The Forbidden Rose

Twenty-two

HAWKER STOOD FOR A BIT, TAKING EVERYTHING IN, scratching under his arm on the principle that somebody scratching looks harmless.

It was odd, being in a city where none of it was familiar. Miles of places he’d never been in every direction. The mumble of a language that wasn’t English all around him. Having to think about what he said before he let it out.

And his clothes. Back home, he’d be wearing something with a bit of color in it. Men knew him in London. He had a reputation to live up to. He’d been the Hand of Lazarus for three years. He’d killed men. His mates expected a certain degree of style.

Paris was about being invisible. Blending in.

Nothing smelled right. Sour wine, instead of beer. Brandy, not gin. Garlic and some kind of herbs coming out of the chophouses. Just plain foreign.

He felt strange, walking the streets without the damned donkeys.

Funny how he’d figured it out at last. Those donkeys were stalking horses. Nobody looked at the man driving the donkeys. All they saw was the animals. A pair of donkeys in your company and you could stop anywhere you want, as long as you wanted, and nobody thinks it’s odd. You could look at the hooves. That’s a job to keep a fellow occupied for the better part of the day if he does it right.

He strolled along, his thumbs hooked in his breeches. East was this way. Only took a second to figure it out from the way the shadows lay. That was another trick Doyle knew. Watch the sun. Keep a map in your head. Always know where you are. Always be thinking about which way to run. Those hard-faced coves in Meeks Street had a hundred maps with notes all over them. They’d made him study them for hours. He was a right expert in Paris before he set foot in it.

He never had to worry about maps before. Not in London.

Look like you know where you’re going. That was something Doyle let drop. Just no end to what Doyle knew about this work. He called it the Game. That felt right somehow. The Game.

He’d have to learn what he could from Doyle before they parted company. Before one them got his throat cut.

Rue de Montreuil. He knew where he was. He wrapped his lips around Rue de Montreuil a couple times, practicing how to say it. They put names on the streets. Carved them right into the houses sometimes. You’d think folks who lived here would know where they was. If somebody didn’t live close by and was too stupid to ask where he was, who gave a damn about them anyway?

Funny folks, the French.

Le Brochet wouldn’t be hard to find. A day like this, hot as Hades, he’d be in some tavern, out of the heat, easing his throat. He’d be a hundred yards from his ken. Men like him stuck close to home and did their drinking with friends. It was dangerous, going after a cove tucked up in the middle of his mates.

DOYLE signaled Pax up to the lead position and dropped back. It’d take three men to follow somebody like Hawker. That was the Service for you. Never enough agents.

Pax set down the board he was carrying and pulled a cap out of his jacket.

Hawker looked French. Walked French. Held his hands like a Frenchman. He walked the same speed as the men in front of him. Became one more fish in the stream, a little grubbier and less interesting than the others. He had the art. You couldn’t teach that.

He was headed east and down to the Seine, which meant he’d be crossing a bridge. In Paris, following somebody was all about the bridges. You could slip by your man and wait on the other bank. Your pigeon would walk right to you.

Doyle took a side street down to the river.

HAWKER ran his man to earth at L’Abondance, the tenth tavern he tried. Le Brochet was sitting in the back, with friends. Unsavory lot of friends he had. “Remember me?”

Le Brochet squinted a while. “You’re the boy with Lazarus . . . Hawker. That’s right. They called you the Hand. I remember you.”

Except Le Brochet said, “ ’awker.” When the French said his name they didn’t slap a howling great h out in the front of it the way a nob Englishman did. They said ’awker and made it sound right. Hell of thing when a pack of Frenchies could say his name better than Englishmen.

“You’re the one brought me that girl. Polly. She was a lively piece.”

“A right artist in bed, that girl.” Hawker sat down with his back to the room, which marked him as a fool, except that the glasses of wine on the table were good as a mirror when it came to seeing somebody come up behind. “Let’s talk.”

“Alone,” he added, when Le Brochet’s mates didn’t shove off.

Le Brochet grinned. Not one of the world’s most beautiful sights. The other men wandered away, leaving them to discuss Dorcas and Fat Legs Lucy and a few more. Le Brochet had fond memories of his stay with Lazarus.

After a bit it was time to say, “Wine,” to the old woman behind the counter. He used the tone Doyle had used this morning. Set the same coin down on the table. His glass got sloshed barely half full—that hadn’t happened this morning—with wine of the dog piss persuasion. There was just no reason in this world not to drink gin.

“I’m on an errand,” he said. “For Lazarus. Thought you might be of use to me. I need to find the man who paid Lazarus for the killing job.”

Le Brochet coughed up a laugh. “Him? His kind don’t come here.”

“Where is he, then? There’s money and I can’t leave this bloody country till I’ve got shut of it.”

“Money?” Le Brochet brightened.

“We can’t do the contract. Lazarus says, ‘Give it back to the man who paid. To the Frenchman. Go find him.’ ” If Le Brochet swallowed that story, he didn’t know much about Lazarus. He touched the money belt at his waist where he had that stack of assignats folded up. Made it rustle. Let it incite a little greed. “So that’s what I have to do. Trouble is, I don’t know how to find the bastard.”

He pretended to take a swallow and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Don’t know where to look. And I don’t like carrying this much around with me.”

He touched the money again and sealed his fate. He saw Le Brochet decide to kill him.

Don’t be impatient. That was what Lazarus always said. Be generous with your time. Anything worth doing is worth taking pains over.

He made Le Brochet work fifteen minutes to lure him out into the yard behind the inn. Made him use three “Got something to tell you” and half a dozen “Don’t like to say it in here” before he let Le Brochet lead him out of the room, through the hall beside the kitchen, and into the stinking courtyard.

“This is nice and quiet.” He admired the courtyard. It was private enough back here to kill five or six men. As he walked, he rolled his right sleeve up to the elbow, which would have been a warning to somebody knowledgeable.

Le Brochet moved in behind him. The slip of cloth on cloth and the change in breathing told him Le Brochet had his knife out.

If a man doesn’t know how to fight with a knife, he should leave it at home. Hold a knife and you can’t do anything else with that hand. Hold it stupid and it throws you off balance. A fool with a knife keeps trying to jab it at you instead of using his whole body to fight.

So the fight started with Le Brochet lurching at him. Which meant he ducked under Le Brochet’s arm, slammed an elbow into that flapping mouth to keep him quiet, and kicked him in the bollocks. Took the knife away. Ten seconds’ worth of fight, give or take.

He stepped over Le Brochet’s back. Straddled him. Took a handful of hair and pulled his head up, throat bare.