There wasn’t any getting out of this. I stripped off the trench coat and down to my undershirt, kicked off my shoes. A few of the Russians watched me, narrowed eyes traveling up and down my bulk, my size making them reconsider whether their boss boxing with me was a good idea.
Brick surprised me by stepping forward to help me with the gloves, lacing them up in a competent and speedy manner. In a delaying action I said to him, “You’ve done this before.” He nodded and I asked, “You a boxer too?”
He smiled savagely and nodded again, adding, “But not like Mitnick.” He slapped my shoulder like we were pals. “You are doomed.” I climbed into the ring anyway.
In the ring, Mitnick moved his feet in a quick dance that shuffled him around me, producing more anticipatory chuckling from the crowd. I tried to keep to a corner, but Mitnick circled me, throwing a few jabs that were easy to avoid, but pushed me into the center of the ring before I realized what he was doing. I had to rotate to face him, keeping me off-balance.
In between a few glancing jabs he said, “You have made my houseguests angry.” I opened my mouth to reply, but Mitnick interrupted with the first solid blow. It rang my bell.
He continued, “I ask them to send Mikhail to help you, Mikhail disappears.”
I kept my hands up to ward off his fists. “Pyotr goes to ask you about this and you assault and rob him.”
Mitnick stepped closer and landed a series of body blows that that I mostly kept at bay with my elbows. “You bring police here, insist to meet Nika and now –” Mitnick punctuated his next sentence with fiercer jabs. “Nika is gone and the police have begun raids against me.”
With the pattering of blows, I felt my anger begin to rise. I focused on Mitnick’s comment about the most important thing.
I poked my head out from between my gloves. “The police?” Mitnick rewarded me for dropping my guard with a quick tap that glanced off my forehead.
“Yes! The very same night the police you brought to my house – what was his name?”
It took me a moment to find it. “Rotella.”
“Yes, the very same night you brought him here, his comrades in the police began.”
“You told me to bring him here.”
“Indeed. This Rotella, he must have hidden his intent.”
“From both of us. Let me go find him and you can play with him in here.”
Mitnick laughed as if nothing would please him more. “Did you not hear me? Nika is gone.”
“Nika’s gone?” The constant barrage from Mitnick made it hard to think of anything smarter to say.
“Yes! She stole one my automobiles and drove down the mountain.” Mitnick spoke like a parent cheerfully discussing a child’s mischievous behavior. “She is so clever! Not one of us is able to find her.” Mitnick hit me like crushing disappointment. “How could she, a stranger to this place, manage to stay hidden?”
“We’re all strangers here,” I replied. Mitnick’s smile floated above his own guard, wistful and bright. I took the opportunity to try and land my own jab and nearly got him, but he swerved away. Thinking of Sergei’s bruised corpse, I wondered if he had to endure this before his death. “Maybe you should have had someone watching her.”
The series of jabs this provoked were more forceful, but I had anticipated them, retreating out of reach. His cheer diminished, Mitnick replied, “We have all been watching her. Escape is always possible. But how has she stayed hidden? She has no passport, no money.”
Artfully answering Mitnick’s questions was made imposible by his fists. However, the busy hours he’d had since midnight, didn’t escape me. Dodging a glove, I tried to use that as a distraction, “You think the police raiding your operations has something to do with it?”
“The world is filled with things I do not know.” Mitnick emphasized his point with a solid gut punch that nearly knocked me over. “It is odd to me, though, that after such a good demonstration of faith the inspector should do this.”
With pain radiating from his last blow, I dropped my guard and Mitnick pummeled me. I hobbled on my feet as he shuffled away and said, “I think he is a liar. I think I am surrounded by liars.”
I tried to keep my hands up, elbows close to my body. “If she said she was a prisoner, why wouldn’t Rotella just arrest you for kidnapping?”
“Indeed. Do you know the Corsican boy?” The change of subject confused me as much as the fists. “His name is Lanzo? You met him him after he pestered me in the casino.”
“I remember his friends, the ones you sent to kick my ass.” Two jabs distracted me from a right cross that caused the edges of my vision to blur. I wobbled back adding, “You could have just saved everyone a lot of time and done it yourself.”
Mitnick laughed again and I tried to catch my breath, ribs aching. “Dur and Zakhar found you at his uncle’s shop the first time they brought you here.”
“Yeah. I was told to make sure he got the message not to come around the casino anymore. Your boys interrupted me.”
“So you have not seen this Lanzo since?”
Through my rising heartbeat and the pain crowding my brain, I tried to think. Had one of Mitnick’s men seen me with Lanzo? Had he made a connection?
Instead of answering I channeled my anger into moving closer to Mitnick, taking him by surprise with a series of fast, wild counter-attacks. After landing a few punches, I asked, “Who cares about that idiot?”
Mitnic dodged away. “He has caused much trouble outside of the casino.”
“That’s probably why Atwell wanted me to talk to him. I dropped by his uncle’s a second time, but he didn’t see me.” His uncle couldn’t see me. He was dead.
“I don’t know if she’s going to be OK,” Doctor Imogen told Aggie. The detective had brought in the young tribeswoman to the clinic, and Imogen was almost certainly breaking a number of HIPPA regulations by giving the private detective medical information with Nola unconscious and unable to consent. Chief Veregge, though…well he hadn’t ordered personnel to work with Aggie, but he had made a strongly worded suggestion. Imogen didn’t know how federal laws applied to her clinic, anyway, and she really didn’t care. The people who made those laws were the same as those who had herded her ancestors onto a small patch of land, so she considered the clinic her own sovereign nation. Fuck ’em.
The clinic’s newest resident was one Nola Strong, a young woman who had disappeared from tribal lands more than a few months ago. Most of the young people seemed to do that these days, and despite Nola’s reddish, fuzzy hair and light skin, the doctor suspected she had as much luck as the rest of them did. Now she was here, back home and poisoned.
With the same protectiveness she felt towards all dying breeds, Imogen said, “I don’t think she’ll be able to answer any questions, Ms. McPherson.”
The diminutive detective shrugged in her charcoal suit. With her black hair and somber expression, she could have passed for a child pallbearer. “It’s just Aggie. Or McPherson.
“Anyway, she answered my questions on the way here. I wanted to know if I was right about the diagnosis.” Imogen questioned if Aggie’s story about having just met Nolaa few hours ago was true. Most people didn’t appear this sad over a stranger.
Imogen thought about Nola under the oxygen tent and decided that, either way, the detective deserved answers for having brought her this far. “It looks that way. Heavy metal poisoning, damage to respiratory and capillary systems. It’s hard to tell the extent of the damage just yet.”
Aggie turned to the doctor. The detective didn’t so much sweep her gaze as lock her eyes on one thing, then another, taking each into account before moving onto the next. Imogen found this to be uncomfortable as the full attention of her visitor landed on her. Under the focused gazed, she pushed a loose lock of her own dark hair behind an ear, suddenly and irrationally concerned that she hadn’t had time to wash this morning.
To cover up her sudden discomfort, she wondered aloud, “She seems like the type who would have better options than dangerous work. I wonder why she did it.”
Without hesitation Aggie answered, “He made her feel special.”
“Who made her feel special?”
“I’m gonna find out real soon,” Aggie said with a certainty that Imogen wasn’t sure she liked. While it might be a too frequent an occurrence, she didn’t like violence around the clinic.
Aggie’s tone shifted back into its softer dynamic as she continued, “She should be safe to move to another facility soon. If you need to do that.”
Imogen wasn’t sure why Nola needed the sanctuary of her peoples’ reservation, but she thought of Chief Veregge and decided not to ask. Instead she said, “That’s good. We don’t have the equipment or expertise to treat her here.”
Aggie nodded and spun her diminutive carriage towards the exit, blazer flapping as if she were executing an about-face. At a slow gait, she headed towards the exit, throwing back a “See you around doc.”
The SUV that drove into the clinic parking lot was designed to look like trouble. Big and black, even the bumper and trim were matted into a mute darkness that absorbed light. Watching it from his taxi, Rafi pulled his cap low, slid down into his seat like he was taking a nap, and waited to see if it was enough trouble to warn his boss. Without realizing it, he smiled. This is what he loved about working for McPherson. You never knew what was going to happen.
Three white dudes got out of the SUV. They were all dressed in the same style, clothes as black as the car they arrived in, bulging jackets and dark turtlenecks protecting them from the cold that blew off the river.
Rafi had to hand it to them – they looked so serious that they went all the way around and came out the other side of silly. With their uniform dress, they almost appeared like a military unit, but one was so fat and the other so tall and thin that they could have been Laurel and Hardy. Rafi decided he could wait on warning his boss.
The man in front though, though, Rafi kept an eye on. He was fit and chewing on gum like he was practicing for the biting Olympics. When his gaze settled on Rafi’s taxi, its intensity felt like he was trying to melt it with heat vision.
Aggie’s knock on the window startled him enough that his hat fell back on his head. What he hated about working with McPherson was her penchant for sneaking up on him. He didn’t care for it.
He straightened up in his seat and rolled down the window, its perfect electric purr reminding him of where he got the money from to keep his car well-maintained. Aggie already had her eyes on the three men, but asked Rafi anyway, “Anything interesting happening out here?”
Rafi pulled his hat back on, tipping it towards the trio. “Well, that fine group of gora just arrived.”
“They hassle you yet?”
“They’re thinking about it a lot.” Rafi paused as the trio formed into the world’s smallest phalanx and began heading towards the taxi. “And here they come now.”
Aggie watched the approach before saying, “I guess I’d better go say hello.”
Rafi smiled to himself and, despite the stiff wind coming off the river, rolled his window all the way down. He wanted to be able to hear everything.
Rafi had wrestled for a long time, first for fun with his family in Pakistan, then in the labor camps for money. Since coming to the States he had fallen out of practice. He still knew enough to admire the way his boss managed to look casual walking over to the three men, but with her small feet balanced carefully along the ice of the parking lot, leveraged against any possible attack.
Aggie launched the first salvo. “Hello, brave Legionnaires!”
Rafi noticed this made no one happy. All three men stopped, Laurel and Hardy looking around as if they’d been spotted by a sniper. The one in front, if it were possible, intensified his glare. Rather than just stand there and look like an idiot, though, he at least had the good sense to close the remaining distance to Aggie. “You’re that stupid Jew who got Cordell in trouble,” was his charming introduction.
Aggie actually laugh, which wasn’t something Rafi heard often. “I’m a lot of things,” she replied, “but I’m not Abrahamic. In anyway.”
“Fine, mongrel-lover. Have it your way. What are you doing here?”
There was a pause, as if Aggie were actually considering the question. Then, “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“You’re here on Legion business, which makes it my business.”
Aggie responded with a slowness that suggested she had forgotten something. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”
The man in front of Laurel and Hardy raised himself up, putting his full height against the diminutive detective. “You know who I am.”
Aggie took time with her response, leaving the honesty of it an open question. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
The man crossed his arms as he reevaluated Aggie. “I’m Randal Wayne. And I’m here to collect the rod Haddo hired you to find.”
“Well, Mr. Wayne, I’m not working for Haddo.” Rafi wished he could see Aggie’s face. He didn’t know from direct experience, but he bet she was a hell of a poker player.
“Don’t bullshit me,” was Randal’s reply. “He told me that he hired you.”
Rafi didn’t have to strain to hear Aggie’s reply, even over the wind. “No he didn’t. You’re lying.”
The man stepped closer, towering over Aggie. “What did you just say?”
Behind his sunglasses, Randal’s surprise showed when the detective took a step closer to him. “I said you’re lying. Haddo didn’t tell you that. In fact, he didn’t tell you the rod was missing.” Aggie shifted her gaze from Randal, round to the other two, then back to the lead gora. “I’m not working for Haddo. So I know you’re lying about that. Which brings up all sorts of interesting questions, doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, use your imagination Randal. Why would you think Haddo hired me? Why would you think I have the rod you’re talking about?” Aggie clucked in a manner that was unmistakeable in its condescension. “Would Haddo be interested in you being here, looking for said rod?”
The last question actually made Randal angrier, shoulders bunching, arms uncrossing so his hands had the freedom to curl into fists. Aggie might be able to handle herself, but Rafi found himself reaching for the door handle. If things were about to get violent, three against one odds weren’t anyones’ friend.
Randal raised a fist, finger pointed towards Aggie, when she cut off any impending threat with, “You really want to do that, Randal? Start a fight, get arrested on tribal land? You think three white supremacists are going to do well in the custody of local law enforcement?” Rafi could practically see the glow of Aggie’s smile reflect off the man’s sunglasses. “I’m sure Chief Veregge would order all three of you to get special attention.”
Randal may not look too bright, but Rafi figured he must have a few brain cells firing in his skull. At Aggie’s words his pointed finger slowly curled back into his fist and his mouth closed. Aggie continued, “If you don’t want to be arrested on tribal land, do you want to know what happens next?”
Rafi could see the Wayne clench his jaw, but couldn’t hear whatever response he muttered through clenched teeth. Aggie responded, “If you don’t want Haddo to find out about our little encounter here and start asking questions, you’re going to leave Nola Strong alone. And you’re going to stay out of my way.”
“In fact, I think the Slakterquay PD may start turning up clues on who committed those unexplained robberies for the last few months. Call it a hunch.
“Seems like there’s all sorts of trouble headed your way.” The smile reflected in Randal’s sunglasses increased a few candelas. “I’d disappear if I were you.”
Randal stepped forward, nearly bumping his chest into Aggie who was unmoved by the impotent act. His mouth worked around whatever threats he wanted to spit at the detective. Then Laurel stepped forward and a hand zipped out of Aggie’s pocket to touch him on his chest and the thin man collapsed. Randal cursed at him as Hardy went to pick him up, then stepped back from Aggie, muttering a threat so watered down it couldn’t reach Rafi. The trio headed back to the SUV, Hardy helping a wheezing and limping Laurel, Randal stomping across the ice. As they went, Aggie waved at them as if she were giving a bon voyage to a departing vessel. “Enjoy Idaho boys!”
Rafi had his window rolled up by the time Aggie got back into the car. “Idaho?”
“Inside joke. But don’t ever go to Idaho.”
“OK,” Rafi started the car, not sure if he cared to know what that meant. “Where to?”
“Hill District. The only person I trust with the rod is Rodriguez. After that, back to the office. Even with Randal and his little hit squad out of the way, I don’t think this is over yet.”
Rafi sighed as he watched the trio get back into the black SUV. The trip to the Bundhaus, now this run in with Wayne, who was, in addition to being a raging asshole, a white supremacist and a dangerous, potentially violent criminal. Getting mixed up with the Legionnaires wasn’t something he was sure he wanted.
Rafi was so deep in these thoughts that he nearly swatted at his shoulder when he felt a light touch, prepared to assassinate whatever spider or bug had alighted there. Instead, he found himself staring at his boss’s pale hand, a sizable fold of bills between the carefully manicured fingers. He chuckled to himself and took it.
Aggie patted him on the shoulder then indicated the seatbelt. “Safety first.”
Rafi smiled, put on his seatbelt, and pointed the car back towards Slakterquay.
There’s something about knowing an ambush is waiting that changes a familiar landscape. Like a routine patrol where you see the same spots in the same city everyday, Simon’s had become familiar, but now it was as welcoming as a haunted house.
Expensive European cars crowding the narrow street outside of Simon’s cafe. Among them was a Mercedes SUV, black and built like a tank. They must have brought a lot of boys, which I took as a compliment. Two of them, wearing black leather jackets and smoking cigarettes, were on alert. The first one to spot me nodded to the other and they formed up, radiating a menace that was low wattage compared to Brick’s expert menace. I walked past without acknowledging them and the pair closed ranks behind me as I went inside.
There were half-a-dozen crowding the tables of the cafe, all moving to a slovenly attention as I entered. I looked for Simon. To my relief, he was sitting on one of his stools, elbow on the counter, its rows of espresso cups knocked out of order, some broken on the floor. He smiled at me from behind a raw steak he was holding against his left eye. Other than the piece of butchery he didn’t look any worse off. My chest expanded with relief even as I saw Brick stood next to him exuding his usual level of charm.
Whip rose to his full height in a burgundy suit. He was holding an espresso, saucer in one hand, cup in the other, pinky finger up, smiling as if he was glad to see me. I guess he was, just not in any friendly way.
His smile disappeared, though, when Pyotr, pointing at me with a tattooed hand, demanded, “Where’s my passport?”
I blinked, having forgotten about the document. “Is that what this is all about?”
Pyotr threw a punch into my gut. I didn’t dare defend myself, curling to take the blow. Before he could continue, though, Whip gave Pyotr a corrective order. I raised a plaintive hand. “Jesus Christ, I’ll find your fucking passport.”
Pyotr raised his fist again, causing Whip to practically bump his chest into Pyotr’s to reestablish dominance. The two glared at each other until Brick stepped closer. Whatever simian signals passed between them allowed Whip to dismiss Pyotr with a wave.
Setting his cup aside, Whip leaned forward to speak at me. “Mr. Mitnick wishes to see you.” He sounded very formal, like an engraved invitation from a Bond villain.
“I got that,” I exhaled, exaggerating the pain of the gut punch. Figuring it might be the last chance, I ignored everyone else and spoke to Simon. “I’m sorry about this.”
Between the steak and a brave face, Simon’s fear showed through the crack. “I am sorry as well.”
I was about to ask him what he had to be sorry for, but decided it was best to get the goon squad out of there. I prodded Whip with, “I guess you figured you needed more guys this time?”
Whip sneered and held the leash of his anger, gesturing to the vory. Two of them picked me up and hustled me into the Mercedes outside.
The drive out of town was beautiful, as always. I watched the scenery go by and kept my mouth shut. The road between the blue sea and into the green spring of the mountains might, after all, be the last pleasant thing I saw. I took it all in and breathed carefully and slowly, keeping anger at bay.
In the full light of day, the house’s white marble steps and fluted columns reminded me of a place of worship. Or sacrifice. I laid eyes on the statue of Athena and prayed that Sophie wouldn’t try a rescue.
Whip led us around the house, down a white stone walkway to a clearing with a square, raised platform, poles at its four corners, each connected by ropes. As I recognized what it was, dread sank in.
Mitnick was inside the boxing ring, tying the laces on a pair of sneakers. Seeing me, he stood tall, his teeth shining out from behind his beard. For the first time he wasn’t in a suit, but wearing red shorts and green top. For a man in his middle age, he cut an athletic figure, wide shoulders and long, muscular legs. He brought his bright white smile to me and said, “It is good to see you.”
“You could have just told me to come.”
“These are interesting times, my friend, and there is little time to waste. For instance, I feel like I barely know you. I hardly know your name.”
“You know I work for Atwell. And you know you’ve got Atwell on the dangle. What else do you need to know?”
“Ah, yes. Atwell. Has disappeared of late.” At least Atwell was smart enough to do that.
“I don’t typically see him face-to-face.”
“Quite right. Spycraft, like the KGB agents of old, with their hidden cameras and chases and disappearances.” Mitnick became misty as he dwelled on the Cold War. “But do you know what the most important thing is in espionage?”
“I wouldn’t know. I was a Marine.”
Mitnick ignored this and raised a taped fist with his index finger extended, indicating the one important thing. “To hide one’s intent.”
Mitnick finished taping up his hands and each twist ratcheting up my dread. “For instance, Sartre knows I wish to make friends in Old Town, that I have setup independent operations. If I had kept this hidden from him longer, perhaps we would not be here now.”
Whip pushed a pair of boxing gloves at me. I stared as if they were alien objects.
Mitnick continued. “I barely know you, therefore I do not know your intent.” I began to mutter some lie about money, getting paid, the usual American stereotypes, which Mitnick dismissed without really listening. “The best way to get to know a man is to fight him.”
“That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. People don’t get to know each other through violence.”
Mitnick laughed. “You see? You surprise me. I did not know you were funny.” He gestured to Whip who handed me the gear. “Now put on your gloves.”
An Aggie McPherson Mystery.Read the previous chapter here.
Strong was stuffing the last of her clothing into a duffle bag when a knock at the door stopped her. No one knew she was here and, as far as she could tell, housekeeping at the Hotel Voyage didn’t existent.
The hotel did, as a sane precaution against outsiders and its own tenants, have peepholes in all of its doors. Even through the fish-eye of the lens, Strong couldn’t see who was on the other side, only a carefully coiffed head of dark hair that blocked out the trash of empty takeout and beer cans that lined the hotel’s hallways.
None of Wayne’s crew was that short, or had hair that black, so at least she knew it wasn’t them. That didn’t mean she wanted to speak to anyone. However, a small fist raised itself to the door and knocked again. The brightly lacquered nails flashed like a warning sign against the dingy hallway, telling her that whoever it was wasn’t going away.
“What do you want?” She yelled through the door.
“Nola Strong?” The voice with its question was hoarse, lower than the head that stood beyond the peephole, but Nola didn’t think it was a man. At least, she thought, there’s that. Nola repeated her question.
“My name is Aggie McPherson. I’d like to speak with you.”
“Go away.” The words formed themselves around an uncontrollable cough, allowing Nola to add, “I don’t feel well.” She immediately regretted it, like a child hiding in her room.
“Ms. Strong, there are men coming to speak to you and I don’t think they’ll accept that excuse. If you open the door and talk to me, maybe we can get you out of here in time.” Nola looked at the half-stuffed duffle bag and cursed being on the second floor. She had been traveling light, a prisoner to the necessity of moving fast at night in the dark streets of Slakterquay. She could have busted out the bathroom window and escaped to the back alley if it weren’t for the thirty foot drop. In this part of town, if she broke anything in the fall there was no way telling what the smell of blood and pain might bring out.
A heavier knock on the door caused Nola to jump. She gulped air and then took several calming breaths. With the chain on the door she cracked it open. Through the sliver into the florescent lit hallway she confirmed that the short person on the other side was a woman, with oddly colored eyes beneath dark hair. Her suit was nice enough that it would have attracted the attention of anyone who noticed her walk into the hotel.
“Ms. Strong, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“What do you want?”
The crack in the door seemed to widen as Aggie stared back at Nola. “I don’t think you want to discuss it standing in the hall.” Nola unchained the door to look up and down the hallway’s desolate length, verifying they were alone. With no one else in sight, she allowed the stranger in.
The other woman stepped in gingerly, floating around Nola while stepping around the worst stains on the hotel carpet. Her eyes flicked around the room before coming back to Nola as she finished securing the door. “I’m not the police,” she began, “and I want you to know that because I know that you’ve been involved in a number of robberies over the last 11 weeks. I don’t care about that.” Nola resisted the urge to grab something in the room as a makeshift weapon. It died entirely when the stranger continued, “You should care that, during those robberies, you’ve been exposed to hazardous chemicals. You should seek immediate medical attention.”
The last statement struck at every chest pain and headache Nola had been experiencing the last several days. Rather than let it become fear, she began to deny with, “I don’t know what you’re – “
Aggie held up a hand, palm forward. “Ms. Strong, can we just skip this part? Like I said, men are on their way here to find you.”
That was more concerning to Nola than the cops. “How do you know that?”
Aggie cocked an eyebrow. It wasn’t a dissimilar expression than one Nola used to get from her mother before she took off, but lacked the ridicule. There was only a dispassionate evaluation there. “I’ve tracked the device in your possession to several recent robberies. Banks, armored cars, underground vaults, seemingly impossible targets have been broken into using an unknown explosive. While you were doing this, the device melted industrial surfaces that put out some rather nasty pollutants. You weren’t warned about this so didn’t have proper protection.
“Now you’re dying. Any chance of that not happening is going to disappear when those men arrive.”
Nola felt her cheeks burn as her anger smoldered down to all of its old resentment. “Why do you care?”
There was an absence in the woman’s violet eyes (Violet eyes? Who has violet eyes?) that made Nola believe what she said next. “I don’t. However, I’ve arranged that, if you come with me, I can get you into the clinic at Port Gamble. It’s on the X’Komish reservation so the police won’t be able to touch you and neither will your erstwhile accomplices.”
Nola stared at the short stranger and thought about all of the lies she had been told and told in the last seasons. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you have information I need. It’s a straight exchange. I keep you alive, you give me answers.” Even at these words of an even deal, Nola hesitated. The other woman stepped forward, an odor like lilacs stored in a humidor wafting between them. “The man you were working for told you you were special. That the rod would only work for you. Because of your ancestry or blood or hair color. Whatever.” The accuracy of this statement bit into Nola. Her cheeks burned brighter as she felt all the more foolish at having this woman reveal what easy prey she’d been: Handsome stranger, beautiful lies, the greed of gold.
The other woman broke the spell of Nola’s self-recrimination by reaching out and taking her hands in her own. “He lied to you. He wanted you to be the one to you use it because he didn’t care if you were exposed to danger. He didn’t care if you died.” Aggie dropped her hands and reached for the duffel bag. “And somewhere along the line you figured out you were never going to get your cut, that he was sending it somewhere else. So you did the smart thing and grabbed the most valuable thing you could and ran.”
“You tried to sell the rod to a number of fences, one of whom has connections to the X’Komish nation. You may not have, but he knew the men you were working with are white supremacists, so he didn’t have any reservations about giving you up.
“And it’s good thing he did. Because now I can get you to a clinic and you can tell me who the ringleader is.”
Aggie’s eyes pointedly flicked towards the door. “Or I can figure out who he is by waiting for the men that are coming for you and ask them. But I’d prefer not to do that as it would require a level of violence that I don’t care for.”
Aggie held the duffel bag out to Nola. “What do you say?
Nola took the duffel bag.
Moments later Nola was impressed with the speed and strength this Aggie person was ushering her down the back stairs of the hotel. Out the rear exit, into a yellow and blue taxi driven by a man who was slunk so far down into the driver’s seat she could barely see cap on his head.
Inside, Nola saw the cabbie was dark-skinned with sharp nose and ears, barely old enough to drive. Aggie said quickly, “Nola, this is Rafi. Rafi, Nola.” Rafi nodded with a tip of his cap into the rearview mirror before Aggie asked him, “See anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
As they pulled onto Olympia Street, Nola slid down, suppressing a cough as she noticed several men moving quickly into the Hotel Voyage lobby.
“You’ve turned the tables.” Lanzo’s eyes softened with hope. “Keep her safe for a few days. Then the two of you will be gone and none of it will matter.”
I think Lanzo may have fingered the roll of Euros he had in his pocket. He nodded and I said, “Good.” I gestured to Sophie. “We’ll be back.”
I clapped him on the shoulder before facing Sophie to bow at the waist and sweep my hands towards the path up the embankment. She smiled and laughed a bit at my antics, gesturing for me to lead the way.
I did, only stopping a few yards up the path as I heard another siren. I tried to remember if they had been this common the entire time and I have never noticed, or if this was new. I suspected it was new.
With the busy night behind us, the sun was beginning to paint the terracotta roofs of Old Town. It would still be awhile before the trams were operating, so we walked in a pleasant quiet for a time until I decided to lengthen the walk with Sophie by swinging by the cathedral to check the drop point. Atwell would probably be trying to lie low, but if he had anything to communicate it would be there. There wasn’t anything. I decided use the payphone to check the mobile’s voicemail.
I can’t tell you if I’m happy I did that or not. After the chirping of the system, I dialed in the code and a gravelly Russian voice came on. “Mitnick wishes to meet with you.” I was happy to ignore that until a more convenient time, but it concluded, “Do not worry. We will meet you at your cafe, say hello to Simon for you.”
The line went dead in my hand and I stood there, my neanderthal brain trying to process the new information. When it did, I hung up the receiver. “I have to go meet Mitnick.”
Sophie fluttered her eyes in the way that she did when I was being particularly stupid. “No. He may suspect.”
“He does. He’s waiting for me at the cafe.”
Sophie slipped an arm through mine and pulled gently. “Then let us not be there. To go home, to rest.”
I had told Sophie about Simon a few times, but I hadn’t mentioned that the old man had become important to me. Or maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t willing to let Simon get caught up in all of this. Either way, I answered, “They’ve got Simon. They’re waiting at the cafe.”
Unless upset by one of her bouts of obsession, there was always a harmony in Sophie, a happy poise. I realized how much I had come to rely on this as it disappeared. She produced a, “Oui.” The declaration sounded like the end of the world. Whatever was happening in Sophie internally didn’t bubble out as a refusal, but her green eyes flooded with a kind of resolute gloom, as if we were discussing something as immutable as bad weather. “I will go with you.”
“If you come with me they’ll know we’re together. It’ll only confirm Mitnick’s suspicions. He’ll kill us both.”
The truth of those words caused Sophie to stutter, which gave me a moment to take both of her hands in my own. I tried to reflect an ounce of the calm that she lent to me in our daily lives, and I found in her face a similar reel of my own feelings of impotence and anger.
In the shadow of the cathedral, she paused, only to to continue in a deathly quiet, “If they kill you, I will build a mountain of their corpses.”
It might have been the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. I squeezed her hands. “It won’t come to that.”
I hugged her tight until the sky began to lighten, the sun painting the tips of the cathedral’s onion domes. When I let her go I could tell she had shed some tears, but those were gone by the time she lifted her head. “How will I know?”
There were a lot of different dimensions to that question and I tried to consider all of them. When a lone birdsong started in the background I answered, “If things go well, I’ll be home as soon as I can.” I left the other alternatives unsaid.
She kissed me before she started walking us towards a tram station. We held hands the entire way, not something I’m sure we’ve ever done before. We arrived at a station, still with only the barest of early morning crowds. After another lingering hug, we each found the tramcar point to Les Moulins. Realizing how much I wanted Sophie to come with me, I said, “It would be stupid for both of us to go.”
She nodded, in the soft, sad way of a funeral director.
We kissed and I stepped onto the tram, the pneumatic doors softly closing behind me.
