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In which the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting.
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Spoiler alert: I didn’t die. But I couldn’t open my eyes for close to twenty minutes, and even then I could only hold them open for a few seconds before succumbing to an involuntary blinking fit. I gave my eyes one last splash, then six more, and wandered back down the dark hallway into the cafe where Parker waved at me from a corner table.
“See, you lived,” Garland said as I walked over and stood next to him, then he pointed across the table and said, “Edwin, meet our friend Rémy.”
A man with a five-day beard wearing a Paris Saint-Germain shirt sat across the table smoking an e-cigarette with his legs crossed in perhaps the Frenchest way possible.
I nodded and said, “Hi,” and Rémy said, “Edwin. Like the Edwin Allan Poe? Quote the raven, yes?”
“Yes,” Parker said, before I could say no. I turned to her and she shrugged and smiled.
“We should go,” I said, but no one moved, so I added, “shouldn’t we?”
Garland pointed toward the bar and said, “Parker, be a dear and buy Edwin a coffee,” and before I could argue she grabbed my arm and pulled me away.
“What is going on?” I whispered as we stepped up to the bar.
Parker turned to me after ordering and said, “We’re ordering espressos, Edgar Allan.”
“I figured that much,” I said, “but did you two forget we’re sort of on the run from the law?”
“Shit,” Parker said, “I knew there was something we forgot.”
“Be serious. Did something happen while I was in the bathroom? Is getting out of Paris not important anymore?”
“Too important to talk seriously about,” Parker said. I didn’t laugh and she added, “Relax Edgar Allan.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Okay, relax Edwin Green. We figured everything out while you were dropping the kids off at the pool.”
“I wasn’t—I had pepper spray in my eyes—wait, you did?”
“We did,” she said. “Rémy is giving us his car.”
“Rémy? That dude you met ten minutes ago? He looks like a bad guy from a Fast & Furious film.”
“People aren’t good or bad, Edwin Green, they’re either charming or tedious, and Rémy is charming, plus he’s giving us his car.”
“Whatever,” I said, “but even charming people don’t just give strangers their cars.”
“Of course they do,” Parker said, and we took our espressos back to the table just as Rémy handed Garland his keys.
“Let me guess,” I said to Rémy as we sat down. “While I was in the bathroom Garland regaled you with his tale of lost love, and now you feel compelled to help him however you can.”
“No, this is not so,” Rémy said. “What compelled me was, how do you say, the bling bling,” and when he held up his phone I saw a wire transfer on his banking app and a number with a lot of zeros behind it.
“See,” Garland said, “I’ve got more than one trick.”
I shook my head and the four of us sipped coffee and made awkward conversation until Garland said it was time to leave. We followed Rémy from the cafe down a side street to a neon green Peugeot hatchback not much bigger than Morningview Arbor’s security golf cart. “Is here,” Rémy said, pointing toward the ugliest car in France. “Thank you again,” Garland said. “And remember, whatever money you have left after you buy a new car is yours to keep.”
“Yes,” Rémy said, “this is too kind.” Then he turned and walked back toward the cafe before stopping and saying. “I wish you all the good luck. Au revoir.”
Garland popped the back hatch and tossed me the keys, and I asked, “Are you going to buy two more of these or do you expect us to all fit in this one?”
“What was that, son?”
“Nothing,” I said, and Parker began rapping about people laughing at our hatchback.
I squinted at her in confusion and she asked, “Skee-Lo? I wish I was taller? A baller? Come on, Edwin Green, you have to know that one.”
I shook my head and asked, “Do you have obscure rap lyrics for every possible occasion?”
“Outta my way, son,” Garland growled, and pulled my seat forward so he could squeeze into the back seat. As he climbed inside I asked, “So how much did you pay that dude for his go-cart?”
“Enough for him to buy two more if he wants,” Garland said, tumbling less than gracefully onto the back seat. Then the old man sat up and asked, “What do you have against Peugeot anyway? They make good cars.”
“I’m sure they do,” I said and tossed my bag into the open hatch before saying to him over the back seat. “I just wish you would’ve bought some stranger’s SUV.”
“Remind me tell you a story about beggars and choosers one day,” Garland said as I slammed the hatch.
I laughed and looked across to the top of the car at Parker who was standing by the passenger door. “Shotgun,” she shouted, even though there was no one left to call it. We climbed inside and before I could stop her she grabbed my phone and said, “I’ve promoted myself to navigator.”
“Okay,” I said, reaching for my phone and missing, “but why don’t you use your phone?”
“Because international data is expensive, man.”
“Whatever,” I said, and cranked the car. “Just type Caen in to Google Maps.”
“I know how to use a phone, Edwin Green.”
“And we’re not going to Caen,” Garland said from the back seat.
“What?” I turned around. “Why not?”
“’Cause I didn’t crash in Caen. I crashed in Saint-Lô. I told Baldy Caen in the unlikely event we ever made it out of that airport. Now when they start looking for us, they’ll start looking in the wrong town.”
“Brilliant,” Parker said, then she hit me on the arm and said, “Straight ahead one hundred yards captain, then make a sharp left on Avenue de Malakoff.”
It’s hard to say what time my internal clock thought it was, but I was now wide awake. Seems espresso and pepper spray combined with an impromptu vehicle purchase and merging into rush-hour traffic in a huge foreign city was a potent cure for jet lag. Not a cure I’d recommend, but a potent cure nonetheless. I checked my mirror—Garland was already asleep in the back—then I glanced over at Parker and she winked. I tried to wink back, but my eyelids still weren’t working properly, so instead I made the face people make right before they sneeze and she laughed. Then we both laughed because we’d actually pulled it off. We were about to disappear into a country of sixty-six million people.
We had no idea Rémy would soon call the Paris police to report his car stolen. The asshole.