To start from the beginning go here.
I wrapped the trench coat around me as I stepped out of the casino’s employee entrance. While the afternoons had started to feel like spring, this early in the morning it was still cool and damp. I watched the mist fall from a light sky and felt the droplets on my face. For a moment I didn’t think about the city, what it was or where it was going.
Eventually, I opened my umbrella and stepped over the stream running in the gutter to head over to L’Orange. The trams weren’t running for another hour or so, but I had picked the place based off its proximity to the casino and a few other factors.
The first of those other factors was that there were a number of spots nearby that I could watch the restaurant without being easily noticed myself. The second was, like a lot of places in Old Town, L’Orange faced out onto the narrow street while it had a service entrance in the rear. It was basically a shotgun shack in that you could have stood out in the street and aimed through its front door to shoot someone in the back alley. All in all, a very controllable space.
I watched the citrus-colored shutters of its front doors until I heard the tinny horn of the Citroën blare at some unfortunate pedestrian. I stepped behind the corner where I was roosting while Atwell found a place for the BX. After he did some impressive parallel parking, I watched his dark hair bob its way into the restaurant. His legs loped along with an urgency I wasn’t accustomed to seeing in him.
If Atwell held true to form, he’d pick a table at the very back. I circled the block until I found the entrance to the restaurant’s backstreet. I continued to think about what I’d say to Atwell as I walked. There were the usual rubbish bins and stacked boxes down the alley, but many of these had been covered with green, leafy plants in clay pots. Someone had attempted to make the row more livable space than the trash-catcher they usually were. I could imagine the bright Mediterranean sun lighting up fronds, but now they were only the silhouette of a jungle. Passing through that, I made up my mind for the direct approach.
The backdoor to the restaurant was open to let some of the kitchen’s heat escape. I walked through it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, just an ox there for a delivery. The clatter of the one working cook didn’t break in its noise. I made sure there was a clear path through the kitchen to the exit.
In the dining room Atwell was sitting at a table in the back, watching the entrance, confident that’s where I’d be coming from. In this early hour, with the sky just beginning to lighten, he had the restaurant to himself.
I took the steel-cored umbrella in hand by either end, looping it over his head and across his throat. I let him get his hands up for a meager defense before I yanked him out of the chair, silencing whatever protests he was bound to launch into. His legs thrashed out, knocking his teetering chair away, and they kept kicking as I dragged him out into the alley. When I was sure he was choked out enough that he wouldn’t immediately start yelling, I tossed him onto a pile of trash that was surrounded by elephant-eared plants, landing him in a refuse wilderness.
I’m sure it was all very confusing for him. I didn’t give him a chance to get his bearings. I grabbed him by the sweat-stained collar of his shirt.
I jerked Atwell towards me, throttling him as I pushed all of my anger into the sentence, “You idiot. Who did you tell?”
I derived more than a small amount of pleasure from the fear and confusion that was evident on Atwell’s face even in the alley’s dim light. “What?!?”
“The Ukrainian. Who did you tell about the Ukrainian?” I pulled Atwell up to his knees, continuing to shake him. I rattled him around enough to keep him disoriented. The product of this combination came out of him with another, more prolonged, “What?”
I repeated that the Ukrainian was the topic of conversation. “The cops found him. And only you, me, and Sartre knew where he was.” With my free hand I pointed out each of the subjects from my sentence, only thumbing out to the streets of Old Town to indicate the Night Governor. I ended with putting my finger in his face. “Who did you tell?”
Atwell recovered enough of his composure to use the leverage that had always kept me in check in the past. “Let go of me, you stupid fucker, or I’ll have you back in a cell before nightfall.” To his credit, Atwell tried to pry my hand off his throat. “Or worse.”
“You think I care about that?” I asked honestly. “Sartre thinks I might have tipped the cops. I’d rather be back in prison than vanished.”
The realization that the shield of his authority was no longer effective slowly transformed Atwell’s face. The anger in his eyes drained, his mouth gradually opening as if to give it someplace to escape. Instead a series of incomplete, stuttered words came out. “You mean –?”
“Yes. Sartre visited the casino to shake me down. If I hadn’t convinced him it wasn’t me who squealed, I’d be in a dumpster somewhere by now. So – who did you tell?”
His anger completely supplanted by fear, Atwell managed an honest denial. “I didn’t tell anyone!”
“Bullshit. The cop you told me about, Rotella, is investigating it.” I shook him hard enough that Cheryl’s voice reminded me not to kill him. I stopped long enough to make sure Atwell could understand my next question. “You just happen to know him and now he’s digging up the Ukrainian?”
“I don’t know him! A gendarme I coordinate with told me about the investigation!” Atwell’s words came out sharp and shrill. Even if I didn’t know he was telling the truth I probably would have believed him.
“Then how did Rotella find out about the Ukrainian?”
“I don’t know!”
Atwell was beginning to thrash in his panic so I decided to get to the question I really wanted to ask him. “You found out about the Ukrainian because you’ve been following Sartre. Why have you been following him?”
Atwell stuttered, a sure sign he was trying to think up a lie. I shook him again and switched to another question. “Have you been following Mitnick?”
More stuttering, which meant more shaking. I finished by throwing him back into the garbage pile. I crouched down to lean in close to him, my frame taking up all the space between two of the plants. “You’ve been following Sartre, but not Mitnick. Why?”
Atwell sputtered, “I – I – I –“
When he showed no signs of stopping I slapped him.
That got through to him. He stopped his noise. After all his time lording over me he actually sulked, holding a hand to his cheek, his brown eyes like a child’s. I almost hit him again. “Why are you following Sartre, but not Mitnick?” I pointed the umbrella at him, digging its sharp point into his flesh.
Despite the implied threat of a more sturdy beating, something that wasn’t fear or hurt rose in Atwell. “That’s a need to know, Marine. And you don’t need to know.”
I almost laughed that he trotted out that old chestnut. I had to admire his attempt to appeal to my sense of duty. “Normally, I might agree with you. But you’re fucking around is going to get me killed. So I need to know.”
Atwell opened and closed his mouth, searching for words that were most likely lies, so I jabbed him with the umbrella. “Out with it.”
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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