Mornings at the tavern were blissfully quiet, the silence punctuated only by the growl and hiss of the espresso machine, or by the brief greetings exchanged by a few regulars.
Seated in one of the window booths, Josse was relishing a few moments’ peace with the day’s paper (yes! actual print!). The wide pages spread out on the table before him in a spot of pale February sun, a double espresso within easy reach on the side… What more could a man want?
He had barely reached the sports section when someone slid into the facing bench. He noticed the chunky curb bracelet and the monogrammed pinky ring before anything else.
The bling was attached to a man. Average height, slightly balding, a tad overweight – Mr Obnoxious was in the house.
Let’s see how he’s going to play this, Josse thought, resisting the reflex to make room for the man’s cup. Instead, he plonked his elbows down on the paper, claiming his space, and studied the intruder with a level gaze.
“C’est vous le patron ici, c’est bien ça?”
“Si on veut,” Josse responded.
“Et vous êtes le propriétaire des immeubles de l’impasse?”
“Non, mais je les représente.” A half-truth. The buildings that formed the alley – tavern included – technically belonged to a private foundation. Which, of course, he had set up himself and ran jointly with Adelphine.
“J’ai eu du mal à vous trouver.”
“C’était pour ça, le petit numéro avec la fausse espionne?”
The intruder’s grin was probably meant to be disarming. “C’est ça. Histoire de vous faire sortir du bois.”
“Il aurait suffi de laisser un mot dans la boîte aux lettres.”
“Vous savez bien que je l’ai fait. Vous n’avez jamais répondu.”
“Et donc, vous avez décidé d’insister.”
“J’ai une proposition à vous faire.”
Of course, this proposition was entirely to Josse’s advantage, n’est-ce pas. It was such a shame to see prime real estate underexploited. There was so much money to be had by building high-end apartments instead! With a private pool, a gym, a residents’ lounge and a roof-top bar! Ka-ching!
The unwelcome visitor had it all mapped out. Muscling in shamelessly, he plonked a flashy tablet with floor plans right down on the paper.
It wasn’t a bad project, as these things went. Josse did take a look, just to see what he was up against. Gone was the garden – which of course an outside observer wouldn’t even know about – and gone was the tree; all the façades suddenly sported French windows; the warehouse had been gentrified into peak bland.
Still, in fairness, whoever designed this had done a good job, if one disregarded the complete lack of mandate and their client’s questionable motivations.
“Je ne suis pas intéressé,” Josse replied. “Et je n’apprécie pas vos méthodes.”
“Oh, je pense que je parviendrai à vous convaincre. Vous allez vous faire plein d’argent avec ce projet! Voici ma carte.”
“Inutile d’insister.”
“Oh, je pense que si. Mieux vaut une petite fortune qu’un gros tas d’ennuis, non? J’ai eu l’occasion de bien vous observer. Il se passe des trucs dans cette impasse, ça m’étonnerait que vous ayez envie qu’on regarde de trop près.”
With that, Mr Obnoxious drained the rest of his cup.
“On se reverra,” he said, straightening the lapels of his suit before turning away.
Today would have been a great day for a man not to have a butter knife sticking out of his topknot, Josse thought wryly, twisting the offending item more securely into the silver-grey tangle as he watched the man walk away.
Three seconds later, Adelphine emerged from the kitchen, grinning at the way the door had slammed on their visitor’s ample behind. Apparently, Ladrache didn’t like him either.
Three more seconds later, the door opened and closed (gently) for a young woman leaving in the man’s wake. Saddle shoes and sheer seamed tights under a vintage cinched, broad-shouldered coat, incongruously paired with huge sunglasses and a faux-fur hood in the shape of a bat.
“So. What did he want?” Adelphine sat down on the far side of the recently vacated bench, her forearms and clasped hands propped up on a paper-free stretch of table top.
“The usual. But he seems pushier.”
She snorted, then gestured to the bar staff for her go-to brew. Fresh mint tea served piping hot with finely grated ginger – as powerful as any ristretto, in her mind, and far less likely to cause palpitations or bad breath.
“Should we be worried?”
“Dunno. We’re completely legit, so I’m not concerned about crank building code complaints or whatever, but he does seem to have clocked that we’re hiding something and don’t like attention.”
“Thank you,” Adelphine interrupted as a werewolf in a low-slung apron served up her drink.
“So yes, we might be heading for trouble,” Josse pursued. “But I’m not sure what form that might take. He seems shady, so I doubt he’ll stick to legitimate means.”
“We could just nip it in the bud,” she said.
“We could. And maybe we should, just to make sure he doesn’t cause any real damage. But is that fair? He hasn’t done anything yet.”
It would be Minority Report all over again, he thought. And yet, the guy was trouble, as sure as AI cats dreamt of electric mice.
“I hear you, but we need to keep an eye on him. One step out of line and we’ll have to send him a message.”
“Well. Yes. But – you know. Proportionate response. Let’s see where this is all headed. I mean, we’re not going to go medieval on him just because he decides to review-bomb the tavern or pretends to find a dead rat in the stew.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Adelphine replied. “Anyone brings a rodent into my kitchen, dead or alive, and there’ll be a new frog in the pond.”
He smiled at the hyperbole. Fierce as she undoubtedly was, Adelphine had learned her lesson when the Manneken spell backfired, and she had wielded her powers very carefully since. Harmful magic backfiring thrice just isn’t very nice.
These days, she was more likely to deflect nastiness by encouraging happier pursuits. Such as giving people an irresistible urgent to be helpful. There wasn’t a single old lady in the entire neighbourhood who carried her own shopping.
While they sat contemplating the karmic implications of back-handed positivity, Mirko came running down the stairs and up to their table.
“She’s gone,” he announced.
“What, in her pyjamas? Her clothes are still in the laundry room.”
“I guess she had more in her backpack. And she’s taken the pillow, and everything on the bedside table.”
Two blister strips of paracetamol, a packet of biscuits, a bottle of orange juice, a box of tissues and a tablet of dark chocolate, so far as Adelphine remembered. Jade was welcome to them, but she was in no fit state to be out and about.
“She’s an adult,” Adelphine said. “I checked when she arrived. So she gets to make her own decisions, but this is a really stupid one. She’s still not well, and she should not be out there on her own.”