16 - Confrontation

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

Roger Léger wasn't happy with whom he was facing. The oily looking man with the moustache and the constantly burning cigarette seemed almost too polite and the other one, the silent one with the unnerving smile made the meeting uncomfortable in the extreme.

"You understand why we are concerned, Roger," Nathan said, seeing the look of blank confusion. "Your friend Pierre, rest his soul, delivered a considerable sum of money to you along with a list of clients he once served increasing your, shall we say, stable."

"I didn't ask him, he was in trouble and he came to me!" He realized his remark had verified the man's statement and he felt his neck grow hot. "You said, rest his soul?"

"Mmhmm. He succumbed to his injuries in hospital."

"But- I heard he was recovering."

"Sadly, no. Now, you mentioned you were just helping a friend."

Roger blanched. "Yes! Yes, that's all I was doing."

"Fair enough. The question remains, Roger. Where is the money?"

"I- I don't-"

Murray placed a firm hand on his arm.

"I passed it to Richard. He said he was filling for Monique while she was on leave and some changes had to be made." The hand remained and the grip tightened.

"When? Where?" Nathan felt a familiar twinge of anger at the news.

Terrified that these men were as dangerous as Jean's and what they might do, Roger blubbered everything about Richard's explanation for being away and coming back temporarily. The agreed meeting and the subsequent escape from Jean's men, how their car was wrecked in a chase and how Richard had killed all three before dropping him off and leaving with the money.

"What did he say to you?"

"He said it was Pierre's fault and that I should call Jean and tell him the truth."

"That's all?"

"He said he'd speak to Pierre but he didn't think there would be much hope there. He also asked me if I knew about a council." He shrugged his ignorance of the question.

Nathan slid an interested look at Murray. "Why did he ask that at that time?"

"I have no idea, I swear. I don't even know what he was talking about." Roger shuddered at the man's edgy demeanor.

Nathan pulled at his chin and took out another cigarette. "Roger, I hope you are telling me the truth about the money. It would be most disappointing to find that you have been deceptive about everything."

"It is all the truth! I swear!"

Nathan turned and nodded to Murray who slid out of his chair and lifted Roger to his feet.

"Right this way, sir, if you please."

"Where are you taking me? What's happening here?"

"Just go with this gentleman, Roger, there's a good fellow." Nathan gestured a calm departure with his hand and issued a benign smile.

******

Richard paid his hotel bill and then chose the seat he had picked out the previous day at the bar permitting visual coverage of most of the lounge without allowing himself to be too exposed. He was enjoying his second beer and a dish of salted cashews when Monique arrived.

He watched her in the mirror as she strode through the lounge to a table where another couple sat. Her marine blue dress clung like plastic wrap to the incredible figure. An erotic memory stirred awake and he adjusted his position on the stool. The woman at the table leaned to accept a kiss on the cheek and the man half stood and bowed.

He stared at the woman with whom he had planned a future and felt the same pang despite his change of heart. She was beautiful and the manner in which she held herself and posed, she knew it.

He angled himself to watch them through the mirror rather than directly and after several minutes of what appeared to be simple chatter before ordering Monique happened to glance into the bar and their eyes locked in the mirror.

He saw her head jerk and her complexion pale as he gave her an artificially civil acknowledgement by holding up his glass. Whatever business she had intended was cancelled as she suddenly feigned some excuse and left the table, heading towards the washrooms at the rear of the lounge.

The couple sat back and stared in confusion. Richard dropped some money on the bar and sauntered after her. He boldly strode right through the woman's entrance and confronted her by the sinks. An elderly woman emerged from a stall and gasped as she fled the room, trailing a stream of indignant remarks.

"Imagine me thinking it would be Toronto where I would be seeing you next." Richard said.

She opened her mouth but nothing came out.

"I met Agency representatives instead and they were very displeased to learn about our plans. I was treated to a year under wraps in a safe house with a charming minder."

"I can explain." She started.

"No you can't. Any more than you can say you didn't plan this all along."

"No . . . "

"Monique, I've heard the story. You wriggled out of the grasp of the Agency by selling me out."

"That's not true! They intercepted me at the airport and kept me in a hotel for three days questioning me about the money. I told them nothing. They knew about Toronto because I had the ticket and the information for the hotel. That little man that does the dirty work for them- he- I gave them the fact that we were meeting there but I swear, I didn't say anything about the money."

Richard stared at her, searching her face for any tells, instead he saw a genuine fear.

"How come they let you go?"

"You were out of the loop and they wanted me to continue with your business as well as my own. I couldn't very well stop. They wouldn't let me. Deals still had to be honoured and more exchanges made. That's what I'm doing here today. This is a regular routine for me. It was that or- or I don't know what actually."

Richard still felt his suspicions had been right. They stared at one another, silently mulling the implications of each other's story.

"So where is the money, Monique?"

"Still in our account. I haven't gone near it."

"Have they got someone on you?"

"I have no idea. How would I know?"

"Finish your lunch and then meet me at this address." He scribbled on a slip of paper the name of the Bistro where he'd eaten his dinner and handed it to her. "Don't let me down, Monique." He gave her a sharp look and left the room.

Richard knew there was no way the Agency would let Monique go without keeping tabs on her. They didn't believe her any more than they believed him. He slipped out a side entrance of the hotel and found a stretch of cement wall near a souvenir shop where he sat and watched the street.

The hounds were well trained and rarely made mistakes but he was also trained in how to avoid them or at least flush them out and he quartered the street, examining everything in slow detail. The third quarter caught his interest with a woman and a young child.

The child seemed fidgety and not very happy and she had to keep pulling him back down on the bench beside her. She leaned down and said something to the child and right away there was a wail and flood of tears. Richard watched her a little longer and then swung back to the first quarter he'd studied.

A man on a ladder hanging a sale sign over the entrance of a shop was taking an extraordinary amount of time. He paused to watch the same woman then took out his phone. She looked around, digging the phone out of her purse and glanced up at the man on the ladder.

Richard was actually surprised at the breach of protocol and he began walking casually across the street, nodding politely to the woman as he passed. A little way up a side street he stepped into a gift shop and positioned himself behind a rack of cards.

A moment later, the woman, sans child, came by peering in all the windows, a look of anxious concern on her face. When she had passed he left the shop and returned to the square. The man on the ladder was gone.

This time wearing a light hat and sunglasses picked off a street kiosk, Richard sat on the edge of a large planter by the main intersection and searched the scattering of pedestrians.

An elderly couple sat at the outdoor café next to the ancient church having tea and he saw that they were paying close attention to the pedestrian traffic as well. When the woman, still without the child returned to the bench, they left the café and started down the street, dropping a newspaper in the waste container at the corner.

A young man with a backpack retrieved the paper and began a brisk walk up the side street to the road overlooking the town square. Richard nodded to himself; they had been on him. He gave them credit for locating him in the first place, something he wondered about. Five in the team and he had four in his sight.

They lost him and had gone into broad search mode. He slipped into the patisserie next to his observation site and asked if he might use their rear exit to access the stairs up to the high road.

The back packer was striding quickly along the roadway, stopping at intervals to look down through the backs of the shops. Richard waited until he moved further along the road and then slipped into the laneway where he had parked the vehicle borrowed from his landlord.

***************

Monique was at the Bistro on the patio when Richard arrived, watching this time from a post behind a flower vendor's cart. She was smoking and sipping a glass of wine, her eyes tracking the passing traffic. Richard watched, studying her body language and her reactions to the flow of pedestrian traffic. He did not trust her for one second.

He waited twenty minutes and just as he was prepared to approach her he saw his friend from the ladder step out of a cab and enter the bistro. Monique shifted in her chair and turned to watch him take a table just inside the door hidden by the sun on the glass of the window.

She moved her purse from one side of the table to the other and Richard knew she was setting him up . . . he had been right not to trust dear Monique.


You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net