To start from the beginning go here.
I pointed towards an exit off the highway, thankfully posted with a sign for L’Ariane. The car swooped down the off-ramp into the lowlands north of the mountains that surrounded the city. On what was, I hoped, an educated guess, I directed Ears further inland. We drove over the criss-crossed roads dotted with the squat cement and cinderblock buildings that rose up out of the muddy terrain. I cracked the window and thought I could smell the canals. I pointed us in changing directions, down the different interlacing roads, hoping to find the path that Sartre’s men had run to find the gas station. I also hoped it might keep Ears distracted.
He continued to glance my way, though, maybe noticing the remains of my bruises from the party. It didn’t take very long for him to find some space between my directions to laugh again and ask, “How did you get away from Gennady?”
I blinked, realizing that the last word on the sentence was a name. I assumed I had just been given the name of the bruiser with the ham-sized fists. I smiled, trying to play as if we were just discussing horse-wrestling between buddies and replied, “My girlfriend beat him up.”
It was Ears’ turn to blink, sorting out what I meant with the surely strange image that my phrase produced. As if sending morse code from the increasing fire between neurons of his brain, his eyelids fluttered more quickly until they stopped in comprehension of how literal I was being. This resulted in a large and prolonged guffaw that would have, I’m sure, ended in a round of vodka shots in a different scenario. He assaulted the steering wheel with his palm again and, between laughs, said, “That’s good one. He said your friends showed up.”
Ears leered at me, a vicious half-smile on his face and in my brain a warning flare went up. He seemed to be taking the news that I had survived Gennady’s attack pretty well, particularly now that he knew I worked for Mitnick. Maybe they had never intended on more than giving me a good beating, but there was a menace to him that he couldn’t quite hide. I began to wonder, as we dodged around L’Ariane on a lie I was spinning out by the minute, what new plans he might be devising for me. One thing that I could count on – if Mitnick knew about what had happened at the party, neither of us would be here.
This led me to wonder about all the Russians in that billiard room and what Mitnick was doing with them squirreled away in the back of his mansion. This train of thought caused me to extend my hand and give him my name. Ears glanced from the road before taking it and saying, “Mikhail.”
I kept my eyes on him long enough to memorize his face, only distracted by a road we were quickly approaching, something about it familiar. I don’t know if it was a street sign or a landmark my unconscious had picked up on, but I pointed for Ears to take it.
The further we went down the street, the more familiar it became, the palm trees of Old Town replaced with streetlamps that lit up its sides until they led us to the gas station. It floated on its island of cement, the burned out ‘I’ on its sign as good a landmark as any lighthouse. I pointed to the curb of an adjoining street and Ears glided the Lexus there, parking just outside of the bubble that was the gas station’s light and cement. Under the harsh fluorescents, I could see movement through the station’s fogged and cracked glass, giving me something else to think about.
I pointed for Ears to pull around back. He grinned like it was his idea, maneuvering the car around the petrol pumps without question. There were a couple of fast-charging stations in the back, surrounded by halos of black graffiti, and a single service door. That was the only place Sartre’s rooks could have taken Sergei. Ears parked at one of the stations as if the Lexus were thirsty for juice.
I faced him, putting my arm across the back of my seat and indicated the front with my other. “Go scare off the attendant.”
I couldn’t tell if Ears didn’t understand or didn’t want to, but I found myself struggling for words. So I pointed through the cinderblocks of the rear wall and said, “The employee.” I indicated the building again with a thrust of my head, like a man using kinetics in lieu of raising his voice. “Get rid of him.”
Ears contemplated me, my words, and God knows what else, then smiled again and nodded. He popped open his door and lurched out, rounding the corner to the station’s front. I noticed he left the keys in the ignition.
I sat in the dark, trying to think about how much time we would have if the station attendant ran off and called the cops. That was unlikely, though, if this was a place Sartre considered safe enough to stash illicit items. It wouldn’t be likely for anyone to call the police if the gendarme might find a corpse in the back.
To my surprise, a few minutes later the service door opened up, pushed by Ears who waved me in without even a sideways glance. There was nothing behind the station but yards of bog and its border war with the cement, but I hopped out of the car, not wanting to be spotted by any of the local wildlife. I dodged into the dark of the station’s backroom, then searched for a light switch as Ears pulled the door shut.
The flash of the room’s incandescent burned away to a dull yellow glow that illuminated a disused service room. With its cracked cinderblocks it was old and dingy enough that I would have thought it abandoned if I didn’t know better. It was outlined with the aluminum skeleton of shelves, stacked with various junk, some of which actually appeared like it might be useful in running a gas station. Several triple-decker shelves sat in the room’s middle, home to spare parts, jerrycans, plastic containers, and cardboard boxes.
The overhead light tinkled softly as the glass expanded around the heat of the filament. Beyond that, though, I could hear the soft and constant whir of a compressor. Despite Ears’ arrival through the front of the station, I moved between the shelf aisles as if we might not be the only ones here.
At the far end of the room, I spotted a chest freezer. It was nearly twice as long as it was deep, big enough to do Jeffrey Dahmer proud. I knew what had to be in it, but I moved close to open it and check.
I had been waiting for it since Ears recognized me and he didn’t disappoint. The quick sound of footfalls behind me caused me to dodge to the side without even glimpsing back. The heavy adjustable wrench that Ears had found came crashing down into the freezer with enough force to leave a dent in it. And keep it stuck for a moment.
To read the next chapter, go here.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
See author’s published work here.
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