The Bar de la Marine wasn't just a place to drink — it was a shrine to the forgotten, stinking of decay that had taken a hundred years to build. Inside was a heavy, suffocating air of spilled licorice, decaying cedar, and the bad, sour breath of men who'd spent 40 years trying to wash the salt from their souls with cheap pastis.
Adélard stood in the doorway, his arrival greeted by the lonely, tinny jingle of the bell. The air inside was heavy and oppressive. The walls were a yellowed, crumbling cave of tarnished brass and aggressive shadows. Maps from the colonial age hung on the walls, curled and yellowed like a cadaver's skin. Behind the bar, three gargoyles sat with their backs to him, hunching their shoulders over their glasses of amber-colored liquor that glowed in the weak, sickly light of the flickering chandelier. None of them looked up. On the waterfront, you only looked at someone else if you were searching for something to bury.
Adélard gripped the rusty iron pipe hidden in his sleeve tightly with both hands. Beneath his shirt, the brown-paper package felt cold as ice — a dry, abrasive coldness that vibrated against his chest. He didn't care what was inside. He just wanted the weight of it gone.
At the farthest booth, where the yellow light wouldn't touch him, a figure sat enveloped in a mist of blue tobacco smoke.
"What are you doing standing there like a putain statue, môme?" growled a voice that sounded like a shovel digging through wet gravel and broken glass.
Adélard moved toward the booth. With each step he took, he felt like he was pushing through thick, black mud. He slumped into the chair opposite the man, tense, ready to turn into an animal when trapped.
The Captain didn't fit Adélard's mental image of a clean-cut naval officer. The Captain was a sea-battered wreckage of humanity covered in barnacles, wearing a salt-crusted peacoat that reeked of diesel oil and rotting fish. The Captain's face was a topographic map of deep, jagged scars, and his skin was a weathered shade of old leather that had been exposed to storms. One eye was cloudy white marble (a cataract) while the other was a sharp, predator blue that had seen enough blood to drown the entire city. His hands lay flat on the worn surface of the table, vibrating with a slow, rhythmic motion – a telltale sign of a man who'd survived too many blasts.
"You got the delivery or did Hector send you a fada in a denim jacket?" growled the Captain spitting out a yellowed tooth in disgust.
"Yes," Adélard replied softly, keeping his gaze fixed intently upon the Captain's healthy eye.
The Captain leaned forward slowly releasing a cloud of stale tobacco smoke and rot that hit Adélard like a physical force. "This city? Ville? It's a stomach, petit. It eats and it shits. And you? You're just going to be the appetizer." The Captain extended a massive hand with thick fingers and scarring across the knuckle joints. "Give me the package. Before I get fed-up with your putain stupidity."
Adélard paused. The cold, metal vibrations through his jacket told him he needed to move quickly. The package seemed to grow heavier in his possession; it seemed to draw in all of the darkness from around them. "We agreed she would go free once this reaches you. I want to see her."
The Captain laughed harshly then coughed wetly until he spat a glob of phlegm into a stained handkerchief. "Agreement? What makes you think you've negotiated anything, minot? Here, there's only what Rourke wants and what you need to do to stay alive with your cranium attached."
He crept closer to Adélard, narrowing his blue eye menacingly. "I've seen kids like you in wars. Brave. Dumb. Think you can exchange a sheet of paper for a life. You're carrying around a specter in that bag of yours, môme. Don't even dream about negotiating with the dead."
Adélard's grip on the iron pipe tightened until his muscles protested. "Where. Is. She?"
"The delivery comes first," growled the Captain growing less sarcastic and sounding more deadly serious. "Afterward we'll discuss whether you deserve our attention."
Adélard yanked the package from within his jacket. In spite of being in dim light, it appeared to suck every bit of radiance from the surroundings. He slammed it onto the tabletop.
The Captain's good eye flashed with savage hunger for what was inside. Instead of taking it right away, he placed two fingers on either side of the paper as if feeling the warmth emanating from whatever was encased within. He produced a serrated knife from his hip and cut the twine holding the package closed with one smooth stroke. Rather than completely unwrapping it, he merely peeled back sufficient to reveal the darker, bruised red hue of worn leather.
"Beautiful," breathed the Captain with genuine awe and horror in his tone. "That old man has been searching for this for years. Your dad was foolish to try hiding it."
"My father had nothing to do with this," Adélard said tightly.
"Tell yourself that as much as you like, pote," sneered the Captain putting the package into the folds of his coat. "Your father was just as dirty as you are. The only difference is he knew when to stop opening his boucan mouth."
The Captain sighed and leaned back into shadow, allowing most of his scarred face to disappear. He reached for the crushed compass lying on the tabletop and slid it across to Adélard.
"That's done. But Rourke...he has long memories. He doesn't want a delivery boy. He wants a hunting dog. He wants to see if you can walk through flames without crying for your momma."
He tapped the compass gently with his cracked nail. "You get to the breakwater north of here. That lighthouse at the tip of that stone spur. If you hustle, perhaps you will make it before sunrise lights it up. If you're quick...perhaps she'll be waiting for you there. But if you're late...the tide is already rolling in."
Without another word, Adélard leaped from the booth and out into the night air. He didn't waste any time running along Rue des Capucins toward the harbor area beyond it. The streets were empty and quiet except for the distant sounds of sailors singing songs at bars farther east near Le Panier.
As he ran past shuttered tourist shops and darkened cafe windows, his feet pounding against cobblestone pavement created loud clattering noises reminiscent of breaking apart stone and concrete.
Earlier guilt had melted away to be replaced by icy fear and crystal-clear panic. He thought of Leon asleep in Sam's shop at this moment dreaming about a brother returning their mom home. He thought about his mother's tired eyes, her shaking hands...
Ahead loomed the lighthouse in white skeleton form as it pointed upward toward an increasingly pale violet horizon color. The last thing on earth was likely to be a stone jetty at Marseille harbor and Adélard Aschemist was sprinting toward it with all he had left.
Burning pains shot through his lungs as if he had consumed burning coals. Every breath sent stabbing shards through his ribcage where he had been kicked. Reaching the breakwater, winds howling off into Mediterranean Sea whipped his tangled blond hair into his face as wave sprays crashed against stone jetty creating icy waterfalls but he didn't notice them.
A lone dinghy bobbing gently in calm waters was moored via an iron ladder leading up to bottom level of lighthouse and it was unoccupied.
Adélard halted at the base of stairs climbing up outside wall; the world tilted violently. The boat was vacant.
Adélard went down the stairs himself; slicking hands on salt-stained rungs. Sliding aboard after placing foot upon swaying hull caused boat to creak against solid rock.
On a wooden bench rested one item: a tattered piece of silk fabric printed with faded red flower patterns – Mom's scarf.
The silk fabric itself smelled strongly of ocean water. Underneath ocean water odor was another smell – not mom's cheap perfume but rather strong metallic and cloying odor associated with dockwork, leaking cargo containers.
Adélard grabbed it; trembling so hard he feared losing control. Bringing silk fabric close to his nose; searching desperately for some clue or a hope.
Rather than finding some sign or portent; Adélard discovered a substantial lead weight sewn into lower portion of scarf hem. Using his teeth; ripping open stitches.
Within his palm fell small brass key and torn scrap of blood-stained ledger paper containing scribbled handwriting:
"The debt is never paid – only transferred."
Adélard looked toward the city, and beyond it to the distant, flickering lights of the district where Sam's Stitches would sit. At last, the sun came up above the horizon. In hues of orange and gold, the Mediterranean was painted by the sun, an alluring deception.
He gazed at the key; then he gazed at the city. Low vibrations began to reverberate within the stone of the breakwater. Then, Adelard spun around. His blood was now cold as liquid nitrogen.
There were no cars there yet. However, from the other side of the massive, heavy iron door behind him, the lighthouse door slowly creaked open. Inside this dark space nothing could be illuminated by sunlight.
A voice echoed from out of the blackness. This was a voice he had not heard for seven years. "You are early, Adélard."