To start at the beginning of the story go here.
Rotella snorted in that disdainful way that the French have mastered, but he sat down. He order a coffee, both he and Simon, server and customer, treating each other with a dignity that I hadn’t seen until I arrived in France. I said nothing until they finished their exchange.
“I may be a liar,” I interjected while Simon was still in earshot, “but I wasn’t fooling about the food. It’s good and I’m happy to buy.”
“Perhaps later,” was Rotella’s cautious reply. But like some inverse of Pepe Le Pew, I could tell that the hunger-inducing odors from the kitchen were already beginning to work their charm on him.
“Not even a croissant? Simon doesn’t make them himself, but the bakery he gets them from is excellent.” For some reason I couldn’t resist trying to tempt him, perhaps remembering the wad of Euros in the trench coat pocket, the thousands given to me by Mitnick for the purposes of persuading the inspector.
He declined again and I shrugged. Rotella stared at me, conducting his own inspection as we waited for the coffee. It wasn’t long and only when he had the cup and saucer in front of him did Rotella ask, “What is it that you wish?”
“Marek Mitnick.” I said the name simply and clearly, loud enough that I might have been trying to summon the Devil.
Rotella fingered the rim of his coffee cup, his eyes resting on me in an expectant way. I realized then where the expectation was coming from – he was waiting for me to lie. Given his occupation, and how we met, I suppose I couldn’t blame him. When the pronunciation of the name wasn’t followed immediately by a falsehood, he asked, “What of him?”
Since it was established that I was a liar, I decided to veer into the truth. “You’re investigating him.”
If my knowledge of this statement was a surprise to Rotella, he kept it to himself. For whatever reason this made me want to jostle him. I pulled out the money roll, easily the size of my fist, and said, “He wants you to stop.”
The sheer amount of cash and its sudden appearance put a dent in Rotella’s European cool, his blue eyes wavering. However, even a dirty cop would have been an idiot to take a bribe right out in the open. And I already knew Rotella wasn’t an idiot, so I said, “But I don’t.”
I have to admit his confusion pleased me. His eyes moved from me to the wad and back again. After a few moments, they settled with, “I do not understand.”
I tapped the roll of currency. “Mitnick asked me to speak with you. To see if you could be made cooperative.” I chose those words suspecting they would grate against the stubborn nature I assumed Rotella shared with most cops. “He knows you’ve been investigating him and he wants to make friends with the local muckety-mucks. Being under police scrutiny tends to make that difficult.”
Rotella snorted again, with even more scorn than he had for Atwell. “I doubt the slight air of scandal would keep him from making friends in high places. Not in this town. Your friend –“
“He’s not my friend.” I elbowed the statement between us.
Clearly no stranger to the undercurrents of anger and violence, Rotella paused. He backed his chair away from the table slightly before continuing. It wasn’t fear – the extra space gave him room to maneuver. Or draw a pistol.
From across those safer inches his eyes dipped down to the currency. “And yet you are his emissary?”
“Mitnick thinks so.” I sipped of my coffee.
“That is a dangerous game.”
“All part of working for Uncle Sam.” I could practically hear Atwell’s cynical laugh at that, particularly as none of this was in the job description.
Rotella pursed his lips, then decided this was worth his time. “Mitnick is already buying up much property, investing in construction, lavishing gifts upon local politicians and what remains of the nobility.” There seemed to be an extra helping of contempt for that last one. “He is making friends of the developers, the realtors, the construction industry, the bankers. He does not need me.”
“He may not need you, but I want him to think he has you.”
“Why?”
“Mitnick may be plugged into the city, but there’s something else he wants. He wants the casino.”
Rotella laughed, an unpleasant sound. “You have not been here long enough to have known many men like Mitnick. He does not want ‘something else’ – he wants it all.”
I thought about Mitnick and the Avoritet. It wasn’t just Mitnick’s greed we were dealing with. I didn’t want to dive into the murky waters of international conspiracy, though, so I replied, “Maybe so, but his designs on the casino are bringing him into conflict with the Night Governor.”
Rotella touched the bridge of his nose as if he were still wearing his sunglasses. Unhidden, I could see him process everything that statement contained – my demonstration of the knowledge of the city’s underworld, the grey area the casino occupied, the dangers of a gang war. “I came because you said you had something that would interest me, ” Rotella pushed for my promised information.
“Mitnick is pushing into Sartre’s territory. And like you said, Mitnick wants it all – smuggling, money laundering, gambling. And he gets two of those if he gets control of the casino.”
Rotella nodded, polite listening stretching out into a non-response, so I continued with, “One of those rackets is human trafficking. He’s been bringing in women, mostly refugees from Ukraine. I think he was originally cooperating with Sartre, providing him girls, but lately he’s been setting up his own shops.” Pause for dramatic effect. “I think its part of his power grab. He’s claiming territory for his own outside partners.”
Rotella drank his coffee, making a show of being unimpressed. “You said what you had would interest me.”
“So if I’m right, it could lead to gang war from Paris to Marseilles. You want shootouts in the street?” At the thought of street fighting, the memory of a bullet whizzed past me and I felt the desert heat. I hoped Rotella couldn’t see the fire behind my eyes, the part of me that still lived in that violence.
Rotella’s pretend indifference, tempered by years of hard cop work, wasn’t quite enough to stay intact in the face of that idea. “And what would you do to stop it?”
I smiled, pretending that I was glad to have his interest, but found holding the grin to be painful. “I have reason to believe that Mitnick is holding someone in his house against their will.”
Rotella’s eyes snapped to me with that statement – I could almost hear his irises narrowing. “How do you know this?”
“I don’t know it,” I admitted that truth to keep spinning my lies. “But I do know there’s a woman named Nika in his house, under guard, that never officially entered the country. She’s got no passport, no papers, nowhere to go without Mitnick’s permission.” I wasn’t sure if I was describing Nika or the women from the cathouse at that point, but I went with it.
“If it could be proven that Mitnick was holding someone prisoner,” Rotella nodded, enthusiasm increasing with each word.
“Then none of his friends in high places could help him, he’d go to prison or be deported, and there’s no gang war.” I shrugged, leaning back into my chair. “Or at least it’s a rain day.” Rotella looked at me quizzically and I clarified with, “At least it’s delayed.”
Rotella nodded again, then did the cop thing and asked the obvious question, “How would we prove this?”
I smiled, feeling the repercussions of my statement before I made it. “I ask her.”
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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