To start from the beginning go here.
I needed to head back to the house to get cleaned up and into my uniform, but after circling around long enough to determine I wasn’t being followed I headed to the dead-drop. I stood across the street while the afternoon sun crept across the sky, watching the telephone booth’s shadow move across the cobblestone streets, uncertain of what message I wanted to leave.
While I thought about this, I crossed to the payphone and called the mobile to check to see if there were any messages. There weren’t any.
Eventually I closed the distance to pin a note under its base that read, “Lunch, 5:00.” The meal on the note indicated the place rather than the time of day, which was the second number. I would have to figure out what I was going to say to Atwell before then. With that bouncing around my head, I headed back to the apartment to grab the first shower in what felt like forever and some sleep.
Sophie wasn’t there, but I figured she had her hands full as well. Given everything that had happened of late I could let my worry be supplanted by the appreciation of not having to talk. With all the lies I was having to tell recently, I was starting to miss the simplicity of waiting in a cell for someone to show up and kill me.
The shower was warmer and cleaner than any prisoner’s, though, and the good steam it got me into almost let me sleep soundly. When I finally gave up on that, I discovered that somewhere in this mess, or maybe before it all started, either Sophie or I had remembered to pick up the dry cleaning.
I slipped into a crisp white shirt and black pants of the casino uniform, smelling the soft baking soda tang of the solution. It provided the illusion of normalcy that a return to routine can confer. It was almost comforting, but it was the same illusion that I had been hiding behind since arriving in the city.
That fantasy didn’t even last through my entire shift. I checked in with Gaspard – his receding hairline and stooped shoulders didn’t indicate anything out of the ordinary, so I was a bit surprised when my earbud buzzed with an unfamiliar voice. I just rubbed my bruised knuckles, though, and headed into the back.
The door to the holding room cracked open from the inside, telling me someone knew I was coming. I felt a rising sense of apprehension at the yellow walls I could see through the opening. I pushed through the doorway anyway. What else was I going to do?
I saw the empty chair across the table at the same time I noticed one of Sartre’s rooks standing to the side. That got my attention long enough for a blow to fall, a strike that came from behind the door to land on the back of my knee. It caused me to genuflect to the floor, catching myself with both of hands. The door closed behind me, clipping my feet as it did, and I felt two pairs of strong hands grab me by the armpits. My anger told me to lash out, but every bruised inch of me had its own inertia and I found myself letting it happen. I worried that they might tear my casino blazer. I’d have to pay for that.
The pair of rooks pushed me into the holding room chair and stood to the sides, not bothering to secure me. I didn’t say anything, mesmerized by the entry door, the yellow walls, and the security camera in the upper corner. I realized that this was the first time I had really seen the room from this side, but unlike any of the other unfortunates here I knew what the dead light on the CCTV meant. They could do whatever they wanted to me here and no one would ever know.
To read the next chapter, go here.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
To read a polished and published prequel to this story go here.
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