You Know I Am No Good

You Know I Am No Good

I do not know why I have such a fancy for this little café.

The sparse copper burners exude the marginal warmth, failing to penetrate the numbing iciness of the wintry city. The sharp wind whips the pedestrians, hurdling them into the corner holes such as the one I have been frequenting lately. The central, brightly lit places swarm with beautiful young things. They order fancy coffees unheard of here, where the dilapidated plaster walls shed the greying particles as if the unkempt man scratches his head, spraying the dandruff pieces around.

Such one usually sits diagonally from me, engrossed in the yellowing paperback with once bright but now dulling cover where some monster rips apart the human flesh. I come to the little café every day. He appears here thrice a week, in the late morning. The coffee machine hisses like a sated beast, and the lone waiter in the long black apron takes his time bringing the order, shuffling on his arthritic legs, discontentedly muttering something under his breath.

I imagine him as a poor relative of the café’s owner, a smooth stocky guy with a haughty demeanor. He comes on the new moped, too slim for his ample frame when the narrow street still drowns in the fog when the café serves builder’s tea and full fry-up. The working people eat quickly before hurrying to their day jobs.

The church bells ring seven. The hoarse voice cuts through the January cold, calling all faithful to the prayer. The gigantic mosque reigns over this area, where the border, dividing the city, runs through the ruined houses and abandoned gardens, overgrown with thistle. Only stray cats cross it easily. All others have to go through the official control post not far from here.

The owner pokes around the café for an hour or so, busying himself. Finally, the wheels of the moped jump up and down on the wet cobblestones. He disappears around the corner, where the dog barks. The bells chime ten, and I order another small cup of coffee.

I see the dog walker in a moment. He never stops at the café, merely passing by the dirty window display with antiquated ceramic pots and an old poster, promising a sunny vacation in the Mediterranean. The dog is a scraggy mongrel. The walker, wearing a too-large waxed coat, is also thin, with receding fair hair. The cold painted his sunken cheeks scarlet. The walker turns the corner, dragging the mongrel behind.

The book reader appears in the café after ten minutes. Getting my journal and pen out, I bend over the page, memorizing the face of a man we came here to kill.

My fancy for the café is easily explained since I am doing my job. I still like to entertain myself with the idea of me sitting here singularly because I have fallen in love with vintage furniture and darkening mirrors. The waiter takes no notice of me, neither does the man with a monster book whom I know to be over sixty and on the run for the past ten years or so.

I sense that the situation is slowly changing, with him starting to acknowledge me. Coming into the café, he hangs his duffle coat on the curved mahogany stand of the kind I would like to have one day in my imaginary flat together with the worn velvet sofas in the array of jewel colors.

Judging from his clothing, the reader has good taste, but it does not stretch to his choice of paperbacks. He is forever attached to some cheap product. I suspect he picks it up from the used book shops on the main street of this crumbling city, forgotten in the age of the movie posters adorning the peeling walls of the café. The workers, gathering here in the morning, swallow their grub quickly, not paying attention to the elderly beauty of marble tables and the antique gilt of the mirror frames.

The worldly man would choose such a haunt, a man of travels and tales, a man with a mane of curly silver hair, the man of attentive eyes and curt smiles. I cannot allow myself to be misled by them since he is this man and is not to be taken slovenly.

Today, entering the café, his gaze lingered on me, and he smiled a little longer. I looked at him with a calculated measure of interest. I am sure things will progress, but we need to wait. He has been on the loose long enough, killing before, including a woman like me. I have no idea how she looked, but I know what he sees, glancing in my direction.

In the leaden depth of the mirror opposite me, a tall woman drinks her coffee, a woman with a helmet of mad hair the color of pale gold, with a crooked nose and freckled cheeks, a woman of long bony fingers and the seawater eyes. Absent-mindedly wandering around the café, they lit with a genuine surprise. I did not order this cup in front of me.

“From the gentleman in the corner,” the waiter’s English is heavily accented, impeccably polite. “With compliments to the lady.”

This time the book reader’s smile is disarmingly charming. He is a handsome man, even at his age. My “Thank you” carries just the required hint of pleasure mixed with embarrassment.

Outside, the scraggy mongrel appears again, sniffing the street garbage bin. Rummaging in my bag, I get a book out. The dog walker also breaks into the satisfied grin, seeing me engrossed in a novel. I am happy that he is happy. For a moment, we smile together, but then he is swept away by the gust of wind. The dog almost flies after him, so thin it is.

“Would you like another cup of coffee?” I say into the stillness of an empty café. “I feel in need of returning a favor.”

Now the embarrassment is all his.

Next time I see the mongrel in the corner of the bare bathroom. The lush cloud of fragrant bubbles engulfs me so that only my wet hair is visible. I am done and drowned. The skin on my fingertips is wrinkled. My left foot rests on the edge of the tub.

The dog walker sits on the shaky plastic stool, wearing just his boxers and the unbuttoned white shirt. His glasses are all steamed up.

He wipes the tiny drops with the edge of the shirt. Out of all his small movements, this is the one I like the best. It gets under my skin, traveling my veins, making me liquid. I am already almost submerged under the water, so I sigh audibly. The mongrel timidly tries to growl, the walker smiles.

“Just wait, the old man,” he promises. “We will go outside soon.” The dog contentedly lies down, close enough to the wobbly stool leg.

The walker is very good with dogs and children. He is also an excellent shot which will come in handy tomorrow. We all have names, but we never mention them out loud for the sake of security, not the fake ones from the current passports, soon to be destroyed, nor the real ones, which I sometimes have trouble remembering.

Although Twins, sitting in the car next to the reader’s flat, have already reported that he is firmly at home, we cannot risk the walker accompanying me to my cheap hotel. The bath in his place will have to suffice.

 Twins cannot be more unlike each other, but we have been calling them so for the past ten years, and they seem not to mind. They are the techies, providing the surveillance and the final deep clean. The Twins come in after the walker, who will wait tomorrow afternoon outside the reader’s house.

The glasses back on his also crooked nose, he looks at me hesitantly.

“Is it a firm arrangement?”

I roll my eyes, he smiles.

“I remember this expression from the first time I saw you on stage,” he strokes my foot, taking it between his warm hands. “I thought you were a great actor.”

I tickle his fingers with my toe.

“You know I am no good.”

That is our private joke, and he is yet to miss the beat. He never does. In the army, he served in a sharpshooting unit. He could have killed the reader on the street, but this godforsaken hole of the city is so tiny that anyone on the roof will inevitably attract attention.

“I know you are the trouble.”

He kisses the round protruding bone on my ankle. The mongrel sighs heavily.

“We will take you home,” promises the walker. “This is the last assignment, buddy. We will fly back and live in the white house next to the sea. The beach will be all yours, and we will get the boat.”

I have heard this so many times before, but somehow today, I want to believe him.

“Absolutely,” I assure the walker. “He is picking me up from the café at two in the afternoon.”

The reader teaches English in the local community college. Now I understand why he only comes to the café thrice a week.

The walker winks at me.

“Did he promise to show you his stamp collection?”

I dive in the clouds of foam, emerging with a bubbly head.

“Almost. Local archeological finds. The reader used to be a real professor, and the old habits die hard."

The walker nods.

“Tomorrow, they shall die for real.”

We both laugh, and the mongrel growls again, this time tenderly.

That night, I dream of the dog on the beach, hearing its excited barking. A baby splashes in the hissing surf. I cannot discern whether it is a boy or a girl but decide it to be irrelevant. I am more concerned about the boat afloat, drifting into the milky fog. Making out the walker’s shadow, I hear his shout, but the words sink into the sea, lost in the space between us.

I think about this dream on the way to the reader’s flat, traversing the mantle of frosty fog, which has descended on the narrow alleys. My host is courteous in an old-fashioned manner, and we speak of things insignificant. The fog is so thick I can barely see the reader.

The walker is invisible to me, but I know he is there. I also would like to know who played in the surf, although I do not believe in dreams.

The reader makes quite a good coffee. His hands are trembling slightly, and his breathing becomes heavier. I already decided where to place him. A sunken easy chair faces the door through which the walker should enter in about seven minutes. The performance is carefully orchestrated, reminiscent of my theater days. When we settle in the white house on the seashore, I might try teaching drama in the high school. Dreaming of it, I feel the hungry hand on my shoulder. The sooner we begin, the quicker everything will be over.

I am in danger of being soaked in blood, but I am supple, always avoiding the cascade of ruby splatters. The reader turns out to be a good kisser. After a couple of minutes, I put him in the chair. My breath is also calculatedly faster. The zipper goes down, and he wiggles free.

Hearing the creak of the floor outside, I engage my mouth in work. Before the shots deafen me momentarily, I notice warts in the groin of an almost dead man. They remind me somehow, disgustingly, of mushrooms.