THUGLIT Issue Twelve Read Online Free Page B

hand.
    " Really?" Ruben knew his face, but not from where. An operation.
    " Couldn't make it up, could you? I was on foot patrol in Brooklyn North in the bad crack days before I made the leap to the agency. When we came into the buildings, the crackheads always ran up. Half the time they'd end up stuck on the roof. A few would try to jump across the buildings. The ones that weren't too out of their minds would usually make it. I was the youngest, so I'd usually go up after them."
    Ruben could see the punch line coming a kilometer away.
    "A skell would rabbit up the stairs and the Sergeant would yell: 'Fiddler! On the roof!' Then he'd piss himself laughing while I busted my hump up five flights."
    " You couldn't make that up."
    " I know, I know." Fiddler finished his Amstel with a flourish and signaled for another. "Knox told me to help you out."
    " Can you get me a list of men with American connections living within a reasonable distance of the La Poste on Avenue Jean Perrot?"
    " That's it? I can do that. I can tell you who the assholes are too. Who's up to what. That kind of thing. You've got carte blanche far as Knox is concerned."
    " I don't know if the guy's an asshole."
    " He is if you're looking for him."
    " Okay. I'll take that list too."
    Fiddler looked at him over a fresh Amstel. "Knox speaks highly of your talents."
    " That was a while ago." Ruben sipped his coffee and looked out on the street. "It takes something from you."
    " Is this about your daughter?" Fiddler didn't shy from the hard question. Ruben liked him for it. He nodded.
    Fiddler twisted his free palm up, indicating anything he could do.
     

     
    They met the next day in a different café. Fiddler had a thin envelope from which he removed two sheets of paper with names and addresses.
    " I whittled it down a little. Eliminated geezers and droolers. We can revisit that if you need to."
    He 'd thoughtfully marked the sheets at the top in red ink. One was labele d Asshole s and the othe r Possible Asshole s . "Just to keep things straight," Fiddler said.
    He pointed to a name he 'd underlined.
    " This guy's more of a dirtbag than an asshole. From Hoboken, followed a boy over here a few years ago. Writes obscene e-mails to the agency from different supposedly anonymous e-mail addresses. Uses public Wi-Fi's all over town. Harmless stuff. Seems to have no point. No overt threats yet. He thinks they can't get onto him because he varies the Wi-Fi's. The dumbshit uses his own laptop though."
    " How do you know it's coming from him?"
    " Once we suspected him I accidentally spilled coffee on his keyboard in a café. Being a contrite person, I paid for the repair at a shop owned by a friend." Fiddler grinned. "We plugged in some sneaky Trojan software. I can tell you everything the guy does including what time he spanks his squirrel to Aussie lifeguard porn every day. We're just waiting to see how far he goes with the vitriol before we have the French rope him in."
    " What's he doing in Grenoble?"
    " Teaching English."
    " So his main motivation is he hates the agency?"
    " Hates the entire government. Was an interpreter until he lost his clearance on account of stalking a congressman's nephew," Fiddler said. "I know it's thin. I'm working on other leads. Until then this guy lives in a house on Rue Kruger that he painted lemon-lime Haitian colors. The neighbors hate him for it. It's a dead-end. Quiet street."
    That was it. Port-Au-Prince a decade earlier. A sliver of memory came to him of Fiddler in a ratty hotel lobby as part of a support team as Ruben walked through with the principal and his body men. Ruben carrying a duffel containing five million dollars, the magic number at the time for certain types.
     
    That afternoon Ruben drove a dusty car he had taken from deep in an apartment garage to the parking lot of a different apartment across from the lemon/lime house. Around seven he watched a frumpy middle-aged man with a computer case let himself into the house.