“They’ll have a lot to talk about on the way,” I noted.
Viti slipped her pistol away and put on Sheryl’s coat, scarf, and sunglasses. She fished Sheryl’s keys out of the coat pocket. While I walked, I put on Maurice’s face. Security cameras would take pics of us on the way out, but they would only see the Pettys. “What we have just done is illegal, is it not?”
“Very.”
“But right?”
I waggled my hands. “For some values of right, I suppose. They’re awful people. They deserve one another. I’m just making sure they get what they deserve.”
“When they are freed, they may seek vengeance,” Viti noted.
“Have a hard time with that,” I said. “I’m fairly sure Marcone’s people have already cleared out their bank accounts, using the information from the report you wrote up.”
“Ah. Sheryl might kill the other two while they are restrained,” Viti noted.
“She might,” I agreed. “That will be her choice. She did hire me to get even, after all. Of course, if she does, she’ll deserve the ride while the bodies stink, and what happens to her when she’s found in there with them in St. Louis.”
Viti frowned. “So, we have delivered justice?”
“We have delivered appropriate vengeance and fulfilled the letter of my agreement,” I said.
“Which is good?”
“Which is complete,” I said. “Honestly, you’re going to findthat good and bad get really fuzzy, really quick, outside of very simple equations,” I mused. “Besides, I’m not the kind of monster you hire for petty crap like this.”
Viti frowned as we got into Sheryl’s car, with her driving. “Is their fate not rather severe for such a thing?”
“I’m not above being a little petty myself, I suppose.”
“Is that balance?” she asked.
I shrugged. “It’s life. You hungry?”
“Starving.”
“We made money,” I said. “Let’s eat.”
The Underground Goddess
Kevin Hearne
There is a certain joy when the temperature dips in the fall and everyone in Poland decides it’s time for a nice scarf. You see riots of colors and fabrics, conservative wraps and devil-may-care danglers, and very casual attitudes about it like it’s no big deal, but secretly everyone is happy about scarf season. We get ideas from one another, like,Ooooh, I want to try wearing mine likethattomorrow. We admire each other like we admire the trees turning colors in Pole Mokotowskie: Every day we notice something a little bit different but entirely beautiful.
At least that is how it is in Warsaw—perhaps it is different in other parts of Poland. I wouldn’t know, since I have traveled so little. But in Warsaw, when the scarves come out, you notice.
And I think there is a pride to it as well, a societal preparation for winter, an acknowledgment that tough days lie ahead, and we say to one another with our scarves,I am ready, and also,Because I am ready, I will be able to help you if you need it.
I have many theories on the nonverbal cues ofscarves—some are bait for compliments, some are cries for help, some are warnings, and some are meant to project professionalism or any number of other things. I could write a thesis on the Scarves of Warsaw.
But mostly they make me think of tea and Babcia, who knitted me a scarf every year, clucked and pinched my cheek whenever she saw me, and made me hot tea with honey and lemon. When she set down a cup and saucer in front of me and then groaned as she lowered her arthritic bones into her accustomed chair, she always did so with a satisfied smile, tucking her joy into the depths of her crow’s-feet to be carried with her forever. Her eyes sparkled as she watched me take my first sip. I knew that having tea with her kochana wnusia, Anna, was her primary joy in the sunset of her life.
Teatime with my babcia reminded me of a verse from a poem by Wislawa Szymborska, for which my rough English translation would be:
There is no such life
That is not immortal
For at least a moment.
