B-Ville, Ch 2
In which we enter the city, meet our client, and are launched on a quest for the no doubt messy truth.
Welcome to B-Ville, a dyke noir novel in progress set in a slightly dystopian, post-plague France where a serial killer forces the flatfoot, Dik, to navigate between the power-sharing neo-Katar functionaries and far left Green Bloc.
Chapter 1: In which we meet our hero.
B-Ville, Chapter 2
I pushed open the door, and went down the two narrow flights to the street. The rain had lightened into a drizzle. My bike was chained to a lamppost halfway down the block. There was a new pile of dog shit next to it. I tried not to step in the mess as I inserted the battery, wiped off the seat with my sleeve, and climbed on. God, the rain. At least my bike started on the first try. I pedalled north in the midday traffic, tires sliding in the water, avoiding the angry cabs and jaywalking pedestrians who never looked past the edges of their umbrellas, and seemed determined to get themselves killed.
The rain slid down my helmet and under the neck of my coat. My brain felt moldy. I spattered past the stores on the rue de Rivoli packed with warm dry tourists, and those few citizens who had the juice to slide in. Then, thankful for the electric boost, labored up Boulevard de Sebastopol into the heart of the old city. Buildings there were being restored into expensive museums where only the Good lived.
Scaffolds were everywhere. On one, a worker in a yellow slicker dug out old mortar crumbling between the ancient stones. Waiting for the light to change, tiny bits cascaded around me. A woman in green work clothes pushed a broom made of twigs configured from plastic waste. The café fronts gleamed blood red or mustard yellow. The bars inside were actual zinc. No one begged for anything.
A couple minutes later I was back among the hoi polloi, dodging potholes you could lose a chicken in, and struggling uphill on rue de Belleville past the bakeries, gadget shops, and Chinese restaurants which smelled of star anise, garlic and old grease. Rue Piat was sullen and lifeless by comparison, a dirty café on one corner. On another, a self-serve laundry with a bullet hole decorating the bullet-proof glass.
Down the street, in front of an entrance to the park, was a row of low, angry buildings staring glumly at the city below, resisting gentrifiers and purifiers alike. What was the Trencavel tower to them, but scrap metal? Or that meaningless dome? It wouldn’t be dark for a couple hours yet, but there were already two figures huddled in front of the park gate. Dealers, I thought. The skinny youngest one holding the stuff, ready to bolt down the path. The older would stick his head in the window of a passing cars taking orders. They glanced at me indifferently, then stared again into space the rain slowly trickling down their hair, accumulating on their clothes. I wondered who they paid off to stand there so openly.
I double-locked my bike, shoving the battery into my bag. Here, it smelled of rotting leaves, wet earth. The stone next to the door had been tagged with strange green letters. The lock was pathetic. A child could push her way in, a stray cat looking for mice. I lined up my face to the camera and rang. I guess I didn't scare her too much because she buzzed me in. "Take the lift. Top floor.” I gave myself a shake like a wet dog, and pulled out my phone, typing in my clearance code to google her as I waited for the lift. Marthe Frossard. Commercial artist, 42. Won a prize twenty years ago for a study of a nude when they were still allowed. Not much since then. Zilch on social media. No sheet that I could find, or driver’s license either. My clearance for the web didn’t give me access to more—officially, anyway, not on a mobile device.
I stared at it, suddenly exhausted. Wondering why I bothered. Instead of sticking it out with the Agency, I could pick up my rolling pin again. Though maybe I couldn’t even get clearance for that anymore.
Upstairs, she was waiting at her door. Somebody had knocked the walls down to make a loft. There was a bed in one corner with a duvet pulled over it and dirty clothes piled around, a couple of pairs of woolen tights, some aging sweaters, a scarf. In another, a kitchen sink did double duty, filled with paint brushes and chipped coffee cups. She had a kettle and microwave on top of a small fridge, but no oven. Her drains stank of sewer gasses, or she’d had cabbage for lunch. What walls there were had canvases on them. Flowers, mostly. Red meaty orchids so lusciously drawn they were almost pornographic. Maybe they were. That was up to the Purity Police.
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