“It’s not bullshit. My boss told us the Saudi wanted the woman to be hurt. He gave us five thousand Euros, with five thousand more on completion.”
“You believe that? Your boss took probably twice that. He played you for a chump. And what were you supposed to do?”
“Just… look, I’m giving you cooperation, all right? I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t know she was GIGN. That she was your partner.”
“What were you supposed to do?”
“We were supposed to rape her. All of us, every way possible. And then slash her. Slash her face. Make her ugly. I’m sorry.”
I maintained my expression of stern professional skepticism. But inside, something was uncoiling, something I would need to keep in check if I was going to keep my promise to Delilah. I was distantly aware of the hypocrisy of my reaction to what he had been hired for. After all, I’ve killed people for money. It’s what I used to do. I never had a problem with it, or much of a problem, anyway.
But still.
“Who was the Saudi?” I said. “What is his name?”
“I don’t know. Vincent didn’t tell us that.”
“Vincent?”
“My boss. The one you pulled from the back of the truck.”
Whether he was bullshitting me or was legitimately ignorant, I wasn’t going to learn anything more from him. It was time to go.
“You have contraband?” I asked him.
“Contraband?”
“Drugs. Weapons. You’re carrying?”
“No, man, I’m clean.”
I gestured with my head to the stone wall along the entrance to the bridge. “Put your hands on the wall. I’m going to pat you down. If you’re telling me the truth, you can walk. If you’re lying, I take you to Satory.”
He gave me a sly look, probably thinking what I really wanted was to take his contraband, not arrest him for it.
Sad, how cynical people can be.
He turned and put his palms on the wall.
“Feet farther back,” I said. “Weight on your palms. And spread your legs.”
He complied.
I watched him for just a moment, savoring what I was about to do. Then I reached one hand between his legs and took hold of his badly exposed balls, which I then proceeded to pretend were one of those apples I sometimes use to test my grip.
An apple would have done better.
When I was done, I left his unconscious body in a heap and walked away without looking back. I crossed the Pont Louis-Philippe, made a right on Voie Georges Pompidou, and five minutes later I was at the park. Delilah was waiting by the monkey bars as promised, the playground a small triangle of stillness and dark against the sounds and headlights of the streets surrounding it.
“It was what you thought,” I said. I told her what happened, and what I’d learned from the guy I’d left by the Pont Louis-Philippe.
When I was done, she touched my face, an intimate gesture I had always welcomed from her but that just then irritated me. “Thank you,” she said.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I told you, my organization—”
“Mossad. I know who you work for. Why can’t you say the name?”
“You know the name. Why do I have to say it?”
I didn’t answer. I knew I was being petty.
“Anyway,” she said, “my organization will move me to a new apartment. They’ll watch me. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be fine? Your organization wasn’t even competent enough to protect you tonight, now you’re going to be okay because they’ll watch you? Do you even believe that?”
She didn’t answer. It was maddening.
“What about the Saudi?” I said. “You think he’s going to just quit?”
“They’ll take care of him, too.” She paused, then said, “Are you interested?”
I looked at her, incredulous. “In the job? You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? A half hour ago, I had to beg you not to.”
“For you. I would have done it for you. I’m not going to be hired by your organization. Don’t you understand? I can’t modulate this shit, Delilah. Maybe you can, but I can’t. You know how hard it is to fight that part of myself, to keep him in check? Because he’s always looking for a way back in. Tonight he found a personal one, because of you. And now you’re offering a professional opportunity on top of it. What’s wrong with you? How many times do I have to tell you, I just want—”
“Out of the life, I know.”
“Then why are you trying to drag me back in? So you won’t have to leave? When are you going to be happy, when your work gets us both killed?”
“They were just punks.”
“This time. Next time, it’ll be fucking Delta Force. One of us has to make a decision here, Delilah. I’m tired of you refusing to make it.”
“What are you saying?”
I knew I was being pigheaded and reckless. But I was still jacked on adrenaline, and I was pissed.
“I’m saying I want to know when. Right now. Tell me when you’re out. Because if you can’t tell me that, I’ll know the answer is never. And I’ll know to stop wasting my time.”
A long beat went by. I heard the sounds of traffic, and distant voices laughing, and the branches of elm trees swaying in the dark above us.
Finally, she said, “I can’t tell you that. Because the truth is, I don’t know.”
In the dim, diffuse light, I couldn’t read her face. I supposed it didn’t matter.
“You shouldn’t go back to your apartment,” I said. “Not that it makes any difference to me.”
I turned and walked away.
I wanted her to say something. John, wait. Anything.
But she didn’t.
I walked across the Pont de Sully back to the Île Saint-Louis, confused, seething. It was completely un-tactical, but I wanted to hurt someone. I didn’t think I’d killed Vincent or anyone else in his crew—though the throat shot and two cranial slams had been hard enough so that I couldn’t be sure—and maybe I would find some straggler still skulking around near the restaurant.
They were all gone. No police, either. All told, probably for the best, but I was left with all my helpless rage and no where to direct it. Why couldn’t she have just given me an answer? How many times had I stood by her, backed her up, let her disappear for a month at a time without asking where she’d been or what she’d been doing? And for what? So that right after I helped save her from about the worst thing possible, she could just let me walk away without even a word of protest, or doubt, or regret?
And the worst of it was, part of me still wanted to go to her. She could be headstrong, and maybe she would disregard my admonition about her apartment. Maybe she was angry enough to ignore my advice just to make a point. She might need my help.
No. If she needed me, all she had to do was ask, but she didn’t. She could have, but she didn’t.
I looked around, and this city I’d become so comfortable with felt suddenly alien to me, a pretty oasis built for someone else, inhabited by strangers, my own presence that of a ghost. Paris made no sense for me without Delilah, and the loneliness and alienation I felt right then settled into my gut with an almost physical weight.
I paused and considered. She would take me back if I wanted. We wouldn’t even have to discuss what had just happened. Everything would be the way it had been.
I shook my head and walked on. On the Pont de la Tournelle, heading toward the Quartier Latin, I was surprised to see Stubble Boy coming toward me, still glued to his cell phone, walking with his girlfriend. He saw me and his face twisted into an unpleasant smile.
“Hey,” he said, pulling the phone momentarily away from his face. “If it isn’t the Parisian politeness police. Struck out with your date?”
And suddenly, everything was clear.
I spent only a few moments with him, testing the conventional wisdom that you can’t fit a square peg in a round hole, the peg in this case being his cell phone, the hole being his mouth.