To start at the beginning of the story go here.
The loud thump from upstairs faded into smaller phantom noises. I lowered my eyes to ask Moreau. “You live alone?”
He grinned, rueful and honest, knowing the noise already told me the answer. I walked over to him, putting my bulk close enough that I could make a grab if he tried to run. Or hobble away, as the case may be. “Is Lanzo upstairs?”
Moreau lit the cigarette before answering, a sure sign he was buying time. Rather than wait for that, I moved him aside, intent on the garage’s back entrance. It was the only exit I couldn’t see.
I tried to strike a balance between quick and quiet, but found myself halted by Moreau’s hand on my elbow. While the rest of him might be a creaking mess, his hand was like iron, grasping me by the crook of my arm hard enough to cause pain, even through the trench coat. “Where do you think you are going?” Moreau tried to keep the smile on his face, another indication he was now engaged in a delaying action.
With more effort than I’d like to admit I shook Moreau off and dashed for the garage’s back door. I pulled it open to see a short hall with a set of stairs going up to the second floor with a rear exit beyond that. Only feet from the back door was Larenz, leather jacket hastily pulled over a white shirt, holding his boots in his hands. Surprised and afraid, his eyes bulged so that I thought they might pop out past his shovel of a nose.
I knew I should be calm, wanted to be calm, but with Moreau’s laying hands on me and the surprising effort it took to break free I found my breathing slightly accelerated, steaming through my nose like a cartoon bull. I began to say, “I just want to talk,” or “Wait.” Something equally useless. Lanzo saw my hulking frame, though, and I probably looked a lot like the first time we met, with no Gaspard there to restrain me.
So it shouldn’t have surprised me that he ran. It did, but it shouldn’t have. Bare feet or no, Lanzo bolted through the back door, leaving it swinging in his wake. I wasted a second with a curse and tore after him.
While the alley’s of Old Town might have been neat and narrow, the alley behind Petit Motos Moreau was just narrow. The concrete was pitted and the backs of the shops that made its walls were piled high with an impossibly varied amount of junk that had all of the orderliness of a caber tossing contest.
I jumped over or pushed past anything between me and Lanzo, including the boxes and cans he threw back at me. I had to admire his agility, but his bare feet were too much of a disadvantage.
Even shoeless he was managing to gain in his lead until he turned a corner and I heard a yell. I followed, stopping to see him on the ground a dozen yards beyond the turn, clutching one foot. I kept my distance, catching my breath, moving to hold my hands up in what I hoped would be a gesture of peace.
My hands went up higher when Lanzo pulled out the revolver. In pain as he was, he released his foot to whip out the pistol. He aimed it in my general direction if not reliably at me. The unsteadiness of his hand didn’t reassure me, though, as the bore of the barrel was wide enough to hold its own special darkness.
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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