7. Sébastien #2
“I didn’t see it until she passed, but my maman had been the source of all my baabaa’s sweetness.
Once she was gone, he was left a bitter husk of himself.
Sour and rancid till the end of his days, but—what can one do?
” I admit on a deflating huff of breath, a pang of heartsickness clutching at me as I begin to assemble a plate; careful scoops of fluffy couscous, a generous serving of the braised meat and stone fruit, and a crispy, cold toss of cucumber and greenleaf salad studded with salty oil and cured olives in my very own tangy yogurt-herb dressing.
Carefully, I collect a set of flatware and a section of paper towel and bring the plate around the corner into the other room with Louise.
She watches me with silent desperation as I stick my stocking foot out, my big toe poking through one of the holes in my worn tube socks as I hook my ankle around the leg of a nearby metal folding chair and drag the rickety thing in front of where Louise sits cross-legged on the lumpy mattress.
Her pale throat bobs as she struggles to swallow, her eyes darting—corybantic, between my face and the steaming plate of food I place between the makeshift place setting before her; as if serving her at our own private fine dining establishment.
“It must have been hard to lose both your parents at once,” I offer sympathetically, flopping down on the floor beside the ad-hoc dinner table.
Her cinnamon eyes snap up to meet mine, a flicker of deepest contempt flashing with liquid malice.
“Even though he was a bastard, I was thankful I got a few more years in with the old man before he ‘bought the farm’—as they say.”
I watch as Louise’s hands ball into fists; her left arm limited by the handcuff still fastened around her wrist—her nostrils flaring as her body demands that she redirect her attention to the food she has spent days without.
Fine, she needs more of a push? I’ll give her more of a push.
“Were you… aware of the sorts of things your parents were doing with their work, eh?” I wonder aloud.
Reaching for the fork, delicately lifting it—taking my time to pierce a tender piece of beef, translucent caramelized onions, and a succulent stewed bite of fruit before turning my wrist over with a flourish.
I bring the morsel to my lips with intentional theatricality before I close my mouth around the piece of perfection—a rumbling sound of pleasure buzzing up from deep in my gut.
Louise shifts from her rooted cross-legged position onto her bended knees—her body moving as if magnetized toward the food.
“Surely, the big scary government men know about the Zietnot virus that seems to be affecting only Sigmas and Omegas, non?” I flick my empty fork through the air like a conductor leading an invisible orchestra as I make my way around to getting a bite of couscous—her wide eyes are shrink wrapped in a wobbly film of tears, her lips pressed together to keep them from wobbling.
“Someone must have wanted to keep them quiet.” My shoulders lift in a lazy shrug as I scoop up a forkful of couscous. “From what I’ve heard, it was pretty gruesome though,” I cluck disapprovingly before taking my bite.
Tears begin to spill down her wan cheeks, Louise’s dry lips part to allow her tongue to dart over her lips—her hunger, like a human presence with us in the room now.
“Of course, I’m sure they kept a great many things from their daughter,” I tut thoughtfully, spearing a tuft of salad with the crooked tines of my fork.
“Why burden you with their attempts at playing god, eh?” I lift the silverware to my mouth, and like a viper striking—Louise’s right arm snaps out with blinding speed; her fingers closing around the curve of the scratched white glass plate, bringing it back in close to her body in the blink of an eye.
She drops the whole plate onto her lap and uses her bare fingers to pinch together a piece of meat—packing it into her mouth greedily before closing her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose mid-chew; forcing herself to eat slowly—lest she puke it right back up.
We sit in silence like this for almost a half hour, Louise nibbling on bits of her dinner while keeping me pinned with her acrimonious stare.
Only when the plate is empty does she lift back onto her knees and place the spent dish on the metal folding chair—licking every last bit from her fingers before slugging down half the glass of water I provided with the modest feast.
“You’re a shit conversationalist, but an excellent chef,” she grumbles drowsily, sated on such a rich repast after almost half a week without eating anything at all.
“Aha, you have not forgotten how to speak!” I clap, reaching up over my shoulder, onto the edge of Caz’s temporary desk for the red plastic ashtray, pack of 27’s, and half empty lighter.
Her lip curls, flashing a pearly canine as she sneers at me.
“So—you really didn’t know anything about what your Maman and Papa were doing, did you?” I challenge, opening the cardboard pack and tapping it on the back of my wrist—a cigarette rising from the messy rip in the foil packaging.
Louise doesn’t say anything—just shakes her head no; her eyes flicking to my pack of cigarettes before latching back onto mine.
“But you know about the virus, yes?” I purse my lips around the cigarette and pull it from the pack—offering her one.
She considers only a moment before reaching out with her free hand to pinch one from the pack.
“Yes,” is all she says—placing the golden filter between her full lips as I lean in, the tips of our cigarettes nearly touching as I coax a tiny flame from the plastic lighter beneath them.
“You’ve been looking into who murdered them yourself, haven’t you?” I push the envelope a little further, scooting the ashtray into the open space of floor between us.
The glowing ember of her cigarette flickers orangey-red as she inhales, her features still hard and unreadable as she glowers at me.
I wait, allowing her the opportunity to fill the silence—even though I know she will not.
For the first time, I notice the diamond shaped birthmark, high on her left cheekbone near the corner of her eye— la passione.
A woman with a birthmark like a tear—destined for great love and even greater tragedy.
“Of course, the bureau has almost certainly told you to give that up.” I raise a brow, tapping the feathery bit of ash from the end of my cigarette into the shallow plastic tray.
“You can talk all you want—I’m not telling you scumbags shit,” she scoffs, taking a deep drag on her cigarette, ignoring the long fluffy gray ash as it snows down gently onto the ratty futon.
“I still don’t know what the fuck you thought you were going to get out of kidnapping me, but whatever you want?
—I’ll happily die before giving it to you.
” She lets slip a gallows laugh—the sharp lines of her clavicles peeking through the stretched neckline of the yellowing cotton t-shirt we put her in after getting free of the diamond center a few days ago.
She looks more like a starving wretch than a trained agent of the FBI—she’s closer to her breaking point than she’s willing to admit—to me or to herself.
“Louise,” I begin carefully—but she cuts me off.
“Don’t use my name asshole, I don’t know you,” she snips back—blowing her smoke directly into my face.
My eyes water, stinging from the direct cloud of smoke.
“What should I call you then, eh? ‘Agent Penny?’” I ask the last part in my best approximation of a clipped American accent.
She turns her face away, lifting her handcuffed hands to her face to pull the cigarette away from her lips.
“Don’t fucking talk to me at all,” she growls, her eyes sliding sideways to the outline of the gun in the leather shoulder holster under my moth-eaten zip up hoodie.
She’s a glorified cop, so I shouldn’t be surprised—but it’s still a little spooky that she seems to know exactly where it sits, even though I’ve given no indication that I’m armed.
“And here you were—telling me that I’m a poor conversationalist,” I scoff, hopping up from my place on the ground to sneak back into the kitchen for the Kaab el-ghzal I picked up at the tea shop on the corner, putting the kettle on the stove.
She sits sulkily on the bed—watching me openly this time, craning her neck to get a look at what I’m doing.
“I would take seconds of that superb dinner, shitty conversation skills notwithstanding,” she jeers, flicking a long ash from the end of her cigarette into the red plastic tray.
“You’re too kind,” I scoff, spooning my favorite mint tea into a steel diffuser ball, closing the little apparatus before dropping it into the small teapot on the counter before decanting some of the boiling water over the diffuser.
“What if I were to tell you that we have also been looking into the murder of your parents?” I venture cautiously, arranging a few of the crescent-shaped kaab el-ghazal on a folded paper towel; the faint smell of honey and orange blossom wafting up alongside the herbal mint scent of the brewing tea.
Louise becomes very still once more—her cigarette poised carefully above the red plastic ashtray’s dimpled rim.
“Or—what if I told you a little birdie happened to sing us a song of fated mates and magical designation metamorphosis?” I press, slightly more cautious.
“How would I know you weren’t full of shit?” she sneers—her eyes trained on me as I prepare myself a cup of steaming mint tea.
A gulf of silence spreads between us as I carry the tea and pastry into the other room to present to our prisoner.
“Seems awfully convenient that Margot and Landon Penny were murdered in cold blood just before this curious Zeitnot virus appeared. Even stranger are the rumors that swirl around their privately funded research.”
I pierce the silence and let the veiled accusation hang in the air, laying the pastry and steaming cup before her. Our eyes lock, neither of us wanting to back down.
Louise’s chained wrists jingle as she carefully sets her still burning cigarette in one of the fluted holders on the edge of the ashtray, her nimble fingers snatch up one of the nutty-honey-orange blossom confections, and she begins nibbling at one end of the crescent, still scowling at me.
“Convenient for whom?” she seethes icily; her cinnamon eyes boring into my soul.
“Pardon?” I chomp half of my ‘gazelle horn’ pastry in a single bite, leaning an elbow on the folding chair as I wait for her to elaborate.
“Who was the death of my parents convenient for?” she grits out, taking another bite.
“For you and your dipshit pals running around playing caped crusader and boys blunder?” Louise snorts a mirthless laugh. “Or for Bronson iris, pomme verte, poivre rose.
I can see in her wild eyes that she wants to recoil with every fiber of her being, just as I am called to touch her, but she masters her own disgust to remain as still as a statue.
“There are a great many things I’d love to tell you—that the Saints could help you with if you only just told us what you know.
” Her skin is so soft, so warm—my hands cannot help but give in to the desire to cup one of her high, carved cheekbones with my hand, my thumb finding the diamond shaped birthmark that looks so much like a tear; my calloused flesh sweeping gently over the spot with reverence.
I’m not sure what other comfort I could offer.
I don’t want to issue threats, but I know it would be better for her to talk to me or Caz.
Telling her as much would likely make her dig in her heels, all but guaranteeing her silence, but if she refuses Caz and I and our relative leniency and forces Frank or Quentin’s hand, well…
I actually shudder at the thought of what la belle et la bete will do to her.
As if reading my thoughts, she speaks—breaking the heavy silence.
“I don’t know shit,” Louise sobs quietly—her hands moving slowly to the steaming cup of mint tea laden with sugar.
“Shhhh,” I soothe, her beautiful alabaster skin soft as silk velvet beneath my fingertips.
Though I know I shouldn’t—that it’s the witchcraft of her sigma perfume, not quite sufficiently suppressed by her fading medication—I can’t help but be drawn to her.
I want to press my lips to that pretty rose petal mouth so badly I have to make a conscious effort not to bring my face closer to hers as she cries into her steaming cup of mint tea.
All of my blossoming affection, my growing softness for her—my pity sublimates into the void as I watch her. As if in slow motion, as her hands close around the cup of scalding tea—her nimble hands toss the cup’s contents in a searing spray across my face.
Fuck.