Her attitude put a stone in Mitnick’s eye. He leaned forward, bending at the waist to hover over her. “Good afternoon, Nika. I would like you to meet some friends of ours.”
Nika glanced over her shoulder at we trio of strangers. With me strapped into a too-tight, secondhand trench coat, Rotella with his cowboy boots, and Sophie’s reposed and scarred beauty, I can’t imagine what she must have thought of us. She returned to Mitnick. “What is it that you want?”
“Don’t you want to meet our friends?” While they bickered, Sophie unfolded herself from the chair and glided over.
Nika’s expression pinched in a way that said what she really wanted Mitnick to go do. Instead, though, she replied, “I want to go down the cliffs today.”
Sophie caught her attention with, “Hello, Nika. Would you like some champagne?” Sophie held out her glass as if it had always been intended for the other woman.
“No,” Nika looked like she’d prefer a shot of vodka. “Who are you?”
While Mitnick said something chastising about being rude, Sophie only laughed. “I’m Sophie Carbone. I am new to the city as well.”
Nika’s hostility, having found no place to roost on Sophie, returned to Mitnick. “Are you arranging playdates now?”
Sophie ignored Mitnick to laugh at the jab. “As if we were children. You are funny. Mitnick said you were funny.” Sophie shook her head. “But no. I was hoping you could tell me about the city.”
Nika stared at Sophie with her height and beauty and scars as if she might be some kind of trap. “I am not a tour guide.”
Sophie leaned forward to set the champagne onto Mitnick’s desk, bringing her close to Nika. “Who wants to know such things that a tour guide can tell you?” In a conspiratorial whisper she added, “Where is the fun in that?”
Nika pulled on the front of her sweatshirt, bunching it into a fist. “Russians don’t do fun,” She emphasized the last word like someone might a venereal disease.
Still close, still quiet, Sophie said, “That’s not what I hear.”
If it were possible, Nika grew a shade paler. Before she could respond, though, Sophie took her by the arm. “Russians drink and share stories, recite poetry, tell bawdy jokes.” Sophie gestured towards the closed French windows. “But there is nothing but silence here. Aren’t you bored?” Sophie winked at her. “Let us go down to the cliffs and leave these men to the business of being boring.”
Stunned by the frontal assault of Sophie’s charm, Nika slowly nodded. Sophie took a step towards one of the French doors, the younger woman moved with her. Before any of us really knew what was happening, the pair of them were gone, outside onto the long green lawn that stretched towards the cliffs Sophie had rescued me from.
Mitnick nodded to Brick who moved to follow Nika and Sophie. He said something to him in Russian, then in English, for our benefit, “Keep your distance. They have requested privacy.”
I hoped no one would notice that Sophie knew which exit to take to get to the cliffs. Rotella, watching the curtains float in the wake of Sophie and Nika’s departure said, “She can be very persuasive.”
Mitnick replied, “So I see.”
“Then you see why the men you seek the friendship of will believe her.”
Mitnick’s smile returned, happy to be back on familiar territory. “And what will that cost me?”
A part of me marveled that Mitnick considered the large wad of cash he had given me to be just the cover charge to get Rotella in the door. I tried not to think about the fact that it was a month’s pay for me.
I sat down on one of the library’s settees and watched them while pretending to not pay attention. In different circumstances I might have been able to doze. Now, though, my mind kept wondering to the Russians and how one might look out a window and think to himself that perhaps Sophie appeared familiar.
The conversation caught my attention again when I overheard Rotella say, “When you first came here, you did business with Sartre?”
Mitnick snorted, a quick exhalation to push the Night Governor far from him. “He is a greedy man who wants too much for himself.”
Rotella nodded. “Your independent moves have sullied that relationship, then?”
Mitnick raised his shoulders and spread his hands as if all of Old Town were between him and Rotella. “I make a few inquiries, ask about the casino, perhaps if they are open to partnership, and he flies off. Does damage that cannot be undone.”
“You mean the scene he caused?”
“Yes! How is that a way to treat another man?”
Rotella sadly shook his head. “So you see Sartre’s impunity. His roots here are deep. All can be made to look the other way.”
“I would never make such a display. I only wish to conduct my business in peace.” Mitnick’s words moved him, marching back-and-forth like a czar heading towards a peasant village he intended to burn to the ground for its insolence.
Rotella nodded. “Our business here, if concluded favorably, can provide against such encounters from happening again.”
I sat there for the better part of an hour, listening to Rotella and Mitnick speak in language that became more direct the more liquor they consumed. Rotella was very good at playing the dirty cop. Before I had time to really worry myself about this, Sophie returned. “Dur is escorting Nika to her tennis lesson,” she explained, and I smiled, admiring that she had learned Brick’s Christian name in their brief time outside.
Without pause, Sophie crossed the room to Rotella, taking his whiskey from his hand to sip it. “She is unhappy. But she is safe and no one’s prisoner.”
Rotella openly admired Sophie in the way that Frenchmen do that somehow doesn’t offend women. He turned to Mitnick, smiling to share this esteem. “This is excellent news. For both of us.” The alcohol glow around him only added to his performance.
Mitnick’s wide and toothy smile reappeared and the two men fell to finishing their bargaining. The negotiations took on a friendly intensity.
Sophie, as ever, played it cool. It was only in the car later, as we careened down the canyon roads with a slightly drunk cop at the wheel, that she said, “She has the note.”
To read the previous chapter, go here.
To read the author’s published work, go here.
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