Chapter 14
I watched the cafe from inside for the first time.
They'd put me at a table against the window, not on the sidewalk where I usually stood with my hands in my pockets. A policewoman in plain clothes sat with me, her coffee untouched. She didn't tell me to be quiet or to be brave. She just slid the glass a little closer so the reflection wouldn't give us away and said, "You don't have to look the whole time."
Outside, the white round table with the gold rim was back in its exact spot. Same two chairs. Same overcast light on the beige stone buildings with the balconies. Mr. Belgasham wasn't sitting there. A man I didn't know was, wearing a navy sweater, reading a newspaper, a fresh cup in front of him. He looked bored, like he'd been waiting a long time.
My stomach felt tight. I remembered knocking that cup with both my hands and the dark coffee jumping across the white top and onto Mr. Belgasham's right trouser leg. The stain was the reason I was inside now and not out there.
The policewoman checked her phone. "He's two minutes out," she murmured into her sleeve.
A second man came around the corner from the rue side, walking fast, hands in his coat pockets. He was younger than Mr. Belgasham, thirties, neat hair, gray coat. He didn't look like someone who would hurt anyone. That was what scared me. He looked ordinary. He stopped at the gold rim table and smiled at the man in the navy sweater like they knew each other.
"You're early," the man in the sweater said. It wasn't loud enough to hear through the glass, but the policewoman had an earpiece and I could see her eyes move as she listened.
The man in the gray coat sat down. He ordered nothing. He leaned forward and said something and then slid a small folded paper across the table, not a vial, just paper. The man in the sweater didn't touch it. He kept his hands around his cup.
That was when two men who had looked like tourists stood up from the next table and a woman who had been sweeping the doorway stepped forward. Nobody shouted. The man in the gray coat tried to stand, and the man in the sweater finally moved, fast, and put a hand on his arm and said, clear enough that I heard it through the door when it opened, "Police. Stay seated."
I flinched. The policewoman next to me didn't grab me. She just put her hand lightly on the back of my chair.
"It's okay," she whispered. "Watch what happens, not what you think will happen."
They turned the man in the gray coat around, cuffed him with his hands behind his back, and walked him not to a police car but into the cafe, past our window, straight inside. The bell over the door rang. The other customers stared and then pretended not to.
In the back hallway by the bathrooms, they had the guard. I hadn't seen him since they took him away. He looked smaller without the leather jacket, in a gray sweatshirt, his hands cuffed in front of him, a policeman on each side. His hair was still cropped short, but his face wasn't sweaty anymore. It was pale.
An officer held up a tablet. On it were six photos, all men in gray coats or similar. The policewoman had told me before this was called a lineup, even though it was just pictures.
The man in the gray coat was standing ten feet away now, facing the wall, an officer holding his shoulder. The guard looked at the tablet, then at the real man, then back at the tablet.
He swallowed. "That's him," he said. His voice was hoarse. "He gave me the packet. He said it was just to make Belgasham sick for a day, so the meeting would cancel."
The officer asked, "What's his name?"
"Laurent. Laurent Moreau. He works for Varga," the guard said. He glanced at me then, quick, and looked away. "I didn't know it was poison poison."
The man against the wall didn't turn around. He said nothing.
I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out slow. The dirt was still under my nails from that morning a week ago, even though they'd given me clean clothes. My worn gray shirt was folded in a bag at the station because they'd kept it as something too. But now I was in a borrowed blue sweater that was too big, and I was inside.
Mr. Belgasham came in through the back door then. He wasn't wearing the dark three-piece suit. He wore dark pants that were not the ones with the stain, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled once. He held no napkin. He nodded to the police first, then looked at me.
"You did well to stay inside," he said quietly.
A police detective came up holding a clear evidence bag. Inside it were trousers, folded. I could see the dark brown shape on the right leg even through the plastic.
"Mr. Belgasham, we need to keep these as exhibit," the detective said. "Court will want the stain, the napkin fibers we took, the lab match to the vial residue. You'll get them back after."
Mr. Belgasham looked at the bag for a second. His face didn't change much, but his eyes moved slow, the way they had when he stared at the stain that day.
"Keep them," he said. "I have other trousers."
The detective turned to the policewoman. "Varga was picked up at his office twenty minutes ago, off-site, no scene. Moreau's phone unlocked the messages. Conspiracy's solid. Attempted murder for the guard still stands."
The man named Moreau was led out the back, not through the front window. The guard was led out after him, different door, different car. No one yelled. No car chase. Just doors closing.
Mr. Belgasham pulled out the chair across from me and sat. The gold rim table outside was empty again, the folded paper still there under police tape, the coffee getting cold.
He folded his hands. "The police will close the cafe for today," he said. "Youth services will call tonight. Not to take you away right now. To ask where you want to sleep tomorrow."
May you like
I didn't know what to say. I had wanted the arrest to feel like an ending. It didn't. It felt like someone had finally believed what I saw, and now there was a new question I didn't have an answer for yet.
I nodded. Outside, the beige buildings were still there in the overcast light, and the white table with the gold rim waited, empty, with a stain that had become evidence.
