To start from the beginning go here.
Unsure if the Idiots would ever show, I waited anyway. To pass the time, I peeled strips off the label of the water bottle and counting the breaths out of my nose, trying to get my autonomic responses under control. It felt very odd to breathe a sigh of relief when I saw Max walk in with the Algerian and Fatty in tow. They didn’t spot me, but made their way to the same booth they had inhabited the night before, settling into its cage as they surveyed the thin crowd.
I watched them for awhile before it occurred to me that they were probably here in, what passed for them, a professional capacity. While they generally hung together, Fatty and Algerian floated outside of a booth’s cage while Max sat in it, like some low-rent godfather. They might be waiting for any number of people, or perhaps selling something themselves, so I decided to approach before the crowd decided to show up.
Despite being on the inside of the booth, Max saw me before his two comrades. He smiled, but I wouldn’t say he was happy. A barely restrained greed shone in his dark eyes and I felt myself breathe an internal sigh of relief. I could use that.
Before I got to them, Max mumbled to the other two and they parted, standing nearby in a semblance of the professional thuggery they had strode for walking into Simon’s cafe. I slid into the booth without waiting for an invitation, setting my bottle on the table. Unsure of how to start I only nodded. Like my feet, my tongue felt swollen with the evening’s violence and lies, so I decided to wait until the music picked up that it might cover our conversation.
In that interval I felt questions poke out of my brain and try to make their way to my mouth. Where was Lanzo? How was business? How was his night going, for Christ’s sake. This only made me wonder why I wanted to have a conversation with the Idiots at all. The answer, of course, was that I needed something from them. That realization made me want to pull a pin on a grenade and set it on the table, watch people scramble while I waited the eight seconds.
“You want a drink?” Max asked me in an unexpected show of hospitality. Still trapped in the cage of my mind I only gave him a minute shake of my head and small tilt of the water bottle.
Demonstrating that this was the extent of his own interest in small talk Max nodded at me, the hardly restrained avarice I had seen overtaking the caution in his demeanor. He asked, “Have you spoken to Sartre?”
I leaned forward, speaking into the booth, making sure my mouth couldn’t be seen by anyone standing outside of it. “That thing we talked about? With the girl?” Max chopped the air with his chin, urging me on. “It’s a no-go. Sartre won’t have it.”
Max nearly stood, despite the booth’s limitations, his chest puffing out and his face changing to the color of the upholstery like he was some weird lizard derivative. “Why not?”
“It would cause too much trouble.” I gave him the answer that I hoped Sartre would have provided, but his enmity of Mitnick was so great I wasn’t sure I believed that.
Max slapped the table with an open palm, then breathed vehemently, quick in and out bursts through his nose, then slowly lowered himself down again, sinking in his choleraic disappointment. He opened his mouth to reply, mounting some kind of counter-argument, as if I would have any influence over Sartre.
He got out a half a dozen words in garbled English and French before I decided I really didn’t want to hear whatever his protest was, cutting him off with what he wanted to hear. “But I think I can get him to change his mind.” Some of my thoughts escaped, drifting to the service station, not too far away, transforming itself into a pillar of black smoke.
Max grinned, the fire of his disappointment quickly transforming into the warm glow of a man who was certain he had bet on the right horse. “How?”
“There’s something going on, doesn’t matter what to you.” I started slowly, plotting out the future course of the lie along its border with the truth. “But if anyone asks, when I came in here tonight, I was with a Russian, big ears, gray hair, black jacket.” I made as if to scratch my neck just above the collar. “Star tattoo right here.” I felt my eyes dart away from Max as I tried to recall more physical details, but found in the tide of receding adrenaline that I couldn’t. So I added, “His name was Mikhail. We spoke to you.” I left the third-person plural open to interpretation, whether that meant us as a group or just me and Mikhail.
Max wiped his nose with the red stripe of his balaclava, the bags under his eyes puffing as he squinted at me. “Is that all?”
I shook my head, “No. The most important thing is – you told us nothing.” I emphasized the last three words, trying my best to nail Max to the back of the booth with personal gravity. “But someone will come and they will ask. They’ll ask hard.” It occurred to me it might be Sartre’s men doing the asking so I added, “Doesn’t matter who it is, you need to stick to that story.” I leaned back into the booth, concluding, “If you do, Sartre will know you can keep your cool.”
The incredible unlikelihood that Sartre would trust Max’s ability to keep a secret with such a simple test escaped Max, his greed at the opportunity this provided him overriding whatever good sense he might have had. I was impressed, though, when he asked, “Did you arrive together? Leave together?”
I think my smile was almost genuine at his attention to detail, complete with a sadistic edge. “We arrived together. Left together not much later.”
Max straightened up from the booth, scanning the Abattoir through the booth’s bars, perhaps taking stock of how many people might have seen me. When he came back down, he nodded. “I can do this.”
I returned the nod, but angling at Algerian and Fatty, pretending not to notice them listening in. “And them?”
Max grinned widely, a kind of tinpot pride swelling his cheeks. “Of course. Any secret we keep among us, we take to our graves.” I doubted that, but shook his hand as if we were blood brothers.
I made to get up, then scanned the booth absently. As if I had forgotten something, I asked, “Where’s Lanzo?”
Max’s eyes barely tilted towards the ceiling in a gesture that spoke volumes of some hidden frustration. Whatever that was, though, he didn’t speak to it, only saying, “Hungover.”
“You sure you can get him to do his part?” This was an honest question – after seeing the lengths that Lanzo had gone to be near Nika, convincing him into a kidnapping plot didn’t seem like something he’d willingly sign up for.
Max flashed his teeth in a show of bravado. “Of course. As you say, les gars avant les poulettes.”
I tried to force out a piratical grin that felt like it came out in sharp angles and barb wire. As I slid out of the booth I made sure the other two Idiots could hear me over the growing bass of the music, “I’ll talk to the Night Governor.” I could practically hear the self-congratulations bounce between the three of them as I walked away.
I left the Abattoir, happy to see that the dark of The Factory’s cavern was lit by the oscillating club lights. Not wanting to leave anymore trail than I had to, I left the club before finding another phone to call a cab. Fortunately for me, Alon answered on the first try and remembered where The Factory was with very little prompting.
My entire life I’d been able to sleep on anything that moved – planes, trains, automobiles – whatever. Moving through that night, though, I could only close my eyes in the back of the taxi. I felt the world rushing by in its unstoppable motion, me just its passenger.
To read the next chapter, go here.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
See author’s published work here.
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