The Diaries - 01 (17 page)

He heard deep,
scraping voices before Gerard stepped into the back room, a disdainful look on
his face.
 
He stood unblinking for a
moment before saying, “It’s
those
men.”

“What men?”

“You know.
 
The cob-rough hoodlums you make me pretend I
don’t know about.”

Michel pinched the
bridge of his thin Gallic nose.
 
Damn.
 
He’d simply needed a bridge loan to get over that rough patch back during
the summer.
 
His spring trip to the Med
had run far over budget, and the coke (the damned coke!) had gotten a little
out of hand.
 
It had been the young
Irishman, curse him.
 
So witty and
seemingly innocent with his green eyes and freckled nose, he’d known precisely
what he was doing, playing Michel along while acting like a slow-witted
schoolboy.
 
When Michel had returned to
Metz busted and dragging a broken heart, ten thousand euro was all he had
needed to prop his finances up until things picked up at the shop.
 
With maxed-out credit cards and a business line
that had been running interest-only for years, he’d had to turn to the street,
to the
Glaives
.
 
They were known as small-timers in Metz, without
much presence, but were rumored equally as nasty as their brethren in
Paris.
 

Michel stood,
speaking in a whisper as he sent Gerard out the back for another walk.
 
He smoothed his shimmering shirt before he breezed
into the front.
 
It was the two he had
been dealing with each month: Leon and Bruno.
 
Leon was the little one who always did the talking, rumored to be the
cousin of Nicholas “Nicky” Arnaud, infamous boss of
Les Glaives du
Peuple
.
 
He had greasy hair and wore a perpetual scowl
under his heavy brow.
 
 
The big one, Bruno, hardly ever spoke, sporting
an omnipresent thick shadow of facial hair on the jowls of his lumpy, creviced face.

“Good day,
gentlemen,” Michel sang, trying to sound cheerful.

Leon leaned on the
counter, sucking his teeth, flashing a contemptuous look at Michel.
 
He wore a black leather jacket with a belt
tightened across his midsection.
 
It
accented his barrel chest, and Michel had no doubt whatsoever that Leon had
been endowed with a ferocious Napoleon complex and almost certainly despised
gay people.
 
He made a pulling motion
with his fingers.

“No time for your
queerish
bullshitting.
 
We need the money.
 
Now.”

Michel
nodded.
 
“Give me a moment and I’ll get
the payment together for you.”

Leon grabbed
Michel’s wrist with his vise-like grip.
 
“No
payments
, faggot.
 
Your loan has matured.
 
Today you pay this week’s juice
and
the full principle.”

Michel’s breathing
picked up.
 
He’d forgotten that the loan
was a six-month term.
 
The bloodsuckers
had taken nearly the entire amount of principle in interest over the twenty-six
week period.
 
He arched his brows, trying
to brighten his proposal.
 
“Leon, I don’t
have it right now.
 
You can up my interest
another point if you like.”

Leon jerked
Michel’s body onto the counter, backhanding him in the eye with a vicious
ringed hand.
 
Blood immediately flowed
down Michel’s face.
 
“I don’t give a shit
whether you have it or not!
 
Take some of
these rare fucking books and sell them, but get me my money
today
.”

The most valuable
of Michel’s books were consigned through various sources.
 
The remainder, if he were lucky, could be
sold wholesale, but it would take weeks to have a valuation placed on
them.
 
And he was already leveraged to
the hilt.
 
If he were to try to take the books
to another dealer, he’d be lucky to even get fifty percent of their wholesale
worth.
 
It would take too long to appease
Leon and, even if it did, the sale would put him under, and likely in jail over
his debts and some creative work with his taxes.
 
Michel knew what happened to gay men in French
prison; he had no desire to experience it for himself.
 
He’d kill himself before it came to that.
 
With a hand over his fresh cut, Michel stood
and chewed on his lower lip.
 
Just as the
big one made a move around the counter, an idea burst into Michel’s mind.
 
Not just an idea, a divine inspiration!
 
He’d already been working on a less-exciting variation
of it, but…yes, this quicker version would work.

It had to.

Bruno cocked his
fist back as he closed on Michel.
 
Michel
raised his hands in a submissive gesture before he swung. “Wait, please!” he
screamed.

Bruno reluctantly
stopped, turning to Leon.
 
Leon barely
lifted his chin.
 

Feeling magically
spared (for the moment), Michel gratefully exhaled and, with his hands still up,
said, “What if I told you, within a day or
two
,
I could pay you far, far more than what I owe you?”

Leon straightened,
cocking his head, his voice a low growl.
 
“Are you saying you’re
not
going to pay us today?”

Michel was taking
deep breaths, trying to remain calm.
 
It
was time to take the chance.
 
He
carefully lowered his hands.
 
“Gentlemen,
just today I’ve come into possession…well, I’ve been retained to represent
someone in selling something so rare, so valuable that I cannot even fathom its
complete worth.”

The large man groaned
loudly, pulling his fist back again.
 
Leon
shooed him backward with a flick of his hand.
 
He leaned forward on the counter and pulled Michel’s Technicolor shirt
so hard it popped two buttons.
 
“Start
talking.”

“If I can be
allowed to pay you tomorrow, I will pay you double what I owe.
 
If I’m not back here until Wednesday,
triple.
 
Thursday, quadruple.
 
Get the picture?
 
You can use everything I own as collateral.”

Bruno made another
sound, a grunt, shaking his head.

Leon ignored him,
his eyes locked on Michel.
 
“This sounds somewhat
interesting.
 
So how do I know you’re not
full of shit?”

“You’ll just have
to trust me.”

“I don’t trust my
mother.”

Michel spoke
rapidly.
 
“Please listen to me, Leon, and
please believe me.
 
Immediately after
work I’m scheduled to cement the plans with my new, ah, partners, and tomorrow
we will go to Paris to make the deal.
 
I’m certain, by Thursday at the latest, that I can have you what I have
promised.”

Leon’s left eye
widened while his right narrowed.
 
“And
you say this thing’s value is immeasurable?”

Michel let out a
nervous chuckle.
 
“Perhaps I
misspoke.
 
What I meant is I don’t know
its value, but it’s quite valuable to the right person.
 
Just a simple book is all it is.”

“A book.”

“
Oui
.”

“Hmmm,” Leon
mused, nodding and glancing back at Leon.
 
“Okay, Michel, you’ve got a deal.
 
We’ll be back here Wednesday, then back Thursday.
 
Your deal of double, triple…all that shit is
acceptable.”

“Thank y—”

Leon poked a
finger that struck Michel’s face.
 
“But
if you don’t show, there won’t be a place on earth you can hide from me, you
got that?”

Michel nodded,
cross-eyed at the finger on his nose.

The two men exited,
jingling the door bell, disappearing into the blustery day.

***

Leon and Bruno
crossed the pedestrian walkway, taking window seats in the quiet café oblique
from the book shop.
 
Leon’s eyes were
locked on the storefront of Michel’s store while Bruno yelled for two vodkas on
ice.

“No, you idiot!”
Leon said, viciously kicking Bruno under the table.
 
Bruno grunted, looked as if he’d been
slapped.
 
The waitress made her way over,
eyebrows arched.
 
Leon smiled with his
mouth only.
 
“I apologize for my moronic
associate.
 
Please, a large bottle of
mineral water, and two glasses…that’s all.”

“What was that
for?” Bruno asked, rubbing his thick shin after the waitress walked away.

Leon closed his
eyes, his scarred fists resting on the checkered tablecloth.
 
“Bruno, sometimes you still manage to
surprise me with your brainlessness.”
 
His eyes opened.
 
“Did you not
hear everything the faggot just said?
 
About
something of immeasurable value?”

“Yeah.”

“And that he’s
meeting his partners, probably more skinny fags, immediately after work?”

“Yeah.”

He spoke
slowly.
 
“Now Bruno…stay with me.
 
Does that, in any way, give your pea-brain
any type of bright idea, or at least a notion, even though your meanderings
might be somewhat erroneous?”

“Err…err…what?”

Leon sighed.
 
“Forget it.
 
Knowing what we just learned, don’t you think it might be a good idea to
watch Michel?”

“You mean because
we don’t trust him?”

“Of course we
don’t trust him, Bruno.
 
We should never
trust anyone other than a Glaive, especially a man who takes it up the ass!”
 
Leon, exasperated, pulled down on his face
with both hands.
 
He reset his
countenance and pointed a finger at Bruno.
 
“So, starting now, we watch Michel, follow him if need be.”

“Okay.”

“That’s why we
will abstain.”

A blank look from
Bruno.

“Meaning, no
vodka.”
 
Leon’s pointing finger rotated to
the book store, as if on a swivel.
 
“And
we steal whatever the hell it is that he’s been chosen to represent the sale
of.
 
Think about it, Bruno.
 
If he’s not back until Thursday, he’s willing
to pay us four-times what he’s owed.
 
Would he say that if he weren’t about to make an
incredibly
large sum of money?”

Bruno’s face was
cloudy.
 
“Yeah, but he said it’s a
book.
 
What do we know about selling a
book?”

Leon smiled a disillusioned,
pained smile, closing his eyes and pressing on them, mumbling to the heavens
about being cursed with such a dolt.
 
His
eyes sprung open. “Value is value, Bruno.
 
I don’t give a shit
who
has
the book, or what it’s about, if it has such value, we can determine a way to
sell it.”

Bruno shrugged.
 
Leon had probably lost him at the vodka, but
it didn’t matter.
 
The waitress arrived
with their mineral water and, after Leon paid her and sent her away, he
instructed Bruno on what to do.

“See the
shop?
 
I want you to tell me every time
you see someone coming or going, okay?”
 
His tone was that of an adult instructing a third-grader on what to do.

“Okay.”

“Very good,
Bruno.
 
Don’t think about anything else.
 
Nothing at all.
 
Just sit there, sip your water, and watch
that door.”

Leon grabbed an
already-read
Le Monde
from the next
table, flipping to the sports page.
 
He
took another look at Bruno, staring across the street with a vacuous
expression.

Why on earth did Nicky stick him with this
connard
?

***

As soon as Gerard
returned, Michel sprang into action.
 
He
checked his watch.
 
There was only a
little over an hour before Monika and her big stud were to return.
 
More importantly, the publishers would only
be open for a short while.

“Did they leave?”
Gerard asked, straining as if it pained him to even sully his mind with a
single thought about the men.
 
He gaped
at Michel, screwing up his face.
 
“What
on earth happened to your cheek?”

“Never you mind,”
Michel said, grabbing his mobile phone.
 
“Stay out here, and no matter what…
no
matter what
, Gerard…do not disturb me.”

Gerard placed his
hands on his hips before giving a mock salute.
 
“Well, yes sir.”

Michel rushed into
the very rear of the back room, switching on the desk lamp.
 
He opened the contacts section of his phone,
choosing the search function.
 
He typed
the word “publisher”, watching as it returned pages of contacts.
 
Within those contacts, he typed “Paris”.
 
There were six results.
 
Michel scanned them.
 
Yes.
 
Yes.
 
No way.
 
Yes.
 
No. Yes.