Chapter 5
The office wasn't really an office. It was a room above the cafe street with a long dark table and no dust on it. The windows looked out over the same beige buildings but from higher up. I sat on a chair that was too big for me and my feet didn't touch the floor. My shirt still smelled like coffee.
Mr. Belgasham didn't sit. He stood at the head of the table and laid things out like they mattered. The white paper bag from the cafe was there. He'd had someone go back and get it. The white napkin was there too, folded once, with the brown stain dried stiff across it. He'd kept it since the spill. The leg of his trousers still had the dark mark on it. He hadn't changed.
The guard stood by the door. He wasn't allowed to sit either. His leather jacket made a sound when he breathed. His hand kept going to his chest pocket and then dropping.
A man came in with a gray case. He didn't look like a lab guy. He looked like someone who drove Mr. Belgasham's car, only older, with clean hands.
"This stays between us," Mr. Belgasham said. He unfolded the napkin on the table. He didn't touch the stained part. "Cup, liquid, napkin. No paperwork. Your friend calls me directly."
The courier nodded. He put on thin gloves. He opened the paper bag and I saw the little white cup inside, with the gold rim. There was still a mouthful of dark coffee at the bottom. The smell hit me again.
"We log it tonight," Mr. Belgasham said. "You tell him twenty-four hours."
"Twenty-four," the courier said. His voice was low. He lifted the cup with two fingers and set it in a clear plastic box. Then he took the napkin with tweezers and laid it flat in a second box. He closed both lids and they clicked.
I watched his hands. They didn't shake.
The guard cleared his throat. "Boss, this is a lot for a spill. Kid bumps a table —"
Mr. Belgasham didn't look at him. "We will see what the spill was."
The courier picked up both boxes, put them in his case, and left. The lock on the door clicked behind him. Mr. Belgasham wrote something on a small white card and set it on the table next to where the boxes had been. Exhibit, he wrote. Table, cup, napkin. He wrote the time.
When he turned to me his face was calmer.
"Show me," he said.
I didn't understand at first.
"Show me how you knocked it," he said. "Exactly."
He pulled the cafe table over. It was the same one, white with the thin gold rim. Someone had carried it up. There was a fresh cup on it now, filled with water dyed brown.
I stood up. My hands were cold. I remembered the way the guard's fingers had moved over the first cup, fast, tipping something in. I'd been watching because I was hungry and I was watching every table.
"I was here," I said. I stepped to the side of the table where I had been that day. "My hand was like this."
I held my hand flat, fingers together, and hit the underside of the rim. Not hard. Just enough to tip it. The brown water sloshed the same way, over the same edge, in a line toward where Mr. Belgasham was standing. It hit his right trouser leg, a little lower than the real stain but the same path.
He looked down. Then he looked at the napkin box that was no longer there, and at the wet line now on his pants.
"Angle matches," he said, almost to himself. "Trajectory matches. Not a bump. A strike underneath. Intentional deflection away from my mouth."
My hand was still in the air. I pulled it back.
The guard laughed, too fast. "See? He admits it. He hit it. He's just a crazy street kid, boss." He said it exactly like he had on the sidewalk, the same words, the same trying-to-sound-sure tone. "He bumped me when he ran past, I stumbled, maybe my hand hit the cup. Kid's making up a story."
Mr. Belgasham turned his head slowly toward him.
"You said he was crazy," he said. "Now you say he bumped you."
"I — he did," the guard said. Sweat was on his forehead again. "He ran by, crazy, knocked the table, I was reaching to stop him —"
"You were seated when he hit the table," Mr. Belgasham said. His voice didn't get louder. It got quieter. "You held him after. Why would he bump you before?"
The guard's hand went to his pocket again and stayed there. He clutched it.
"I don't have anything," he said, but no one had asked him that yet.
Mr. Belgasham walked back to the evidence table and picked up the white card. He slid it into his pocket.
"Twenty-four hours," he said. "The cup and the napkin are logged. Your statement is logged. The stain is logged. Nothing leaves this building. You don't leave this building."
May you like
The guard stared at the door where the courier had gone. He understood.
I sat back down in the big chair. My feet still didn't touch the floor, but the room felt smaller and warmer than the sidewalk. The wet line on Mr. Belgasham's trousers was drying next to the old stain. Two marks, side by side, from the same throw.
