Pleski was still talking. “If anyone starts looking into the Barnstable accident, who was going around town saying what a pain in the ass he was? Not me. I didn’t even know the guy.”

Catherine said nothing.

Pleski reached under the table, and pulled out a Tumi bag. “Here,” he said. “Six hundred seventy-five k. You can do it. I know you can.”

Then he pointed to the menu she hadn’t touched. “Do you want to eat?”

Smile

SMILE

The Syrian was cruising tourists in the old town when he saw the woman come out of a restaurant with a man. The beautiful woman whose purse he had tried to snatch by the river. She was with a different man this time, not the one who looked like an Arab. This man was Western and he looked like a pig. How many men did she go with? Was she a prostitute? Or was this just the way of things here in Switzerland? Go with one man one day, another man another? If so, what was the difference between that and a prostitute? She didn’t seem to be flirting with this man, however. She looked nervous as she and the man stopped outside the restaurant door. He was holding a heavy bag, holding it out toward her. The narrow street leading away from the restaurant toward the cathedral was in shadow, and the Syrian started toward it so the woman would not see him.

But he was too late.

The woman turned her head in his direction. He got ready to run, ready for her to scream, to shout for the police. But she didn’t scream or shout. She only smiled. She smiled at him. He froze, not understanding. Did she think he was somebody else? Or did she smile at every man she saw, even men who had tried to rob her?

The ugly man was still talking to her, but she was still looking over his shoulder, at him. Then she tilted her head toward the bag the man was holding, like she wanted him to notice it. Of course he had noticed it. Bags were his business. She looked straight at him, and she nodded and then looked at the bag again. What did she want? Why hadn’t she shouted? Why was she pointing this bag out to him?

He had thought he was beginning to understand the West but clearly he had no idea.

Then the ugly man turned to see what the woman was looking at. He spotted the Syrian and he looked at him like he was nothing, like most people did, and the Syrian ran away.

Ringo

RINGO