Paris is a Bitch

contraband, not arrest him for it.
    Sad, how cynical people can be.
    He turned and put his palms on the wall.
    “Feet farther back,” I said. “Weight on your palms. And spread your legs.”
    He complied.
    I watched him for just a moment, savoring what I was about to do. Then I reached one hand between his legs and took hold of his badly exposed balls, which I then proceeded to pretend were one of those apples I sometimes use to test my grip.
    An apple would have done better.
    When I was done, I left his unconscious body in a heap and walked away without looking back. I crossed the Pont Louis-Philippe, made a right on Voie Georges Pompidou, and five minutes later I was at the park. Delilah was waiting by the monkey bars as promised, the playground a small triangle of stillness and dark against the sounds and headlights of the streets surrounding it.
    “It was what you thought,” I said. I told her what happened, and what I’d learned from the guy I’d left by the Pont Louis-Philippe.
    When I was done, she touched my face, an intimate gesture I had always welcomed from her but that just then irritated me. “Thank you,” she said.
    “What are you going to do about it?”
    “I told you, my organization—”
    “Mossad. I know who you work for. Why can’t you say the name?”
    “You know the name. Why do I have to say it?”
    I didn’t answer. I knew I was being petty.
    “Anyway,” she said, “my organization will move me to a new apartment. They’ll watch me. I’ll be fine.”
    “You’ll be fine? Your organization wasn’t even competent enough to protect you tonight, now you’re going to be okay because they’ll watch you? Do you even believe that?”
    She didn’t answer. It was maddening.
    “What about the Saudi?” I said. “You think he’s going to just quit?”
    “They’ll take care of him, too.” She paused, then said, “Are you interested?”
    I looked at her, incredulous. “In the job? You can’t be serious.”
    “Why not? A half hour ago, I had to beg you not to.”
    “For you. I would have done it for you. I’m not going to be hired by your organization. Don’t you understand? I can’t modulate this shit, Delilah. Maybe you can, but I can’t. You know how hard it is to fight that part of myself, to keep him in check? Because he’s always looking for a way back in. Tonight he found a personal one, because of you. And now you’re offering a professional opportunity on top of it. What’s wrong with you? How many times do I have to tell you, I just want—”
    “Out of the life, I know.”
    “Then why are you trying to drag me back in? So you won’t have to leave? When are you going to be happy, when your work gets us both killed?”
    “They were just punks.”
    “This time. Next time, it’ll be fucking Delta Force. One of us has to make a decision here, Delilah. I’m tired of you refusing to make it.”
    “What are you saying?”
    I knew I was being pigheaded and reckless. But I was still jacked on adrenaline, and I was pissed.
    “I’m saying I want to know when. Right now. Tell me when you’re out. Because if you can’t tell me that, I’ll know the answer is never. And I’ll know to stop wasting my time.”
    A long beat went by. I heard the sounds of traffic, and distant voices laughing, and the branches of elm trees swaying in the dark above us.
    Finally, she said, “I can’t tell you that. Because the truth is, I don’t know.”
    In the dim, diffuse light, I couldn’t read her face. I supposed it didn’t matter.
    “You shouldn’t go back to your apartment,” I said. “Not that it makes any difference to me.”
    I turned and walked away.
    I wanted her to say something.
John, wait
. Anything.
    But she didn’t.
    I walked across the Pont de Sully back to the Île Saint-Louis, confused, seething. It was completely un-tactical, but I wanted to hurt someone. I didn’t think I’d killed Vincent or anyone else in his crew—though the throat shot and two cranial slams had been hard enough so that I couldn’t be sure—and maybe I would find some straggler still skulking around near the restaurant.
    They were all gone. No police, either. All told, probably for the best, but I was left with all my helpless rage and no where to direct it. Why couldn’t she have just given me an answer? How many times had I stood by her, backed her up, let her disappear for a month at a time without asking where she’d been or what she’d been doing? And for what? So