Private Paris (Private 10)

“Right here, my friend, as always,” Louis said, and held out his fist.

The Dog hesitated, scratched at his scraggly reddish beard, and contemplated Louis’s hand for a long beat before reluctantly bumping it.

“I have a job for you,” Louis said. “If you feel like working.”

“Who’s he?” he asked.

“Jack,” Louis said. “He’s my boss.”

“Boss is from fantastic L.A.,” the Dog said, as if remembering the fact.

“That’s right,” I said. “I live in Los Angeles.”

He seemed to tune us out then, and started to sing with Morrison, “Blood in my love in the terrible—”

Louis snapped his fingers in front of the Dog’s eyes and said, “Work?”

The Dog tilted his head sideways, and I noticed a thick white scar high on the left side of his head, not quite hidden by his hair.

“How much?” he asked.

“Sensitive job,” Louis said. “Two thousand euros.”

“Make it twenty-five hundred, and the Dog starts right now.”

“Deal,” Louis said.

“Need somewhere quiet,” he said, and then started walking away from us.

We followed as the Dog strolled on, tilting his head, popping his fingertips together, and never looking back. He finally took a seat on the marble stairs to the right of Frédéric Chopin’s grave, which featured a muse with a lyre sitting in grief.

The Dog took off his knapsack and pulled out a MacBook Pro. He set it in his lap and opened it. When he did, he seemed to change—become calmer, certainly. The facial tics did not stop, but they subsided as he stared at the screen, and his language became more fluid and connected.

“What do you need, Louis?” he asked.

Louis handed him a piece of paper he’d scribbled on during the Métro ride and said, “I need this man’s financials. Past three months.”

The Dog looked at it and said, “He’s the opera director.”

“Yes.”

“He’s dead.”

“That’s right.”

“So the accounts will be frozen.”

“You’re right again.”

“This will take a while,” he said. “Later today?”

“That will be fine.”

“Cash on delivery.”

“Same as always.”

And then it was as if we’d been dismissed. The Dog gazed at the screen as if it were a doorway into another world, and he started to type.