To start at the beginning of the story go here.
I gave Alon instructions to the gas station almost exactly as Sartre had described it to me – in L’Ariane, near Gairut, between Cemetery Hill and the canal. Alon clearly possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of the city, not just Old Town, as he drove us straight there without all of the zigzagging that I had required on my last trip. He grumbled a bit that we weren’t getting his promised breakfast first, but he took us straight there.
On the way I shuffled through a copy of the local newspaper (Matin) that had been left in the backseat. Behind a front page story on the French gold medal wins in the Paralympics, there was mention of a gas station fire, that as yet unidentified individuals had perished in it, and that the station attendant was being sought for questioning.
Sartre was right – you couldn’t miss the station. It was still smoldering even though the fire had never reached the fuel pumps. The station itself, though, particularly the rear storage area where I started the fire, was blacken and cratered, the roof collapsed. A few of the cinderblock walls still stood, but not much else.
Whatever interest the fire might have piqued in the locals had waned in the two nights since. Traffic didn’t even slow as it passed the station. A pair of early morning joggers went by, more concerned with the dog they were chaperoning than anything else.
I stared at the burned out husk. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting. Was this the impulse to return to the scene of the crime that cops talked about? If that was the case, the only thing I got out of it was restless, squirming on the seat as all the bruises the Russian had left on me started to move of their own volition.
The aches grew under me as I shifted my weight in the backseat, each growing into its own little landmine until pressing on one flashed a brilliant moment in my eyes, of me and the Russian wrestling under florescent lights, close enough that I could smell the cigarettes and vodka on his breath. I flexed my hands as I felt the ghost of the cord I strangled the poor bastard with burn my palms, the two of us rolling towards eternity.
I launched out of the car before I knew what I was doing, feet hitting the cement as I gasped for air. I took big, panting breaths, bent at the waist, hands on my knees. I stayed like that until I felt the sting of sweat in the my eyes and I straightened myself, pointing my face to the sun, feeling its warmth in a way that I desperately needed.
I coughed, wiped the moisture out of my eyes, feeling cleaner the longer I stood in the morning’s light and wind. It reminded me there was something good about this city, despite all of the darkness I was roaming in.
Alon moved to check on me, but through my drying eyes I spotted a Renault cop car pull onto the station’s black tarmac. I signaled Alon to stay in the taxi, wanting to see who would emerge from the cruiser.
The Renault bounced its way on poor brakes to a stop until it settled enough to allow two men to get out. One was taller, black hair and mustache, fatigued in a way that was obvious even from across the street. His shirt and tie were disheveled, and if I didn’t know better I would have sworn he was wearing cowboy boots. The other man, the car’s passenger, was older, wrestling with a pot-belly in his middle-age, impossible to conceal in the crisp blue shirt he wore. It had an emblem on the right breast that I couldn’t quite make out. Both men approached the rear of the station and began a discussion, the details of which were impossible to determine from this distance.
I leaned forward, though, curious enough to give it a try. Even if I could read lips, which I can’t, they were most likely conversing in French, which would have made it impossible for me anyway.
I bent to the open passenger window of the cab to say something to Alon, but noticed a small notepad and pencil sitting on the passenger seat before I got the words out. Seized by an impulse I didn’t question, I grabbed both pencil and pad in one big mitt and apologized to Alon, stepping out onto the street that separated us and the station. Shushing both my own internal voice and Cheryl’s, each asking me what I was doing, I approached the station, dodging across traffic and then slowing once I was on its concrete pad. The morning wind was cold across my shaven scalp, carrying the smell of station’s smoke that almost covered the odor of the surrounding bog.
The two men faced the station, away from me, so I announced myself while I was still more than a dozen feet away. I gave a loud, friendly, American, “Bon jour,” and tried to have something that resembled a smile on my face when they turned around. Unsurprisingly, neither man returned the smile, both instead giving me the heavy, Gallic grimace that the French so love to reserve for interlopers and outsiders.
“Hi,” I continued on, even as I wasn’t sure what I was doing. “I’m from the The Kansas City Star. I was wondering if either of you could tell me what happened here.”
The middle-aged man in the blue shirt, who I now realized was smoking despite being downwind from the fire, took his cigarette out of his mouth and said, “There was a fire.” He then returned the smoke to his mouth, ending what he had to say.
“Sure,” I replied, trying to broaden my smile even as it hurt my face. “How’d it start?”
The man with the mustache scanned me from behind dark sunglasses, uncertain of what to make of this lumbering brute who had decided to interrupt his day. Unlike the man in blue, he took a moment, carefully selecting from the battery of options he had to lob at my unexpected disruption. “You’re a bit late to get the scoop, monsieur.” The up and down of his glasses stopped, examination complete. “Particularly for American news.”
I laughed weakly at that, trying to paper over what were the hugely obvious cracks in the shell of my pretext. From behind the sunglasses, I could feel the taller man’s eyes shoot through me, and I was having a hard time convincing even myself that I was who I said I was. For whatever reason, I blathered on. “Well, I heard some rumors that this was more than a fire.” I paused, seeing if either man gave away anything. They didn’t. “That people may have died?”
That got their attention, both men sighing as they arrived at the mutual conclusion that some kind of statement would have to be made. They returned to the fire, more to speak away from my direction, and conferred, ending with the blue-shirted man sweeping a hand towards me, indicating to his co-worker it was his turn to take out the trash. As they pivoted back and forth I saw that the emblem on his right breast was that of a fire brigade.
Sunglasses came back to face me and tried to dismiss my inquiry with, “You can read the incident statement at the commissariat.”
It took me a moment to understand he meant the local precinct, trying to cover it up by nodding with some enthusiasm. “Sure,” I mimicked satisfaction, but contradicted that with, “but you’re right here. And I’m guessing you know what’s going on.” I pointed at Blue Shirt, “You’re fire brigade right? What, like a captain?” I snapped my fingers as I switched targets to Sunglasses. “And you’re national police?” Close inspection revealed he was, indeed, wearing cowboy boots. “You don’t look like gendarme.”
He let out another heavy exhalation, removed the sunglasses from his face, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. When his face came back up, the lines in it only confirmed the miles of fatigue that ran across it. “I am Inspecteur Rotella.”
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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