by Colin Meloy
Perhaps he was being cowardly, but Charlie was finding the honest choice—going home straightaway and confessing to the entire debacle—nearly impossible to consider. He, Charlie Fisher, hadn’t stolen the Cipher! He’d been tricked! He was a pawn in a ludicrously long con that had been constructed by a crew of professional criminals. Charlie was as much the victim as anyone, right?
But who would possibly believe him when he’d been running with the pickpockets for the last six weeks, engaging in the very criminal activity that he was now condemning, with no recourse for actually returning any of the stolen goods to their rightful owners. This incredible skill that Charlie had developed, this sleight of hand he’d perfected after hours and hours of practice, wasn’t just some cute party trick. It was a crime! You’ll be shocked to know that this was the first time the real implications of his decisions were dawning on poor Charlie, and they were not sitting well.
Even if he were to feign ignorance, explain that Clark Kent and his friends had been conning him, it would not take too much investigation to discover that this entire “gang” was a fiction, and one that carried no water whatsoever. Raised by Pygmies? Girls with amputated legs? The more he thought about it, the more disgusted he was with himself that his lies had been so recklessly concocted.
If only he could walk back time. If only he could redo everything.
If only he would have heeded Amir’s warning, to get off the whiz. This thought made Charlie stop in his tracks (a pair of stumbling GIs ran headlong into him, shouting some deprecation that Charlie did not register). Amir hadn’t been the enemy, after all. He hadn’t been Charlie’s lone detractor, his cruel former friend, but had actually been intent on protecting him! And Charlie had forsworn him. Instead of taking Amir’s advice, he had followed the blind will of his own greed and vanity.
The night wore on. Charlie barely perceived the passage of time, so great were his troubles. Along the Can o’ Beer, the café crowds had thinned, and soon it was only the diehards in the all-night cafés who remained, hunched over their drinks at the quiet bars or slouched in booths, couples fallen together, cradling each other, whispering slurred lies into each other’s ears. At this hour, the streets belonged to the insomniacs and the nocturnal crowd, all scuttering like cockroaches from the light of the streetlamps.
Charlie’s tired legs finally led him to the doorway of a church, where he promptly collapsed and, huddled there, fell into a fitful sleep.
When he awoke, it was to the smell of bread.
Now, some of you may be aware of the phrase “a dark night of the soul.” Perhaps some of you have, in your way, experienced such a night. A night where everything looks wrong, where everything you thought was right and honorable about the world turns out to be very much the opposite. On such a night, some kind of reckoning is at hand; where the veil is torn away and you can see all your foibles and faults for what they are. You will no doubt recognize that Charlie’s soul had experienced a true whopper of such a long, dark night. However, the thing to remember is that such nights tend to serve an important purpose: one is liable to wake from them (or rise from them, if sleep is elusive) with a renewed purpose and a keener sense of right and wrong. And this is precisely what happened to Charlie when his eyes peeled open to the sight of sunlight and the smell of freshly baked bread.
The smell was coming from a nearby bakery, and it brought to mind a kind of spirit of rejuvenation in Charlie. He pondered the smell for some time, sitting as he was, crouched in the alcove of the church doorway, and why it made him feel suddenly renewed. Consider: bread, once baked, only grows more stale over time. A baguette bought in the morning, by evening inevitably becomes a mere shade of the thing it was when it was newly hatched from the oven. There’s a kind of inherent tragedy to this. However, every morning, like clockwork, before anyone with any sense has left their bed, the bakers are at it again, baking fresh loaves. Renewal. Reawakening.
It was this spirit that allowed Charlie to sit up and take in the world, that morning of all mornings.
He was also reminded of something. Something very relevant to his current predicament. The smell of the freshly baked bread transported him to a place, not too far from here, where he had stood with Amir and taken in a similar aroma. There, on the rooftop of the scatter. Amir had admitted something to him, hadn’t he? He had expressed a longing to remove himself from the Whiz Mob and lead a simple life—perhaps working in a kitchen somewhere. Where had it been?
The more Charlie inhaled, the more the memory came back to him.
A Lebanese restaurant. The Vallon des Auffes, below the Corniche.
That was where Amir had gone.
Just south of the Old Port, along the craggy Corniche, time and tide had cut another ancient natural port into the rocky limestone of the coast. Like its larger sibling to the north, this port was similarly cluttered with fishing boats and small yachts, crowded together like matches in a matchbox. The basilica could still be seen, some ways off, from the Vallon des Auffes; large cliffs, now supporting modern apartment complexes and houses, made two walls of a ravine that bore its way toward the chapel’s hilltop. The sun was still low in the sky by the time Charlie had made his way to the Vallon and was shuffling down the steps from the bridge that crossed the inlet’s mouth.
At the far end of the port, a painted sign above a squat, windowed building advertised Abdel Wahab, and then, in smaller letters: Restaurant Libanais. The restaurant’s only other competition were a port-side café and a pizzeria; Charlie had found his place. He was dismayed, however, to see a sign reading FERMÉ hanging inside the front door as he approached. Charlie stopped abruptly and frowned. It was Sunday, after all.
But there is no one more determined, you will find, than a boy wandering Marseille in a ripped tuxedo he was still wearing from the night before, who had slept the night in a church vestibule. No “closed” sign was going to deter Charlie now. He wandered around the side of the building and found a small alleyway that led to a kind of back patio. He could hear movement, the clatter of stones. Rounding a corner, he found himself in a small brick yard. A radio was tinnily broadcasting some kind of Arabic music. A man was crouched over a basin of mortar; he was repairing a stone wall. When he saw Charlie, he gave a little shout of surprise.
“Désolé,” said Charlie, holding out his hands. “I’m looking for someone.”
Charlie must’ve been quite a sight, because the man didn’t immediately respond. He studied the tuxedoed boy for a moment before replying, “We are closed.” The man had apparently guessed Charlie’s nationality, because he spoke in English.
“I know,” said Charlie. “I’m looking for Amir.”
“Amir? I don’t know Amir.”
“A boy, about my age. Maybe he didn’t give his name as Amir, but that’s how I knew him.”
The man paused for a second, eyed Charlie warily, and then shouted something in Arabic toward the back door of the restaurant. “Maybe you mean Faruq?” he said, turning back to Charlie.
“I don’t know. He would’ve just started, maybe a few days ago. Did you hire anyone?”
The man nodded; someone appeared at the door of the restaurant. He was wearing a stained apron. When he saw Charlie, he slowly opened the door and walked out into the patio.
“Hi, Amir,” said Charlie.
“You look terrible, Charlie,” said Amir.
Charlie could only nod. He felt like he could barely move. Amir didn’t wait for him to speak.
“It happened, didn’t it?” asked Amir.
Charlie, again, nodded.
Amir turned to the stone-laying man and spoke a few words to him in Arabic; the man looked dismayed but ultimately was appeased. Amir undid his apron and draped it over one of the chairs; he waved Charlie into the doors of the empty restaurant.
“They’re a good family,” Amir was explaining as they walked through the kitchen; a woman was kneading bread while two children played at her feet. He greeted her and leaned down to
tousle one of the kids’ heads. “I’m just doing prep work, mostly. They’re letting me stay in the apartment above the restaurant. Till I can afford my boat.” A large cutting board covered in vegetables had been laid on a counter, presumably Amir’s station. The air smelled of garlic and thyme. In the quiet dining room, Amir led Charlie to a table and, pulling out a chair, gestured for him to sit. He then walked over to the bar and returned with two full glasses of sparkling water.
“Drink, Charlie,” he said. “You’re a fright.”
Charlie took the glass and downed it. His hands were trembling when he set the glass back on the table. It was only then that he was able to summon words. “They took it, Amir. They used me to take it.”
Amir only nodded.
“Was it—all along?” Charlie found his words coming out like water from a broken fountain: in burbles and spits. Amir, however, was more than able to fill in the missing pieces.
“Yes,” he said.
“Did you . . . ?”
“Yes,” said Amir.
“And the whole time . . .”
“Uh-huh,” said Amir.
Something broke in Charlie, just then. Like a shock of electric current, a feeling of anger exploded inside his chest and he abruptly shot his hand across the table and grabbed Amir by the throat, upsetting the boys’ glasses of water. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he shouted. “Why did you do this to me?”
Amir choked out a sound of surprise. He gripped Charlie’s wrist and pulled it away from his neck. He was stronger than Charlie and was able to wrestle the boy’s arm to the table. The woman from the kitchen appeared at the door to the dining room. A few words in Arabic were exchanged; the woman, apparently satisfied that Amir had the situation under control and this strange guest was not ransacking the restaurant, disappeared back through the door.
“Jesus, Charlie,” said Amir, his hands massaging his throat. “You’re going to get me fired.”
“Where are they, Amir?” asked Charlie. “I need to find them.”
“Who, the Whiz Mob?”
“Yes, the Whiz Mob.”
“Oh, Charlie,” said Amir. “They’re long gone.”
“Long gone—as in where? Some hole in Lyon? Paris?”
Amir shook his head. “Back to the school.”
“The school? The School of Seven Bells?”
This time, the boy nodded.
“In Colombia?” Charlie half shouted.
Amir held out his hand, pleading for Charlie to keep his voice down. “Yes,” he said.
Charlie found he couldn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Charlie, what are you talking about? I did tell you! I told you to get off the whiz!”
“I was never ‘on the whiz,’ was I, Amir? I was the chump all along. I was the sucker. You lied to me, even when you were trying to warn me.”
“You don’t understand,” said Amir. “You don’t understand how the Whiz Mob works. I couldn’t rumble you. They’d have killed me. The School of Seven Bells doesn’t muck about with rats, Charlie. Believe me, I wasn’t happy about it. I agonized over it. I figured you’d get the hint, yeah? That you would listen to me, me of all people, me what got you into this mess. It was the best I could do.”
“Why’d you do it? I mean, why’d you even bother to tell me? Why not just leave it alone? What was I to you? I was just a mark you were hustling.”
“No, Charlie,” said Amir. “Listen. I have been on the whiz for so long now, so long I barely remember my life before. I ain’t yellow. But I felt for you, Charlie. Suddenly, all these things I’ve been taught, by the Headmaster, by the mob—it suddenly don’t make a lot of sense, yeah? First time I met you, Charlie, sitting there, writing your little stories. Funny stories, yeah? I think: this boy don’t deserve what’s about to happen.”
The mention of their first meeting sent a chill down Charlie’s spine.
“So,” interjected Charlie, “from the very beginning.”
“Oh yeah,” replied Amir. “That’s how it works. The long con. The only way to get to this thing—what do you call it? The Rosenberg Cipher—is through Charles Fisher Senior, American consul general, at that party. That’s the weak link, yeah? When it gets passed from that bejeweled pappy to your pa. That little window. That was the banner score. And the best way to get to Charles Fisher Senior at the party is through Charles Fisher Junior. Pluto put a bee on it, you know. He had a folder going.”
“It was no accident, then, you sitting next to me. In Place Jean Jaurès.”
“Oh, no. But Charlie, you are in a bad place right now. You don’t need to hear this.”
“Yes, I do,” said Charlie defiantly. “I need to hear everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
Amir sucked at his teeth, eyeing Charlie with the same circumspection one might use when sizing up an angry dog in one’s path. “Okay,” he said. “Everything.”
He took a deep breath.
“It was Pluto’s folder, but Jackie was going to bring you in. That was the plan from the start. She was playing victim that day, and you were gonna be her savior. I thought it was a pea soup stall, that it was no good. See, I didn’t think you’d take to it. And that day, I fanned something different, sitting next to you. I saw what you were writing, saw how you thought. Took you to be the sort of kid who’d got sick of being a diplomat’s son. Someone who had a kind of longing to him.”
“You got that from reading my writing?” asked Charlie incredulously.
“All pieces to the puzzle, Charlie. Remember: a good pickpocket is a sort of story finder. And an unhappy person, someone who has that kind of longing, well, they’re the easiest pickings.” He looked at Charlie bashfully. “Sorry,” he said.
“Go on,” prompted Charlie.
“So I strayed from the folder. Went rogue, so to speak. Took the gamble. Pinched your pen.”
“But you ran,” said Charlie. “How’d you know I’d catch you?”
“The deeper the grift, Charlie, the better the score,” replied Amir. “It took some doing, believe me. Had to stop a few times, let you catch up. Almost lost you, just when I got nabbed by those whiz coppers.”
“Policemen—buzzers on the take, right?”
Amir let out a small laugh. “Nah, they were legit. That wasn’t ever part of the plan. See, in my folder, you catch up with me, stop me, and I offer to show you the whiz. Simple. No buzzers involved. But good thing they showed, otherwise I think I’d of lost you for sure. Anyway, I was in a spot of trouble there, for real, and you bailed me out.”
“Bailed you out,” repeated Charlie in disbelief. “I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.”
“First time anyone ever stood up for me like that, tell the truth,” said Amir. “You were an odd one, Charlie, I’ll give you that much. Threw me for a bit of a loop.”
Charlie didn’t say anything.
Amir continued. “From there, things just kind of tumbled into place. Few times, I thought we’d curdled you. But you never knew, you never saw what was happening. You were in, hook, line, and sinker.” He stopped, suddenly embarrassed by the insult. Charlie’s face fell. “Like I said, you don’t need to hear this right now, Charlie.”
“Keep going,” was all Charlie said in reply.
The lesson at the Old Port, Charlie’s steering of the lawyers in front of the courthouse, the binging of the soldier’s ring—all part of the chain of events to draw Charlie further in. And when they’d run into Jackie at the end of the day—she’d been waiting to connect for hours. The slip of the business card (it had been Jackie who had managed to kick the okus to Charlie), giving away the location of the scatter—it had all been part of the mechanics of the grift. Who makes business cards for a secret hideout? Amir had just recounted their history through the racehorse tip, to the day of the dérive and Pluto’s supposedly genuine change of heart, when Charlie waved for the pickpocket to stop speaking.
It had all been an elaborate mirage. All to get to the jug touch, the Cipher.
Amir heeded Charlie’s signal to stop. They sat in silence for some time, before Amir ventured, “But I liked you, Charlie. That was one thing I did not expect. That was the one thing Pluto and the rest didn’t manage to steer. You were funny and smart. And you made me feel smart, too. That wasn’t supposed to happen. You’re part of the sucker class—the chump world—you ain’t supposed to have feelings. But I guess I never got so close to a chump, did I? I never had friends who weren’t on the whiz, like me. See, on the whiz we might be family, but we ain’t friends. You were my friend, Charlie.”
Were those tears coming to Amir’s eyes?
“Came to a point,” the boy continued, sniffing, steeling himself, “you were in, you were snared—and I had to get out. I couldn’t do it no more, yeah? Couldn’t watch it happen to my friend. First thing I think to do was get you off the whiz. Somehow. Figured you’d listen to me, the one what turned you out in the first place, yeah? But you were too far gone. You were too deep in the grift. All that was left was for me to declare out. So I did.”
Again, silence. The sound of rocks being laid, heavily, one on top of the other, could be heard from the patio. A distant radio squelching. Two children playing with cars in the kitchen.
Finally, Charlie spoke:
“I need to get it back,” he said.
“You ain’t getting it back, Charlie,” said Amir.
It was clear Charlie wasn’t listening. “And you’re going to help me.”
“Why am I going to do that?”
“Because you owe me,” said Charlie. “Because you’re my friend, and you let me down. Want to make that right? Then help me get back the Cipher.”
Amir kneaded his chin absently. His palm then crept northward and began squeezing his entire face like he wanted to erase everything—himself, Charlie, the room—everything. “Charlie,” he said through the cracks of his fingers, “that would mean . . .”
