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Noir: Stalking Horse

As the maître d’ leads me away, I hear a crash. I glance back. A determined man, rough-cut handsome, is backing away from the scene. He’s holding an archaic Beretta semi and towing the woman in green. I want to be her.

She gets to run away with him and live happily ever after. I, on the other hand, get to be beaten up for failing my mission. I have the Bete Noire, of course, but that wasn’t the point. Getting its transfer into the newspapers was the point.

I dangle the bauble, hoping that Mr. Right will pick it up in his peripheral vision. But the maître d’ propels me into a back hall. There’s fun and games in here too; some kid is dragging a body into the men’s room.

“I’ve had the doorman send your car around,” my supposed rescuer says. Damn, nobody is even going to see me leave. But there’s that shabby little fellow again, imagining he’s invisible in a doorway. Always lurking and watching. Was he the reporter all along?

I free my arm and put the necklace on for him. Then I’m in the car.

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