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“Don’t do this, Sartre. It’s not the smart play. You’re pissed because the cops are raiding your houses and you can’t touch them. Now Mitnick is getting in on the dog pile and you want to hurt someone.”
Sartre hadn’t changed clothes or washed since we had last seen each other, the sheen of bad liquor and bad decisions still on him. I could tell he was seconds from ordering his men to gun me down.
Before he could, I broke eye contact with him to look at his goons. While a few of them had the seasoned appearance of competent NCOs, the rest had a youth that was barely concealed by the quality and uniformity of their dark suits. They were too young to be here, fighting for a man like Sartre. They should be partying or going to school, or out somewhere smoking and drinking wine, trying to impress girls. The familiar sadness of seeing boys too young to fight and die dripped into my anger, catalyzing it into a burning need.
So I punched Sartre. I grabbed him by the lapel of his well-constructed jacket and dragged him to me as I pushed my fist into his face. He buckled, but I held him up. Surprised yells rose from his men.
With Sartre stunned, I spun him and got the steel of the umbrella’s rod across his throat, keeping him between me and his crew. The yelling rose fast, making it impossible for me to understand the gutter French. The sounds of guns being cocked I understood, though.
With my mouth close to his ear, I whispered to Sartre, “Don’t do this.” I had to wrestle him in place before I could add, “It’s not the smart play.”
“He is tearing my city apart,” Sartre spit, lifting his legs to force me into hold up all of his weight. “I will destroy him for this.”
I held him up with the umbrella across his throat, letting him choke himself until he had to put his feet down. I stepped back, closer to the embankment, preventing any of his rooks from getting behind me as I kept Sartre between me and his guns.
“You’re gonna kill some girl to settle a score with Mitnick? I thought you were a man.” My appeal to his machismo got a few elbows thrown back at me, Sartre trying to use my ribs to climb out of the grapple.
“He has left bodies across my city! He has murdered Moreau! He has burned my station! And you wish me to reason with him?!”
The rooks broke up the headlights, figures jittering like puppets against a flame, waving guns around. In an attempt to control Sartre I snarled, “I want you to stick to the plan! Hide the girl while the Russians tear each other apart. We can find a quiet time to kill Mitnick down the road.” Sartre dropped his legs and bent forward, nearly pulling me over his back, dangerously exposing me to the sights of his men.
“He will pay a ransom for her corpse!” Sartre spit his words and dragged my heavier frame around. I kept him between me and his increasingly frantic men, the barrels of their weapons as dark and as deadly as anything on that road. Most of them brayed out commands to release Sartre, but a few were smart enough to move, trying to flank me.
“Stop!” Higher and louder than all the other yelling, the scream pierced the night. I couldn’t see its originator, but I knew it was Nika. Even as Sartre’s men paused in confusion, I cursed Lanzo for letting her draw attention to herself.
Nika didn’t stop screaming, though, the pitch of her voice going higher, reaching for hysterics. I yanked Sartre towards the embankment and glanced over my shoulder. In the broken beams of the headlights I saw Max wrestling with Nika, trying to drag her clear of the embankment. I couldn’t see where the other two were, but I could guess. Sartre saw what was happening too and choked out a laugh.
I kept Sartre between me and his rooks, but they were closing in. I swiveled between them and the river, uncertain of what to do until the canary yellow of a second-hand cardigan rose up behind Max.
Max had his head peeled back as Sophie grabbed his hair with one hand and twisted her hand into the balaclava with the other. She shook him off Nika like pulling a kitten away from a toy and tossed him down the gorge. She turned and dove down into the dark.
Whatever pain Sophie was visiting upon the Idiots was blocked from my view by Nika panicked and fleeing up onto the street. Blind to the new dangers and violence that waited her, she ran towards me and Sartre. The chorus of the rooks didn’t stop her, but the sound of the gunshot echoing out into the night did. It stopped everything.
As the report of the shot faded, it left a vacuum of silence that Nika stood so still in that I expected her to fall. I only noticed she didn’t when Sartre slumped in my arms. Then there was nothing but me holding him up and his weight was suddenly impossible to keep from sliding to the street.
With the struggle gone, I held Sartre, keeping his head up. He opened and closed his mouth silently, the front of his shirt covered in spreading blood. Uncertain of who had fired the fatal shot, I watched the last of Sartre slip away.
Before he left, I said, “I’m sorry.”
To my surprise, I found that I was.
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