City of Sins. Daniel Blake

what he did.

      Perhaps he should ask Phelps about this.

      Perhaps he should talk to Phelps anyway.

      Cindy had told Patrese not to tell anyone, hadn’t she?

      Actually, he remembered, she hadn’t. She’d said: ‘Tell one of them, you tell the whole lot,’ but that wasn’t the same thing, not at all.

      And she must have known that, if she involved Patrese, she’d be involving Phelps too, sooner or later. She’d hardly expect Patrese to run something like this without the knowledge of his own boss; and if she did, she was clearly deranged, and therefore by definition not worth bothering with.

      Patrese dialed Phelps’ extension.

      ‘Hi, Franco.’

      ‘Hey, Sondra.’ Sondra, Phelps’ secretary, was the longest-serving employee in the entire New Orleans field office. Phelps was the tenth Special Agent-in-Charge for whom she’d worked. She liked to joke that she was the Crescent City’s own version of the Queen of England; her prime ministers might come and go, but she was always there, though admittedly a little older and grayer each time around.

      ‘Is the gran queso there?’ Patrese asked.

      ‘Franco, I keep telling you, you’re in a French city now. Grande fromage. And no, he’s not around. He’s out of town today.’

      ‘How about tomorrow?’

      ‘Tomorrow he’s here, in the city, but not here, in the office. Conference down at the Convention Center. You wanna call him, you want me to put you in the diary for Thursday, or is it anything I can help with?’

      Patrese toyed for a moment with the idea of telling her about Cindy. Sondra might not have been an agent, but she’d probably give better advice than the rest of them put together.

      But Cindy was Varden’s PA, and when it came to Varden, Patrese already knew, treading carefully was the order of the day. He didn’t want to involve Sondra with something that wasn’t her problem; nor did he want to ring Phelps and get a snatched few minutes on the phone. He wanted to ask Phelps his advice face-to-face, talk through the options with him one by one.

      But he couldn’t do that before he’d seen Cindy.

      The hell with it, Patrese thought. He’d keep the rendezvous, commit himself to nothing, and brief Phelps when it was done. If Phelps chewed him out, so be it.

      ‘Thursday morning’s fine,’ Patrese said.

      ‘Great. He’s got fifteen minutes at ten. That do?’

      ‘That does nicely. Thanks.’

      Patrese hung up and stared out of the window. The view was hardly National Geographic: the parking lot out the front of the building, and the traffic rumbling along Leon C. Simon. He needed another couple of pay grades to get one of the higher floors looking out the back over Lake Pontchartrain.

      He turned his attention back to the manual.

      The single biggest mistake an agent can make in his relationship with the confidential informant is to become romantically involved.

      Spoilsports.

      Wednesday, July 6th

      Patrese was there quarter of an hour early. The moment he walked in, he was glad he’d changed between leaving work and coming here. Collar shirt and flannel pants would have marked him out a mile off as a stiff trying to unwind, but with a faded Pitt T-shirt and battered jeans, he blended right in.

      Checkpoint Charlie’s is located pretty much right on the spot where the French Quarter fades into Faubourg-Marigny; which was to say, right on the spot where most tourists turn on their heels, because their guidebooks mark the edge of the Quarter as the edge of the known world, with bohemian Faubourg one of those uncharted territories on medieval maps emblazoned with the warning Here Be Monsters.

      Patrese ordered an Abita and looked round. It was somewhere between a biker bar and a college hangout; pretty empty at the moment, but doubtless hopping in the small hours, even hotter and sweatier than it was already, if that were possible.

      A blackboard announced live bands later that night. Somewhere to his left, pool balls clacked against each other. A ceiling fan moved lazily overhead.

      He’d tried to work out a hundred times how to play this, and still had no clear answer. But sitting here, listening to other people’s laughter, Patrese decided just to go with the flow; trust his instincts, take it from there. Cindy had called the meeting. Let her make the running.

      Eight o’clock came and went.

      He wasn’t especially bothered. New Orleanian attitudes to time are pretty loose; not surprising, perhaps, when half the city’s bars are open round the clock.

      Maybe Cindy had been held up at work. Maybe she was plucking up courage, which round here usually involved a couple of daiquiris. Maybe she was playing hard to get; make him wait, establish her terms.

      There was a fire station right across the road, and a bunch of firemen were sitting out front, admiring the girls who walked past. Most of the girls seemed happy to admire them right back.

      Eight thirty.

      Patrese would have rung, but he didn’t have Cindy’s number. She hadn’t given him her cell. If she was still at work, Varden would be there too, so she wouldn’t be able to talk. He could see if she was in the phone book, but that might appear too creepy, finding out where she lived and ringing up.

      He was hungry. The menu said that Checkpoint Charlie’s burger and chips were famous as far as Berlin – Berlin, Germany, not Berlin, Connecticut – which made him laugh, so he ordered that, medium rare.

      A dark-haired girl came in. For a moment, Patrese thought it was Cindy, but she was too tall, and not nearly as attractive. She had a bag of laundry slung over her shoulder, and he watched with mild surprise as she walked straight through the bar and into a laundromat out back.

      What a great idea. Separating lights and darks would be much more fun with a few tequilas inside you. Why had no one else ever thought of that?

      Unlike some people, Patrese didn’t mind sitting in a bar on his own, but only if he’d gone there alone to start with. Waiting was something else entirely. He dropped his shoulders, told himself to relax.

      ‘Here you go, baby,’ said the waitress, setting his burger and another Abita down on the table.

      The menu was right; the burger was well worth its international fame.

      Nine o’clock.

      She wasn’t coming; he was sure of that now. An hour late meant no-show, even in New Orleans. The disappointment surged in his throat. He’d really wanted to know what she’d found so terrible.

      And to see her again too, of course.

      Sirens out front, the endless two-tone urban soundtrack. A cop car streaked by, an ambulance hard on its tail, pushing through behind before the traffic could reform.

      The moment the clock ticked nine thirty, he paid the check and got up to leave.

      ‘Do you have a phone book here?’ he asked, so suddenly it surprised him.

      ‘Surely.’ The bartender nodded toward a payphone in the corner. ‘Should be one right there. Probably covered in graffiti by now. Everyone’s a comedian, you know?

      The directory was indeed there, and it was indeed covered in graffiti.

      Patrese flicked through to the ‘R’s.

      Rojciewicz, C. Only one of them. An address on Spain Street, five minutes’ walk from the bar. Presumably why she’d chosen it as a meeting-point in the first place.

      Patrese entered the number into his cell and walked outside while it dialed.

      It rang eight, nine,