Rules of Vengeance

Co

“Frank, it’s time to go.”

Co

“No, Frank. I don’t remember anybody or anything. That’s how you taught us.”

Danko lifted a hand, and two doormen were at the table a second later. “Take Mr. Co

“I’m still playing cards, you ungrateful Slavic piece of shit.”

“Time to go.”

Co

It missed.

47

They were trouble. Emma knew it at a glance.

The crew of Muslim toughs had rounded the corner just ahead and were headed straight for her, already whistling and calling out names.

“Hey, girl, you better watch out,” one called out in Arabic. “Not safe for a Western girl all by herself.”

“Maybe she needs somebody to protect her,” added another. “A real man.”

“Bitch!” said the last, as if ending the argument.

There were six in all, and they wore the urban attire popular among disaffected French youth: baggy pants, oversized athletic jerseys, gold chains. There was nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, even if she wanted to. She fumed. She was not in the mood for a confrontation. Not tonight. Not when she had the black on. Not when even the friendliest smile might set her off, let alone a bunch of terrorists in training. She cursed the boys at headquarters. You decide to set up shop in a quartier louche, you have to expect that this kind of thing might happen.

The banlieue of Seine-Saint-Denis, in the northeastern outskirts of Paris, was a neighborhood of immigrants. A neighborhood where the poor came and went. A neighborhood that the police avoided. It was past two in the morning, but the streets still had plenty of life left in them. Neon lights advertised an all-night falafel shop. A cluster of men stood nearby, smoking. Keeping her eyes on the gang of toughs, Emma pulled her shoulder bag closer to her body and kept walking. The bag contained her work clothes, the camera, her purse, and, of course, her weapon.

The gang circled her, following her up the street.

“We’re talking to you, ma’am,” another said, this time in French. “You visiting, or did you move in? I’m sure we haven’t seen you before.”

Emma kept her pace, rounding a corner. She paid their catcalls no heed. She knew what it was like to be young and ungoverned and wild, with too much time on your hands and not enough money. “Excuse me,” she said, spotting her building, making to cross the street.

“Not just yet.” It was the leader, if there was one. A homely boy of nineteen or twenty, Algerian by the look of his hawk nose and shadowy eyes. He stood in front of her, blocking her path. He wore a tank top, and his arms were enormous. She spotted a tattoo of a dagger on his neck. A convict. That explained the arms. He’d had plenty of time to pump iron in the prison yard.

“I said, ‘Excuse me.’” Emma stepped around him, but he slid over to block her once more. She straightened up, sensing a tension that had not been there a minute before. “What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“It’s late. I need to get home.”

“Why don’t you come to my crib?” said the leader, moving in, getting into her space. “Just you and me. Don’t worry, I’ll have you home in time for morning prayer.”

“That won’t be necessary. You kids run along now.” She was baiting them and couldn’t stop herself. She had the black on. Tonight, no one gave her shit.

The others were moving in, too. She checked over her shoulder. The street was empty. No falafel joints or tattoo parlors here. Just dark storefronts. In the distance she heard the crash of a bottle breaking and a woman’s hysterical laughter, giving way to a scream. Something clicked inside her.

“Don’t be a hard case,” said the leader. “Why don’t you hang with us?”

“And you can give us your bag while you’re at it,” said another. “We’ll deliver it to your room for you.”

A hand reached for the bag and she yanked it away. “The bag stays with me.”

“I’ll decide that,” said the leader. He stood inches away, his eyes close enough for her to see that one was half green and half brown. Then he made his mistake. He reached out and took her arm. Not forcefully but firmly and with no mistaking his intent.

It was all the provocation Emma needed.

She hit him on the bridge of the nose, her knuckles extended. The blow was so quick that he didn’t see it coming. It landed solidly and she felt the cartilage collapse, heard the septum break. He stumbled back a step, falling to his knees as the force of the blow registered, his nose broken, blood ru

That’s all it took. The others backed off.

Disgusted with herself, Emma crossed the street and entered her building.

It was a monument to anonymity, a ten-story HLM-habitation à loyer modéré-built forty years ago and untouched since. The lobby was stifling and reeked of hashish. Emma walked to the elevator and waited five minutes for it to come. The stairwell was across the foyer, but she knew better than to walk up five flights. She didn’t care about the doped-up residents she might find. It was the stink of stale piss she hated. It reminded her of home and the past. And the past was the only thing that still frightened her.

The elevator arrived. She rode to the fifth floor. Apartment 5F was at the end of the hall. She had the key in one hand. The other was buried inside her bag, clutching a compact Sig Sauer P238.

Inside, she locked the door, taking care that the double bolt was secured. She dropped the bag on the kitchen floor, then knelt and dug out her pistol, checking that a bullet was chambered, safety on, before setting it on the counter. The place was a dump, just like the place she’d stayed in the night before, in Rouen. Welcome back to the other side, she muttered. Division would never have allowed a place like this. It wasn’t the money. It was a question of security. To put an operation at risk because of a bunch of neighborhood hoodlums was beyond reckless.

And what about her own behavior? Picking a fight when she should have walked away. Reckless was just the begi

She opened the refrigerator. A stuttering bulb threw light on a plate of cheese speckled with mold and a quart of rancid milk she could smell from where she stood. She closed the door, swearing under her breath. The least they could do was put a little something in the fridge for her. Some yogurt, maybe a jar of pickles, even some mineral water. Even, God forbid, a bottle of wine. This was France, after all.

Her stomach groaned and she felt her muscles clench with hunger.

The memory hit her like a hammer.

A gangly girl in a torn woolen dress. Auburn hair cut short, uncombed and hopelessly tangled. Rebellious green eyes peering out from a face ragged with eczema. She was standing in the school kitchen, her hands held out for punishment. At her feet lay a fractured porcelain bowl and the fistful of gruel she’d scraped from the bottom of the pot. The black belt lashed her palms, and then it lashed other parts of her. And though her body cried out, it was her pinched, complaining stomach that hurt most.