Well, THIS is awkward...

“This isn’t good,” Sinead muttered. “This is not good.”

“We don’t know that,” Jules hissed.

Sinead clenched a fist low out of Jules’ sight and tried not to bounce her knee as well. Three cars, blacked out, all pulling into the warehouse yard at the same time? They hadn’t heard anything from Marc for about ten minutes, which really wasn’t that long if things were going well, but if they weren’t, it could be too long already.

“We should try to get a look,” Sinead said.

Jules grunted and rolled her eyes. “And do what? They’re probably already inside. Or, if they left guards with the cars, then what? You get spotted and play the dumb bimbo who somehow got lost near the docks?”

“Fuck off,” Sinead scoffed. By the look on Jules’s face, she knew that Sinead knew she was right.

“Look, we just need to be patient,” Jules sighed. “This is why you’re so shitty at using Informants, by the way.”

“What?” Sinead asked. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” Jules said. “Usually, you pick people who need you way more than they can offer you to earn your help. And you get too invested, and then things go wrong. This is why you barely ever cultivate CIs to begin with.”

“Fuck off,” Sinead repeated herself, muttering as she looked back out the window. This was the problem with having a partner for so long and being best friends with her. She knew your weak spots and history. And what buttons to push.

“Have you slept with Marc yet?”

“No,” Sinead said.

“Alright,” Jules backpedalled a little.

They both watched the open warehouse yard gate, window rolled down partially despite the cool, damp weather, listening for gunshots or screams.

The problem with playing it cool in an uncomfortable situation is that, to make it work, you must maintain that cool. Marc was a practiced hand at that in the corporate world. Playing cat and mouse, digging out truths and untruths, fishing for little details while pretending they meant nothing. Occasionally discovering heinous stuff - horrible business practices, hush money cover-ups, that sort of thing.

It was difficult to keep that facade when two Italian mobsters pulled Victor up from his slouched position and revealed two bloodsoaked holes in her chest.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Marc said in surprise.

Victor didn’t just overdose; he was shot.

“You think this is interesting, huh?” the leader of the five Calabrian mafia goons asked. “He’s fucking dead, and you think that’s interesting?”

Marc shrugged a little despite the very large man currently looming over him at the end of the bar like an American Football linebacker waiting to rush and tackle him. “I assumed he had died of an overdose,” Marc said truthfully. “Those wounds make this a very different sort of scene.”

It was a bit of a standoff. Marc was, unfortunately, not face to face with the swarthy Italian-Canadian he’d played cards with several nights ago. Instead, the leader of these gangsters was the severe-faced, skinnier one with the big nose. A part of Marc still couldn’t give over how much he looked like Jean, his friend from Nice. Not that the resemblance did any favours to Marc whatsoever.

And he wasn’t the only problem.

“I’ll get him talking,” Liam said. The Irishman didn’t look too bad after their scuffle during the Poker party, but then neither did Marc. He was, however, still walking with a bit of a limp, favouring the leg that Marc had kicked in the knee. “Just fucking let me have him. It’ll take me two fucking minutes, Antony.”

When they had first walked in, the hot headed Irishman had only been stopped from reaching Marc by skinny Antony getting the big one to hold Liam back.

Antony shook his head, grimacing as he looked over Victor. “I’m assuming you don’t have a gun on you, Mr Fornier?”

“I don’t,” Marc said. “Unlike you fine gentlemen, my line of work does not require the occasional bullet or threat of one.”

“How about cocaine?” he asked, looking from Victor’s powder-smeared face to the powder on the bar top.

“My poison of choice is a good wine, I’m afraid,” Marc said. “I haven’t had a sniff of cocaine since one very wild party my freshman year of University in Paris, and that was… well, long enough ago, now.”

“He’s obviously got something to do with it,” Liam growled. “Look at him, just drinking fucking whiskey and staring at the body.”

“What’s obvious,” Marc said dryly. “Is that the adults are talking.”

Antony sighed heavily, grabbing Victor by the face and turning him to examine him for any other markings. There didn’t seem to be any from Marc’s point of view - no bruising or damage. He wasn’t entirely sure how the timing of all of that could work since he wasn’t a forensics or biology expert. How long after a man died could he still sustain a bruise?

“No exit wounds,” Antony murmured. “So the bullets were small calibre and still in him. Have you looked around?”

“The safe in the office back there is hanging open,” Marc said. “And I believe a computer has been effectively ripped from the security system.”

Antony tsked and shook his head, giving off an air of accusing ‘Amateur.’

“If it would help anything, I would be happy to let you search my car. I clearly haven’t stuffed his wads of cash down my pants,” Marc said.

“Why are you here then, Mr Fornier?” Antony asked.

“Originally, due to Victor here asking me to come and help him sort out a financial issue with his business. He hadn’t given me the details yet, but I believe it had something to do with employees skimming too heavily for his liking,” Marc said. There was no point in lying - Victor was dead, and they couldn’t kill him any more if his side business was something they got mad over. “As for why I am still here?” He gestured to the bottle of wine between him and the big man at the end of the bar. “As I said, my poison of choice. And Victor was hoarding quite a nice bottle. I thought it would be for the best not to let a fine vintage such as that end up in an evidence locker or disappear into a police officer’s bag. And the whiskey - well, I thought it prudent to drink to a fallen friend’s memory before I took my leave.”

Antony picked up the bottle of wine and looked over the label. “Chateau Angelus?”

“A winery on the Right Bank of Bordeaux, near Saint-Emilion,” Marc said. “Not so well known as others, but the Hommage cuvée there is a new vintage and considered quite good.”

“Huh,” Antony grunted, frowning as he looked over the bottle, then back up at Marc. “How good are we talking?”

Marc sifted through his mind, considering. “Perhaps the third or fourth most expensive modern Bordeaux bottle? Around $1500 American retail.”

“One bottle?” the big goon grunted in surprise.

“Oui, one bottle,” Marc said. “Now, I would be thrilled to talk Bordeaux with you gentlemen another time, or even host a tasting if we had enough of a range available to make it worthwhile, but I do feel that there are pressing matters at hand.” He gestured to Victor’s dead body.

“Are you seriously buying this?” Liam growled from where he was pacing back and forth behind the billiards table.

Antony sighed, sucking on his teeth for a moment as he pursed his lips in thought. “What was your plan before we showed up?”

“My plan?” Marc chuckled. “I had no plan. I was going to put the bottle in my car and call the police to report finding Victor having suffered an overdose, unaware of this situation. I can still do that if you like, and you gentlemen were never here.”

“No, no,” Antony shook his head. He looked to the two men who had been manhandling Victor and nodded to them, then back out the door. “Check the office for what might be useful.” They nodded and started to leave.

“Antony,” Liam growled.

“Shut up, Liam,” Antony spat, turning and glaring at the blond Irishman. “You got your chance to try and show Mr Fornier here how tough and mean you were, and you were unable to do so. Drop it.”

Liam threw his hands up in the air and stormed out of the room.

Antony turned back to Marc. “You were doing financial work for Victor?” he asked.

“Looking into his investment portfolio as a favour,” I said. “Not exactly my usual fare, but he was an interesting man to get to know.”

“Mm,” Antony grunted. “No, it isn’t.”

Marc felt a single bead of sweat crawling down his spine. He wasn’t surprised that this man knew his last name after the events of the poker tournament, but they had apparently done research.

Not good.

“We’ll clean things up here, Mr Fornier,” Antony said. “No need to call the police for an overdose, clearly. The way I see it, he got shot while sitting down, turned on his seat and decided he was better off going with his nose stuffed with cocaine and fentanyl than not. Easier not to bother the police with this one - we’ll figure out who shot our mutual friend.”

“I see,” Marc said. “Well, I have a feeling your investigation and… justice… will be a bit more prompt than whatever the police could come up with.”

“Mm,” Antony smirked.

“Well, I leave you to it, then,” Marc said, gesturing to the body and then to the bottle that Antony was still holding. “If you haven’t tried it before, you keep that. I assure you that it will be worth breaking out for a romantic partner. And you, my big friend,” Marc said, looking at the larger goon and then turning back to the wall of bottles. He scanned down the line quickly. “Ah, yes, this one,” he said, picking one out. “Not quite as rare or fancy as the Hommage a Elisabeth Bouchet, but a very fine bottle all the same. A cabernet franc from the Loire Valley.” He handed the bottle to the hulking man, who looked down at it curiously and turned it over in his hands.

“Have a good afternoon, Mr Fornier,” Antony said, smirking a little and making Marc think twice about comparing him to his friend from Nice because of the predator look in the man’s eyes. “If anything comes up, you’ll hear from us.”

“Mm,” Marc grunted, imitating the habit of the other man, and then hesitated. “Perhaps an escort down to my car? Young Liam headed towards the stairs, I believe.”

Antony sent the big man with Marc, and they made their way out of the loft, down the rattling metal stairs and into the warehouse. Liam wasn’t waiting for him there, so Marc opened the warehouse door and gestured for the goon to go first just in case the Irishman was planning an ambush. He wasn’t - he was sitting in one of the cars, glaring out the windshield and smirking like a cat that ate the canary.

And Marc’s driver side window was smashed in, and the mirror hanging by a loose cord.

“Ah,” Marc said cooly, cocking an eyebrow and looking up at the big guy still holding the bottle of wine in one hand. “I think your friend might have had an accident out here.”

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