[SPEAKER_00]: The American, chapter 55, the trouble with kidnapping, part two, a short-hand missile tail by Matthew C. McLean.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took Alonzo to Simon's Cafe, any cafe would do, I suppose, but I suspected that Simon might know how to write a love letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't appear that he'd be interested in the job, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: While the course can hadn't been with his buddies when they threatened us, Simon stared at Lanzo in the same guarded way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, there were still enough of a lunch crowd that I didn't have to make immediate introductions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stared at Lanzo through the few occupied tables, happy to see no one paid us any mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: The diners finishing meals were so wrapped in their own plans that they wouldn't suspect we were up to nefarious ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was grateful to find my usual table empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sat back against the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo glanced round, then snorted before taking a seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: The scene too bourgeois for him, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friendship with Simon made it hard to ignore this, but I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was pleasantly surprised, though, that when Simon came over, Lanzo asked permission to smoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't actually say anything to the old arrangement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only took out his cigarettes and held them up with a monocilabuck query.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Bivalin at first, Simon took stock of his remaining lunch crowd and then nodded.
[SPEAKER_00]: AddXer always happy to have company.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo actually smiled and returned.
[SPEAKER_00]: unusual to see you twice in one day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Simon noted to me, and I love this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm showing it to all my friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: I waved at Lanzo as he lit up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was Simon's turn to snort.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said he didn't say anything else though, and I ordered two coffees.
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked, do you have a pen and paper?
[SPEAKER_00]: I waved a finger between me and Lanzo.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to write a letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing that younger generations that had abandoned written correspondence, Simon cocked his head at me as if he misunderstood, knowing it would make him happy to hear it, I clarified a love letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Simon smiled like the sun had come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he thought I was constructing an ode to Sophie and had pulled some starving poet in from the street to help me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within moments he was back with two cups of coffee, a pen, and a pad of stationary.
[SPEAKER_00]: He set these down and moved off into the cafe to tend as remaining customers, so this Serano and I could get to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo sift his coffee and then picked up the pen, skewing the pad for a left-handed writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: To encourage him, I said, keep it simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo gave a short, bitter chuckle, eliciting the same casket sympathy that I had felt when we had met at the casino.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he was a punk, but he was also about the same age I had been when I had fallen in love with Cheryl.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it started out there is something so promising, I laid down a path that was so full of pain and joy that the two were heartily distinguishable.
[SPEAKER_00]: A part of me,
[SPEAKER_00]: right then part of me wanted to warn Lanzo.
[SPEAKER_00]: To wave him away from his current course, to tell him to flee from the heartbreak that would surely be his if he continued to pursue the girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, I reminded him of the critical information that the letter needed to contain, the warehouse tomorrow night.
[SPEAKER_00]: He only dismissed this with a wave of his hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched him smoke nervously drinking his coffee, trying to figure out what to write to a woman I suspect he was beginning to realize he didn't know very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were perfunctory pin scratches that ended in pulling pages off the pad and tossing them aside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to think of something that I might say to Sophie in a similar situation, but decided that Hardly applied.
[SPEAKER_00]: As his lunch crowd dwindled, Simon made circles between us, and them, he kept an eye on Lanzo as the younger man became increasingly frustrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, the old waiter began to pick up bits of discarded paper as he swung by, quietly unfolding the crumbled balls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it was more entertaining than watching Lanzo, I observed Simon's expression as he read these.
[SPEAKER_00]: In general, his raised eyebrows and distended cheeks indicated he agreed with Lanzo's appraisement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although, once or twice, he purseed his lips, cuped his chin, nodded thoughtfully.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the cafe emptied Simon sat down with us and lit one of his cigarettes, staring at Lanzo.
[SPEAKER_00]: The younger man eventually noticed this and came up from the depths of his note pad to ask Simon, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Simon leaned forward and, with a finger, pinned the paper in front of Lanzo to the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked at a youngster directly in the eye and said, if you want something, you must ask for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo returned Simon's stare, his eyes shaded with hostility.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, Simon held the younger man's gaze, a growing intensity between them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Time passed until an understanding flickered there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo's enmity remitted and he nodded.
[SPEAKER_00]: Simon released the paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: He returned to his duties and Lanzo to his scribbling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo scratched out something, ripped off that sheet of paper, tossed at the ground to join its mutilated cousins.
[SPEAKER_00]: He then rode out a few lines with a quickness like they'd burn him if he didn't get them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: These completed he slapped on the pen and pushed it away.
[SPEAKER_00]: He picked up his cigarette, sucking on it as if it contained oxygen he needed after too long under water.
[SPEAKER_00]: I slid the pad over to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The message was in English, which was probably their shared language.
[SPEAKER_00]: It read, I am leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our time together, I sensed you are unhappy here and much the same way that I am unhappy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come with me, and perhaps we can find happiness together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read it over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was brief, direct, and had the compelling element of what I suspected was the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not knowing what else to say, I decided on very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've learned they took any pleasure from the compliment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I instructed him to add the time and meeting place.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did so, scattering cigarette ash over the paper like he was drying the ink with sand.
[SPEAKER_00]: The addition complete, I gave a final inspection, not at one satisfied.
[SPEAKER_00]: The paper was small and light enough that I could fold it into a square that would sit into the palm of my hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got up and took out money to pay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Simon stopped me with a wave as his dish cloth towards the bar.
[SPEAKER_00]: No need.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will put it on your tab.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remembering the wad of midnight's cash, I'd love to with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I nodded.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least if something happened to me, Simon would have reimbursement for his trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked lawns of out of the cafe.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the street I realized I wasn't sure where I was heading, but I decided it was better if lawns of and I weren't together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I scored it in a way from Simon's and said, if I don't see you before, be it the warehouse tomorrow, after dark, don't wait till midnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being there early, almost guaranteed we'd be waiting a good long time, but that was better than Missing Meekha.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pivoted to a direction that would take me to the nearest tram station when Lonson said, wait, I turned back to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lonson's eyes were watery and worried and he looked like the kid that probably used to play in front of his uncle's motor shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gave me a bit more patience than I was expecting, but when he continued not to say anything, I asked, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: After a long moment of moving his mouth around like a dying fish, he said, Was he no?
[SPEAKER_00]: I shuffled the trench coat and umbrella from under one arm to the other and tried to figure out what he meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idiot?
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo corrects to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's home, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Word that Lanzo was losing his nerve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found that I had genuine sympathy for his conflict of fraternal loyalty.
[SPEAKER_00]: You heard out of their mouths, they were planning on betraying you and Nika from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: What difference does it make if they know that you got the better of them first?
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo's eyes drifted down to the sidewalk as Shoal of a nose nearly hiding as uncertainty and shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realized that Lanzav knew by absconding with Nika, he wouldn't just be leaving his friends with a bag of trouble, but would be escaping with their best ticket out of poverty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you got out beyond them, peripheral of old town, there weren't a lot of economic opportunities, particularly if you had an abundance of skin pigmentation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzav, saying his name directly to him for the first time,
[SPEAKER_00]: Your friends are using people as pawns.
[SPEAKER_00]: You, Nika, me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was about to say you're better off without them, but realize those words had never helped any young person ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead I said, should be safe with you when you get her away from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some small consideration to his feelings I added, I won't tell them what happens to you in her.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all I can promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo nodded, taking whatever consolation he could from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I switched the conversation to something more practical.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tomorrow night, bring the pistol.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the first time, Lanzo grinned at me, closing an eye against the brilliance of the afternoon sun, Selamasupa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I blinked as I translated the words, genuinely impressed he had successfully bluffed me with a broken revolver.
[SPEAKER_00]: I let out a short single.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the humor of that moment passed, I saw an opportunity and executed on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want me to fix it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Lons of blinked, an entirely new possibility entering in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We, where is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: My uncles?
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to keep my ground from audibly escaping.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was back towards Grenoble, which meant making our way across town.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, however, I wanted to lay my hands on a firearm since the head now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God for the tram system.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even as the edges of town had begun to decay with the financial crisis and all that had happened afterwards, the tram system still nearly extended out to the river making it easy to get near the motor shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't let Londo drag ass though, moving at a double time pace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once there, not wanting to deal with Moro, I sent Lanzo into the shop alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I waited outside the alley where he had bluffed shooting me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I waited for a long time, watching what futurists had made their way out into the town's outer banks, Eddie around, either lost or wandering.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave it more time than I should have, figuring that ones that I'd run into as uncle and they were having a heart to heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, though, I'd lost patience and made my way to the shops back entrance.
[SPEAKER_00]: The screen door that I had banged through in my chase of Lanzo was pulled as hue on its hinges.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to remember if I'd done that on my last visit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't recall, so I moved very cautiously.
[SPEAKER_00]: I laid the trench coat out of the way, but kept the umbrella in hand using it to push the open door.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing inside, but a hot stillness, they are baking from the day's sun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I waited just inside, heard nothing, until the faint sound of a child crying came back to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Confused, I slowly went into the job.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the garage, kneeling next to a broken pile of scooters, lawns have faced the motley heap of metal and shook with sobs.
[SPEAKER_00]: The scooters themselves are spread out like the rings of an impact crater.
[SPEAKER_00]: My rose body in the middle.
[SPEAKER_00]: His head was darkened with blood and bruises.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of the shop was in disarray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tools, electric cords, scrap metal thrown about the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only sound in the shop was coming from Lanzo, hiccups of uncontrolled weeping, pulled out of him by the sight of his broken uncle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uncertain what to do, I quickly made my way through the garage to confirm we were alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever killed Muro was for better or worse, not in the shop anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I approached lawns are from behind examining the room as I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moro wasn't restrained, a lug wrench not far from his grasp, someone had shown up at his shop looking for something and Moro hadn't taken kindly to the avenue of questioning.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hadn't gone down without a fight, though, and suspected not all the blood on the floor was his.
[SPEAKER_00]: From what little I had known about the man, that wasn't a surprise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Certain the questions, Moro as attackers asked had involved one of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bent down to take Lons of by the elbow.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lons of through off my hand and continue to cry, unable to process his loss, that we might still be in danger.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in attempt to reach my whisper,
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever did this might still be here, or, as unlikely as it might be in this neighborhood, someone might have seen something suspicious and called the police.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either way, we didn't want to be there anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Lanzo latched onto my words, his eyes flew up and read with rage.
[SPEAKER_00]: What little I knew about Moro ran during my mind, thinking about the whispers from him and Satray that hinted at a relationship, remembering whip and brick following me into the shop, both of these provided a number of reasons someone might have killed Moro, none of them were his fault, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but we can't find out if we're here when the police show up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eyes laced with bloodshot madness, lawns are jumped up from the corpse and ran upstairs, and certain of what he was capable of in his state, I followed, slow enough that by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, lawns are already headed back down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He panted, showing me the heavy black revolver.
[SPEAKER_00]: I reached out to take it, but he snatched it away.
[SPEAKER_00]: The violence in his eyes making me glad the pistol wasn't functional.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kept my own anger from rising in response to his and only said, what are you going to do with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: A question landed on Lanzo, deflating him to the lowered himself to the stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I laid a hand on a shoulder and an imitation of comfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the other hand, I slipped the revolver away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I let a few moments pass, then reminded him that we had to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guiding Lanzo by the shoulder, we moved out towards the exit.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the way out, I picked the trench coat up again and wrapped the revolver in, juggling this home moving Lanzo along.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pushed him the opposite way we had come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not wanting anyone who might be watching to see us twice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I household lawns who down the back alleys for as long as I could, staying off the streets.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was getting a little too accustomed to fleeing murder scenes.