To start at the beginning of the story go here.
We left Lanzo with Sartre and a reminder to meet at the Distributeur International warehouse the next evening. The two had matters to discuss; funeral arrangements for Moreau and whether to involve the police.
I had Atwell drop me off at the telephone booth near the cathedral. I used it to check the messages on the mobile and was happy to see there weren’t any. That meant Rotella and me were still on to meet Mitnick tomorrow afternoon.
Back at the tenement, I climbed the stairs, kicking trash out of my path and pumping my legs to clear my mind. When that didn’t work, I sat down in the apartment to inspect the revolver.
I had it disassembled and laid out on the coffee table when Sophie arrived home. She breezed in with her quiet grace, standing at the coffee table before I really knew she was there. By way of greeting, she said, “You are on the map.”
Startled and confused, I followed her gaze to the table and realized her map of the brothels must be under the tablecloth. Not a particularly complex way to hide it, but simple and effective. I nodded and began to scoop up the pieces of the revolver into the dishtowel they were on. As if remembering some point of protocol, Sophie bent over from her great height and kissed the top of my head as I moved out of the way. Closer now, she noticed the black metal pieces I was working with and asked, “What is this?”
“It’s a pistol.” Sophie stared at me, her level gaze telling me she was expecting a more in-depth answer. “It’s broken. I’m trying to fix it.”
Sophie’s eyebrows went up and the corners of her mouth went down indicating some perverse interest. “Can you?”
I shook my head. “The firing pin is busted. Without a new one, I can’t.”
“Where would you get this?”
“No idea. If we were in the States I could pick one up anywhere.”
“But you are in a civilized country,” Sophie replied with the wriest of smiles.
I pulled the tablecloth up, revealing the map underneath with its scattering of dots. “Yeah. Civilized.”
Sophie didn’t need to look at the map with its pink and blue to understand the jab. “You have a point.”
As she moved to sit in front of the map I asked, “So how’s it going?” Pulling solely from her memory of the last 24 hours, she began to color in new circles. Watching the muscles in her back move as she dug the pen into the paper, I heard Cheryl whistling a low, idle tune, something she did when pretending to ignore the obvious. I resisted the urge to tell the imaginary incarnation of my deceased wife to shut up.
Fortunately, Sophie put actual sound into the air by answering, “It has been busy.”
Watching her dot the map, almost all in blue, one after another, I said, “I can tell.”
Whatever depravities Sophie had witnessed in her travels across the city had clearly not improved her mood. She continued to work in silence. Her usual graceful curves became sharp angles as her jangled nerves flowed into her scrawling.
I thought about asking her more questions about her investigations. Instead I remembered the inspector and my promise to him. “I spoke with the cop, Rotella.”
“Si?”
“He’s going to help me get a message to Nika. To get her out. I offered him a copy of the map in exchange.” This sparked enough interest in Sophie that she lifted her gaze to me. “He wants to bust open Mitnick and Sartre’s operations. I figure we let him. We just have to time him right.”
Sophie leaned away from the map and into my American-sized indentation on the couch. She idly placed the pen she was holding to her lips, eyes resting on me. “How is he going to see Nika?”
“Mitnick wants to meet him. See if he can be bought. Somewhere in there we’ll get her a note that Lanzo wrote to her. Tells her where and when to meet.”
Sophie tapped the pen twice against her lips. “How will this happen?”
“We’re meeting at Mitnick’s place. Nika should be there. Rotella’s going to say he needs to talk to her if Mitnick wants him to play ball, that he’s heard rumors she’s being held against her will.”
Sophie blinked as the implausibilities started to pile up. “Then how will she escape?”
As usual, Sophie had managed to isolate the weak spot in any plan. “Well, that’s up to her. She did it once before.”
Sophie arched an eyebrow. “Before she was let out to play. Now the man who allowed this is dead, newcomers from the old country swarm the city. They will not simply let her go.” Sophie’s own considerations caused her to lean forward, rapping the map in pangs of thought. “Mitnick’s home is far from town. How will she make her way to the city?”
Sophie was pointing out a series of uncertainties I had been glossing over since speaking with Rotella. Not particularly pleased at having my brilliance questioned, I replied, “She’ll have to figure it out.”
Sophie smiled in the same way as when she had first asked if she should visit Mitnick. “I will go with you.”
“What? Where?”
“With Rotella. To visit Mitnick and this Nika.”
“Mitnick isn’t expecting anyone else.”
Sophie leaned back into the couch again, this time languidly unfurling her long form, the curves of her body stretching the light sweater she was wearing. “Do you think he would mind a visitor from such as me?”
“Yes,” I said emphatically, “I do.”
“Then you will tell him I am an associate of Rotella’s. He wishes me to speak with the girl.”
“What if someone recognizes you from the party?”
Sophie raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Rotella is the first police to consort with lucciola? We will merely say that I am a…” She paused as she found the English words she was searching for, “A professional friend.”
“And you think that Mitnick and his people will just accept this?”
Sophie returned to her map with a simple, “Si.”
Sophie’s insistence on coming along had supplanted the rancor she had brought home with her. I sat down next to her on the couch, the resulting rocking taking her attention away from the map. “If you’re going to come along we’re going to have to nail down some details.”
Vagaries always allowed Sophie to play the mysterious card, to avoid commitment, to allow a sphere of control that she never had to explain to anyone, including me. So forcing her to sit and talk about details was perhaps one of her least favorite things. But we did talk – we talked about the map, the Inspecteur, and how she would get the note to Nika. How Lanzo might bring her to the hutch.
We walked through it as carefully as setting up dominos, with Sartre and Mitnick at one end. In the middle were the police raids on the cathouses. At the finish were Lanzo and Nika disappearing under the resulting cloud of war.
Realizing we might be up late, I went into the kitchen and made some coffee. Sophie hummed happily on thecouch until I heard Cheryl’s voice as if she were there with me. With a teasing lilt that she knew always irritated me, she asked, “So y’all gonna talk about fuckin’?”
From the corner of my mouth, hopefully low enough that Sophie couldn’t hear, I let out a slow, “Shut up.”
There was the echoing laughter that told me I was being a fool and it faded like it was falling down a well, a happy suicide that took my wife away again for the millionth time. I ran from that and strode into the other room, vibrating with an intensity that only Sophie could ignore.
I reached out and took her by the wrist, pulling her attention away from the map. Touching her without permission got me a reflexively sharp stare, one dangerous enough that I was glad her Opinel knife wasn’t within easy reach. Her expression mellowed, though, when she saw my eyes, uncertainty in a man that usually moved with purpose. Her free hand floating to gently land on my cheek.
Unsure of how to address the enormity of everything in front of us, particularly right there in that small apartment, I could only think to say, “I’m not sure how to do this.”
Sophie gave me a small grin, pulling me closer by the hand I held her by. With a twist and a pull she easily freed her wrist and placed its palm on my other cheek, tilting her forehead to mine. The hard edges of the small space between us softened as she said, “I miss her too.”
I wanted to lash out at that statement, to say that I had lost more, to point out that she had only known Cheryl a few weeks. As her hands guided my bulk into the bedrooom, though, I let that selfishness go, melting instead into the warm comfort I had retreated from it almost every other time I had felt it with Sophie.
We lay like that until a fart escaped me much louder than I expected. Sophie giggled. I couldn’t help but laugh as well, using it as a signal to get up and get moving. But Sophie pulled me down again and, eyes flicking towards the fading of the sun through the window, said, “We have the time.”
To read the next chapter, go here.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
To read the author’s published work, go here.
Related Posts
The CRISPR Club Next Post:
The Trail of Adventure
