Now there was a gun in his pants, and he was happy to see her. This made it difficult to follow Izzy out of the flat, down the hall, and even worse, down the steps. He was eternally grateful that she was in the lead, giving him time to experiment with different ways of walking around the encumberment.

As they got to the cafe he was quite confident in his new bow-legged gate, rather cowboy-ish he thought. Izzy gave him a look when he ordered mint tea, but at least she giggled when he patted the bulge under his shirt. She ordered a wine he hadn’t heard of, though the waiter gave her hard time about ordering a port at this time of day. That was dumb.

Renard tried to act casual as Izzy kissed him on the cheek, swore at the waiter with unintelligible words and swished off to the bathroom. Left alone, he stared back at their building. He could see his windows from here, Ms. Abernathy’s above his, with her wash out on the line, and Gustav’s below, lined with flowers. It all seemed so unreal to him.