To start from the beginning go here.

I watched the driver to see if his elephantine ears or gray stubble gave any twitch of recognition. Nothing did. Just before I was afraid the cold sweat creeping out of my scalp might give me away he repeated his question of my nationality.

I nodded. Playing as if we hadn’t met I asked, “You’re from Mitnick?”

He smiled at the simple assumption but nodded.

There could be a thousand things behind that cryptic grin and thinking too much on it would only drown me in the possibilities, so I continued with, “I need to bring something out,” I pointed a thumb over my shoulder to indicate the tenement, then a finger to the trunk. “Pop the trunk.”

Something that was either suspicion or confusion contracted the space around his eyes, causing his eponymous lobes to move like some kind of weasel. Hoping it was misunderstanding I tried a different phrasing, “Open the boot.”

Whatever his concerns, Ears reached down to the car’s floorboard and I heard the trunk open. “Be right back.” I held up a finger in case I wasn’t understood.

Despite an urge to run up the stairs, I took the elevator. The out-of-order sign would probably keep tenets away, but occupation was the best assurance. It moved with a dilapidated slowness that made me itch, but I forced myself to stand still. At the fourth floor, I hit the ‘stop’ button again and headed to our door.

Sophie was waiting for me, guarding the front door, or both. She wore a floppy sunhat which drooped over her face and clothes that were unisex in their utility, a pair of work pants cinched up around her waist and a baggy shirt. Nothing could really hide Sophie’s femininity, but that outfit was as close as she could get.

I moved to the corpse without a word and stood at its head. She moved to the feet and we picked it up, involuntarily groaning as we shifted it under our arms, like you would if you were carrying a carpet and not a body you wanted to hide one in.

Whatever he was in life, I was grateful that in death the pimp wasn’t as heavy as any hearts he might have broken. We shuffled our way to the elevator where I managed to hold onto him with one arm long enough to disengage ‘stop’ and hit the lobby button. The elevator rattled all the way down, minute vibrations shaking it and our nerves.

I held my breath as we hit the lobby, my mind conjuring up someone waiting outside the elevator, ignoring the sandwich board. There was a quick inhalation from both me and Sophie as the door disengaged. We expelled a simultaneous sigh of relief as the lobby was revealed to be empty of anything but its subway tiles and clustered mailboxes.

I kicked the sign away and we made our way to the back. I nearly stumbled outside the door, but kept my balance despite the weight, and headed towards the car’s trunk. By the time we got over to it and I had lifted the lid Ears was there, staring with a hostile suspicion at the carpet. “What is this?” His tone said that this wasn’t in his mission briefing and he wasn’t happy about the surprise.

Fortunately for me, details get left out of foot soldiers’ orders every day of the week. I just shrugged and said, “The Frenchman’s dirty laundry.”

I turned back to Sophie to find she had started back inside after dropping the carpet’s payload. I smiled, happy that she was smart enough not to stick around. I slammed the trunk and resisted the ridiculous urge to follow her for a goodbye kiss. Might be the last one, Cheryl’s voice said.

Ears was waiting for me when I returned from fantasy land, grim and floating in a cloud of cologne. He was wearing what appeared to be the standard issue black leather jacket, loose enough that I could grab a handful of it, thick enough to keep out the cold or possibly a knife blade. While I took that in, Ears assessed me, some recognition perhaps starting to brew in the eye he cocked at me.

Not wanting to give that too much time to develop any theories, I moved to the passenger-side door. “Let’s go.”

To my luck’s credit, Ears got in and started the car after a few more moments. He asked, perhaps while planning the automobile’s path through the alley’s minefield of trash, “Where are we going?”

“Head towards L’Ariane,” I answered, staring out the window as if I was more worried about what was outside of it than in it. When the car didn’t move I came back to Ears to find him staring at me with an empty hostility that told me he didn’t know the city well enough to make sense of that. He was new in town.

I grinned in what I hoped was a disarming fashion. “Head north. Towards the A8.” I reasoned that if he had come in through the airport he would have seen the highway. Whether he did or not, though, he put the car into gear and began to maneuver it out of the alley.

Once on the street, Ears reiterated his question. “Where are we going?”

“I can drive if you want,” I responded, raising my voice to make it sound like I was trying to be helpful. When a scowl was the only reply I received, I answered, “If you don’t know where L’Ariane is you won’t know where were going.”

Ears gestured towards the center console of the Lexus, indicating the onboard navigation system. “You don’t have address?”

I realized I didn’t and hoped I remembered enough to find the gas station again. I covered this up with exasperation, saying, “Just head towards the A8.”

Ears pointed the car north, technically towards the highway, but not the best way. I didn’t mention that, using the extra time to remember where we were going. L’Ariane wasn’t a huge neighborhood, but I didn’t want to spend time cruising around with Ears, lost, with him about to lose his patience.

With the evening’s cool settling in it was a shame not to enjoy the scenery. Even headed towards the concrete canyon of the highway, the Mediterranean spring was beautiful and green, the smell of plumbago mingling with the diesel fumes of the road and the poverty of the banlieue. That was all stripped away as Ears put his foot down and we hit cruising speed to launch up the highway’s onramp, the scents and the scenes reduced to a gray blur.

Calculating which exit to get off on was interfered with by the occasional sideways glance by Ears. Like a static discharge that cut through my brain, I could sense a growing attention from him. It culminated in him asking, “I know you?”

With his hands on the wheel and here on orders of his boss, I didn’t see a point in hiding that anymore. Or maybe I just didn’t care. “Yeah,” I told him, “we’ve met.”

He laughed and slammed the steering wheel with the root of his palm, victory coming into his vodka addled memory. “I knew it,” he grinned ahead at the road, then stared at me long enough to make me uncomfortable at the speed were traveling. “без обид, da?”

Wanting him to get back to the road, but uncertain of the Russian, I replied, “Sure,” while keeping my eyes ahead. He lingered on me longer, clearly not sure if I understood or cared about his question, until I nodded back towards the highway. A quick swerve avoided a near collision and we were back, hurtling through the tunnel of light the road’s LEDs cut through the dark.

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To start from the beginning go here.

Sophie had wrestled with the corpse enough to roll it up in the rug rather than just cover it. There was something ridiculously cliched about that, but I had to admit it would work better than a lot of alternatives. The stiffness of the rug would keep it from sagging or folding into the telltale profile of a body, and its thickness wouldn’t be likely to leak fluids.

I found Sophie in the kitchen sitting in a chair at our one remaining table. I went to the oven to make some coffee, more to cover the smell than anything else. As a peace offering, I offered her a cup when it was finished. She took it, fatigue around her eyes and gratitude in her smile. We sat at the table, drinking coffee and not saying anything as the sun went down.

When the last of the orange glow peeked through the slats of the kitchen windows, banding across my eyes, I stood up. “I’ll need to wait for the car outside,” I said, hoping the driver wouldn’t call the phone when he arrived. “When I see it, I’ll come up. I’ll need your help moving him.” I hooked a thumb at the other room, indicating the body through the wall. “Wear something so your face is hard to see. It could be one of Mitnick’s men from the party.”

Sophie nodded, this last piece of information causing her normally sunny face to cloud with new concerns. She didn’t say anything, though, and I left.

I took the elevator down to the lobby. Once there I searched for the ‘hors d’usage’ sandwich board that I figured the superintendent’s lazy drunkenness wouldn’t have taken far. I was right in that, the yellow plastic sign leaned up against the elevator’s outer wall. I hit the elevator’s ‘Stop’ switch, pleasantly surprised that the usual buzzing alarm didn’t sound. I set the sign in front of the lift and headed out back.

The rear of the tenement was much the same as the back of most buildings in the tightly packed city. Even this far out beyond the periphérique space was at enough of a premium that little of it was wasted, so the rear of the building was backed up against another tenement, leaving only a small, utilitarian strip in between them. The main difference between here and most of Old Town’s back alleys was those came to dead ends, but here it connected two streets, making it easier for people to see the things that alleys were meant to keep hidden. The dumpsters were tagged with the graffiti that was standard for this banlieue. A soccer ball and makeshift goal suggested that the space was also used for as an impromptu play space.

I sat down on the tenement’s back steps to wait. I tried to pass the time by being grateful that at least it wasn’t raining.

When full dark came down in the alley I wasn’t surprised to learn that none of the exterior lights worked. I sat immobile, the occasional rat and a small band of teens the only things that moved through the alley. I don’t think either of them noticed me.

It was the only car to turn down the alley, headlights cutting bright holes through the darkness, illuminating the trash and dirty brickwork. I stood up, letting the driver see me, an American sentry waiting for their arrival. The car crept towards me, carefully guided through the narrow passage.

Like a black dorsal fin cutting through the dark, its approach left me with the paralyzing struggle of what to do next. I managed the smart thing and just stood there. The car was an early 21^st century Lexus, something from before the financial crisis. I breathed a sigh of relief at seeing it was a sedan big enough for four or five adults and with a trunk for a sixth.

The car pulled up next to me and the window went down with an electric whir. I leaned down to peer inside and clenched my jaw at making eye contact with Ears. The Russian was sober this time with one of his star tattoos poking out from underneath the collar of his black shirt. I stiffened, feeling my back cinch with dread, leaving me bent and giving him plenty of time to take a good look at me.

He stared with hard, inscrutable eyes and asked, “American?”

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To read the previous chapter, go here

See author’s published work here.

To start at the beginning go here.

“I need an automobile.”

A rough, short laugh came back through the void between the phones, my odds sinking into whatever abyss they floated up from. In a tone that suggested he’d like a date with Irina Shayk, the voice replied, “Why would you need this?”

Paranoia suddenly struck me; even alone in the alley, I was still afraid to mention Sartre by name. “The Frenchmen,” I hoped the euphemism would be understood by whichever Ukrainian I was talking to, “He’s hiding something. I need a car to take me there.” Again, the statement was close enough to the truth that I could make it ring true.

There was a pause and the ruffled noise of a hand covering the phone. I stood and sweated in the cool of the alley until it felt like it might be there till the next ice age. What was probably just a few minutes later the rustling noise returned followed by the voice. “Where and when do you wish this automobile?”

I froze. Being the big idiot that I am, it hadn’t occurred to me that I would have to give up our address. “I can come pick it up?”

“Non,” the voice said, pronouncing the negative in some bastardization of French and Slavic accent. “It will come to you. Where and when?”

I could hang up, try to steal a car or borrow one from the casino. But each of those had their own drawbacks and I had already played my hand with whatever Russian I was speaking with. I intentionally breathed out of my nose again, slowly emptying my lungs until I gave the tenement’s address with my last few ounces of oxygen. “Pull around back,” I added, “away from the street. After nightfall.” I wasn’t exactly sure when that would be, but given the hours I had witnessed lifetime criminals observe, it would be late enough that local foot traffic would be at a minimum.

“Da,” came the reply, then added a condition. “When you are done, go by the cathedral, tomorrow, at noon. The Brigadier wishes to speak with you.” The connection ended.

I blinked at the phone having to sort through everything that was already cluttering my mind in order to make the connection that ‘the brigadier’ was Mitnick. He had never seemed like the standard-issue gangster, but was he ex-military? That didn’t seem right either, but I lost that train of thought in the realization that I had almost completely forgotten about Mitnick’s request to meet.

I closed the phone and stared at its blackness, feeling like the decision I had just made imbued it with its own weight. I considered taking it with me. After all, Mitnick’s people had my address now. However, they didn’t actually know if I lived there and they didn’t know the apartment number. I also wasn’t crazy about carrying a personal tracker, in general. With that in mind I decided to leave the phone with Simon.

I made my way back inside and set the mobile down where Simon had left it, returning to my espresso. While I sipped it, Simon swept back behind the bar and made the phone disappear into his apron with a nonchalance that made me wonder if he had done this kind of thing before. That got me to thinking about how the name of the local plant life, Maquis, was also the name of the French resistance in World War II, and how the Mediterranean coast had been a hub of smuggling since long before the Vichy government.

All of this floated through my mind as I watched Simon move with a smooth professionalism behind the counter, cooking in between taking orders, brewing coffee, tending to customers when absolutely required. For a moment I wished that I could step out of the peacoat and pick up a broom or a pan and get lost in helping him, disappear into this tiny cafe in this tiny spot on the edge of a tiny ocean.

That lasted until I heard Cheryl laughing at me. She had been one of the few people in my life who never been afraid to poke fun at me and her ghost did it then. It played images for me of the conflicts my life’s decisions had thrust me into, from Ramadi to Denver, and she asked me how long I thought I could work here before I found some kind of trouble.

Even her memory could make me laugh. I let out a small chuckle that caught a quick eye from Simon. I tried to give him a reassuring grin that I only mangled before leaving a euro coin for the coffee. He cleaned a glass and pretended not to watch me leave.

There was plenty of time before nightfall, but I rushed back to the tenement anyway. Jardin was gone or squirreled away to whatever hiding place Sophie had stowed her. Sophie herself was cleaning up as best she could, the corpse covered by a Turkish rug that was worn enough that she might have rescued it from a local dumpster. It gave the air around it the slight tinge of a Victorian mystery.

Whatever amusement that might have produced wasn’t enough to smooth the anger under my skin. I headed back into the bedroom without saying anything, hoping my fatigue might win over all the other competing concerns in my mind. I took off my shoes and coat and fell back onto the bed without bothering with anything else.

Broom and dustpan in hand, Sophie took three steps to cover the distance to the bedroom door. “Would you like something to eat?” she asked me in French or Italian. I was too tired to decipher which.

“No,” I replied, rolling over in a childish indication that I didn’t want to speak. I could feel Sophie hovering, sorry for the trouble she had brought, but not sorry enough that she’d apologize for the dead man in the other room.

I breathed out deeply again, feeling the specter of Cheryl poke me in the ribs from what would have been her side of the bed. Letting out a heavy and equally childish sigh, I rolled onto my back and stared at the water-stained ceiling. “A car will be coming tonight. We’ll move the body downstairs and get it into the trunk. I’ll take it and get rid of it.”

There was a long enough pause that I thought Sophie might have left, the only reminder of her presence a slight flutter of her clothes as she pivoted in position, a clear indicator of uncertainty on her part. She selected what was, I’m sure, one of a number of questions on her mind. “Where does the car come from?”

“Mitnick,” I answered. There was a stillness from Sophie that gave me some malformed pleasure in knowing that with that answer I had transferred some of my worries to her.

“This will not cause trouble?” Her voice was small. There was no contrition there, but I could feel her staring out the sepia window towards an uncertain future.

“Maybe,” I shrugged, causing the bed to creak.

“What will you do with him?” I noted she referred to the corpse as a person, not a thing, and some fatigue-deluded part of me wondered what this meant. It wasn’t likely to be guilt, Sophie being Sophie. Now that he was dead and she had spent some time with him, she could probably see him for the imperfect human being that he was. Regret, I had learned, wasn’t the same as guilt.

“I’ll dump it in one of the bogs outside the city.” I don’t know why I lied, but I did.

“You wish that I should come with you?” Eyes closed, I considered that. Her strength would be useful, in both carrying the body and dealing with any trouble that might come our way.

Sophie had been at Mitnick’s, though, and there was the possibility whoever was being sent with the car might recognized her. So I said, “No,” then giving the realities of the situation some thought I added, “but I’ll need your help carrying,” I waved my hand towards the corpse in the other room, “down to the car.”

After a pause, Sophie only replied, “Si,” and went back to sweeping.

I passed in and out of consciousness for a few hours, fitfully trying to get some sleep. Under the circumstances, I think I did any green recruit proud, but the pimp’s ghost and the specter of future troubles kept me awake most of the time. Sophie lay down with me at some point, but most of her time was spent shuffling around the apartment or on the couch and in the company of the dead man.

Death causes everything to let go; all the muscles relax, the involuntary processes that move the body like a bellows cease. The resulting seepage from the pimp made the den smell like a backed up sewer. That, and the slow sinking of the sun got me out of bed.

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