking it and our nerves.
I held my breath as we hit the lobby, my mind conjuring up someone waiting outside the elevator, ignoring the sandwich board. There was a quick inhalation from both me and Sophie as the door disengaged. We expelled a simultaneous sigh of relief as the lobby was revealed to be empty of anything but its subway tiles and clustered mailboxes.
I kicked the sign away and we made our way to the back. I nearly stumbled outside the door, but kept my balance despite the weight, and headed towards the car’s trunk. By the time we got over to it and I had lifted the lid Ears was there, staring with a hostile suspicion at the carpet. “What is this?” His tone said that this wasn’t in his mission briefing and he wasn’t happy about the surprise.
Fortunately for me, details get left out of foot soldiers’ orders every day of the week. I just shrugged and said, “The Frenchman’s dirty laundry.”
I turned back to Sophie to find she had started back inside after dropping the carpet’s payload. I smiled, happy that she was smart enough not to stick around. I slammed the trunk and resisted the ridiculous urge to follow her for a goodbye kiss. Might be the last one, Cheryl’s voice said.
Ears was waiting for me when I returned from fantasy land, grim and floating in a cloud of cologne. He was wearing what appeared to be the standard issue black leather jacket, loose enough that I could grab a handful of it, thick enough to keep out the cold or possibly a knife blade. While I took that in, Ears assessed me, some recognition perhaps starting to brew in the eye he cocked at me.
Not wanting to give that too much time to develop any theories, I moved to the passenger-side door. “Let’s go.”
To my luck’s credit, Ears got in and started the car after a few more moments. He asked, perhaps while planning the automobile’s path through the alley’s minefield of trash, “Where are we going?”
“Head towards L’Ariane,” I answered, staring out the window as if I was more worried about what was outside of it than in it. When the car didn’t move I came back to Ears to find him staring at me with an empty hostility that told me he didn’t know the city well enough to make sense of that. He was new in town.
I grinned in what I hoped was a disarming fashion. “Head north. Towards the A8.” I reasoned that if he had come in through the airport he would have seen the highway. Whether he did or not, though, he put the car into gear and began to maneuver it out of the alley.
Once on the street, Ears reiterated his question. “Where are we going?”
“I can drive if you want,” I responded, raising my voice to make it sound like I was trying to be helpful. When a scowl was the only reply I received, I answered, “If you don’t know where L’Ariane is you won’t know where were going.”
Ears gestured towards the center console of the Lexus, indicating the onboard navigation system. “You don’t have address?”
I realized I didn’t and hoped I remembered enough to find the gas station again. I covered this up with exasperation, saying, “Just head towards the A8.”
Ears pointed the car north, technically towards the highway, but not the best way. I didn’t mention that, using the extra time to remember where we were going. L’Ariane wasn’t a huge neighborhood, but I didn’t want to spend time cruising around with Ears, lost, with him about to lose his patience.
With the evening’s cool settling in it was a shame not to enjoy the scenery. Even headed towards the concrete canyon of the highway, the Mediterranean spring was beautiful and green, the smell of plumbago mingling with the diesel fumes of the road and the poverty of the banlieue. That was all stripped away as Ears put his foot down and we hit cruising speed to launch up the highway’s onramp, the scents and the scenes reduced to a gray blur.
Calculating which exit to get off on was interfered with by the occasional sideways glance by Ears. Like a static discharge that cut through my brain, I could sense a growing attention from him. It culminated in him asking, “I know you?”
With his hands on the wheel and here on orders of his boss, I didn’t see a point in hiding that anymore. Or maybe I just didn’t care. “Yeah,” I told him, “we’ve met.”
He laughed and slammed the steering wheel with the root of his palm, victory coming into his vodka addled memory. “I knew it,” he grinned ahead at the road, then stared at me long enough to make me uncomfortable at the speed were traveling. “без обид, da?”
Wanting him to get back to the road, but uncertain of the Russian, I replied, “Sure,” while keeping my eyes ahead. He lingered on me longer, clearly not sure if I understood or cared about his question, until I nodded back towards the highway. A quick swerve avoided a near collision and we were back, hurtling through the tunnel of light the road’s LEDs cut through the dark.
To read the next chapter, go here.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
See author’s published work here.
Related Posts
The Worst of Us Next Post:
The Leaning Fort
