Page 19 of Penny for Your Saints

“Don’t use my name asshole, I don’t know you,” she snips back—blowing her smoke directly into my face.

My eyes water, stinging from the direct cloud of smoke.

“What should I call you then, eh? ‘Agent Penny?’” I ask the last part in my best approximation of a clipped American accent.

She turns her face away, lifting her handcuffed hands to her face to pull the cigarette away from her lips.

“Don’t fucking talk to me at all,” she growls, her eyes sliding sideways to the outline of the gun in the leather shoulder holster under my moth-eaten zip up hoodie. She’s a glorified cop, so I shouldn’t be surprised—but it’s still a little spooky that sheseems to know exactly where it sits, even though I’ve given no indication that I’m armed.

“And here you were—telling me thatI’ma poor conversationalist,” I scoff, hopping up from my place on the ground to sneak back into the kitchen for the Kaab el-ghzal I picked up at the tea shop on the corner, putting the kettle on the stove.

She sits sulkily on the bed—watching me openly this time, craning her neck to get a look at what I’m doing.

“I would take seconds of that superb dinner, shitty conversation skills notwithstanding,” she jeers, flicking a long ash from the end of her cigarette into the red plastic tray.

“You’re too kind,” I scoff, spooning my favorite mint tea into a steel diffuser ball, closing the little apparatus before dropping it into the small teapot on the counter before decanting some of the boiling water over the diffuser. “What if I were to tell you that we have also been looking into the murder of your parents?” I venture cautiously, arranging a few of the crescent-shaped kaab el-ghazal on a folded paper towel; the faint smell of honey and orange blossom wafting up alongside the herbal mint scent of the brewing tea.

Louise becomes very still once more—her cigarette poised carefully above the red plastic ashtray’s dimpled rim.

“Or—what if I told you a little birdie happened to sing us a song of fated mates and magical designation metamorphosis?” I press, slightly more cautious.

“How would I know you weren’t full of shit?” she sneers—her eyes trained on me as I prepare myself a cup of steaming mint tea.

A gulf of silence spreads between us as I carry the tea and pastry into the other room to present to our prisoner.

“Seems awfully convenient that Margot and Landon Penny were murdered in cold blood just before this curious Zeitnotvirus appeared. Even stranger are the rumors that swirl around theirprivately fundedresearch.”

I pierce the silence and let the veiled accusation hang in the air, laying the pastry and steaming cup before her. Our eyes lock, neither of us wanting to back down.

Louise’s chained wrists jingle as she carefully sets her still burning cigarette in one of the fluted holders on the edge of the ashtray, her nimble fingers snatch up one of the nutty-honey-orange blossom confections, and she begins nibbling at one end of the crescent, still scowling at me.

“Convenient for whom?” she seethes icily; her cinnamon eyes boring into my soul.

“Pardon?” I chomp half of my ‘gazelle horn’ pastry in a single bite, leaning an elbow on the folding chair as I wait for her to elaborate.

“Who was the death of my parents convenient for?” she grits out, taking another bite.

“For you and your dipshit pals running around playing caped crusader and boys blunder?” Louise snorts a mirthless laugh. “Or for Bronson & Bronson—who lost multi billions on the incomplete research my parents left behind?”

I wait for her to show her hand, even slightly as she stuffs the last few bites of pastry into her mouth.

“I can tell you it sure as hell wasn’t convenient for me,” she growls, her voice wobbly with tears.

I almost feel sorry for her. In fact, I do feel a little sorry for her—her parents, well… not so much.

Without a doubt, it’s the body chemistry talking, but she looks like a haunting renaissance painting in the spare light from the bare bulb overhead—her creamy skin and coppery red hair in the greasy yellow light as she looks mournfully down into her own reflection in her cup of tea. Rossetti’s ‘Lady Lilith’ in a flop house.

“Louise,” I sigh, reaching for her face without thinking, drawn by the magnetism of her whispered scent beneath the damp, dusty must of the safehouse; iris, pomme verte, poivre rose.

I can see in her wild eyes that she wants to recoil with every fiber of her being, just as I am called to touch her, but she masters her own disgust to remain as still as a statue.

“There are a great many things I’d love to tell you—that the Saints could help you with if you only just told us what you know.” Her skin is so soft, so warm—my hands cannot help but give in to the desire to cup one of her high, carved cheekbones with my hand, my thumb finding the diamond shaped birthmark that looks so much like a tear; my calloused flesh sweeping gently over the spot with reverence.

I’m not sure what other comfort I could offer. I don’t want to issue threats, but I know it would be better for her to talk to me or Caz. Telling her as much would likely make her dig in her heels, all but guaranteeing her silence, but if she refuses Caz and I and our relative leniency and forces Frank or Quentin’s hand, well… I actually shudder at the thought of whatla belle et la betewill do to her.

As if reading my thoughts, she speaks—breaking the heavy silence.

“I don’t know shit,” Louise sobs quietly—her hands moving slowly to the steaming cup of mint tea laden with sugar.

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