right. It was also armored with metal grillwork. A sign above the door said simply: BI #200;RE ET VIN.
Now what? Was this the place of assignation, with a private room upstairs or in the back? Or was this a rendezvous bar they would leave together? I needed it to be the latter. If they left separately, their business concluded, the Plan was foiled. I wouldn?t know what man to follow.
I couldn?t just stand in front and wait. I spotted an even darker gap in the darkness across the street. An alleyway? I walked past the beer joint Julie had entered, and diagonaled toward the strip of blackness. It was a passageway between an abandoned barbershop and a storage company, about two feet wide and dark as a crypt.
Heart pounding, I slipped in and pressed against a wall, taking cover behind a cracked and yellowed barber pole that projected over the sidewalk. Several minutes passed. The air hung dead and heavy, the only movement my breathing. Suddenly, a rustling made me jump. I wasn?t alone. As I was about to bolt, a dark blob shot from the trash at my feet and scurried toward the back of the passageway. My chest constricted, and once again a chill passed through me, despite the heat.
Ease back, Brennan. Just a rodent. Come on, Julie!
As if in response, Julie reappeared, followed by a man in dark sweats, L?UNIVERSIT #201; DE MONTR #201;AL arced across his chest. He cradled a paper bag in his left arm.
My pulse hammered even faster. Is it him? Is it the face in the ATM photo? Is it the Berger Street runner? I strained to see the man?s features, but it was too dark and he was too far away. Would I recognize St. Jacques even if I got a good look? Doubtful. The photo had been too blurry, the man in the apartment too quick.
The pair looked straight ahead and didn?t touch or speak. Like homing pigeons they retraced the path Julie and I had just taken, only digressing at Ste. Catherine, where they continued south instead of turning west. They made several more turns, snaking through streets of run-down apartments and abandoned businesses, streets that were dark and sincerely unfriendly.
I trailed half a block behind, conscious of every scrape and crunch, wary of discovery. There was no cover. If they turned and saw me, I would have no excuse, no windows to shop, no doorways to enter, nothing to hide behind, physical or fictional. My only option would be to keep walking and hope to find a turnoff before Julie recognized me. They didn?t look back.
We worked our way through a tangle of alleys and lanes, each emptier than the one before. At one point two men passed from the opposite direction, arguing in tense, hard voices. I prayed Julie and her john wouldn?t follow the men with their eyes. They didn?t. They kept on and disappeared around another corner. I sped up, fearful of losing them in the seconds they were out of sight.
My fears were well grounded. When I made the turn, they had vanished. The block was still and empty.
Shit!
I checked the buildings on both sides, running my eyes up and down each iron staircase, probing each entranceway. Nothing. Not a sign.
Damn!
I dashed up the sidewalk, furious with myself for losing them. I was halfway to the next corner when a door opened and Julie?s regular stepped onto a rusted iron balcony just twenty feet ahead and to my right. He was at shoulder level, his back to me, but the sweatshirt looked the same. I froze, incapable of thought or action.
The man hawked a glob of phlegm and sent it rocketing onto the sidewalk. Drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, he went back inside and closed the door, oblivious to my presence.
I stood as I was, legs rubbery, unable to move.
Great move, Brennan. Panic and rush the play! Why not light a flare and sound a siren?
The building into which he?d disappeared was one in a row that seemed to cling together for support. Take one out and the block would crumble. A sign identified it as LE ST. VITUS, and offered CHAMBRES TOURISTIQUES. Tourist rooms. Right.
Was this home or merely his trysting place? I resigned myself to more waiting.
Again I looked for a place to hide. Again I spotted what I thought was a gap on the far side of the street. Again I crossed and found that it was. Maybe I was showing a learning curve. Maybe I was lucky.
I took a breath and slipped into the darkness of my new passageway. It was like crawling into a Dumpster. The air was warm and heavy and smelled of urine and things gone bad.
I stood in the narrow space, shifting my weight from foot to foot. The belly-up spiders and roaches I?d seen entombed in the barber pole kept me from leaning against the wall. There was no question of sitting.
Time dragged by. My eyes never left the St. Vitus, but my thoughts traveled the galaxy. I thought of Katy. I thought of Gabby. I thought of Saint Vitus. Who was he anyway? How would he feel about having the rathole across the street named in his honor? Wasn?t Saint Vitus a disease? Or was that Saint Elmo?
I thought of St. Jacques. The ATM photo was so poor you really couldn?t see the face. The geezer was right. The guy?s own mother wouldn?t know him from that shot. Besides, he could have changed his hair, grown a beard, gotten glasses.
The Incas built a road system. Hannibal crossed the Alps. Seti occupied the throne. No one entered or left the St. Vitus. I tried not to think about what was unfolding in one of its rooms. I hoped the guy was a short timer. There?s a first, Brennan.
There was no breeze in my tiny crevice, and the brick walls on either side still held the heat that had built up all day. My shirt grew clammy and clung to my skin. My scalp was sweaty damp, and an occasional bead broke free and trickled down my face or neck.
I shifted and watched and thought. The air was breathless. The sky flickered and rumbled softly. Celestial grumbling, nothing more. Now and then a car lighted the street, then passed on, casting it back into obscurity.
The heat and smell and confinement began to crowd in on me. I felt a dull pain in the space between my eyes, and the back of my throat was doing pre-nausea things. I thought about hanging it up. I tried squatting on my haunches.
Suddenly a form loomed over me! My mind exploded in a million directions. Was the passage open behind me? Stupid! I hadn?t checked for an escape route!
The man stepped into the alley, fumbling for something at his waist. I looked down the corridor in back but it was pitch black. I was trapped!
Then it was like a physics experiment, with equal and opposite forces responding. I shot up and stumbled back on deadened legs. The man also staggered backward, a look of shock on his face. I could see he was Asian, though only his teeth and astonished eyes were clear in the murky shadows.
I pressed against the wall, as much for support as for cover. He leered at me in a bewildered way, shook his head as though perplexed, then lurched off down the block, tucking his shirt and zipping his fly.
For a moment I just stood there, talking my heart rate down from the stratosphere.
A wino who only wanted to pee. He?s gone.
What if it had been St. Jacques?
It wasn?t.
You left yourself no out. You?re being stupid. You?re going to get yourself killed.
It was just a wino.
Go home. J.S. is right. Leave this to the cops.
They won?t do it.
It?s not your problem.
Gabby is.
She?s probably in Ste. Adele.
Had me there.
Calmer, I resumed my surveillance. I thought some more about Saint Vitus. Saint Vitus?s dance. That?s it. It was widespread in the 1500s. People grew nervous and irritable, then their limbs started twitching. They thought it was a form of hysteria and hiked off to the saint. Then what about Saint Anthony? The fire. Saint Anthony?s fire. Something to do with ergot in grain. Didn?t it also make people act crazy?
I thought about cities I?d like to visit. Abilene. Bangkok. Chittagong. I?d always liked that name, Chittagong. Maybe I?d go to Bangladesh. I was in the D?s when Julie came out of the St. Vitus and walked calmly up the block. I held my ground. She was no longer my mark.
