Informant38

Lantis knocked four times on the door, knowing the room was empty, but it was one of the formal requirements of his employment, and the protection it gave him to do what was required was vital, and really it was nothing, like the jacket and tie, subdued, reassuring, not new not old, there. An unnoticable but measurable pause between the third and fourth knock and a slight increase in intensity gave it a tone of authority, like the closing of a book, an official book, a record of activities and contacts, a case in the hands of a judge.
He unlocked the door and opened it, not moving from the threshold, glancing at the unmade bed, the dresser, the shaded window. A smell of onion made him grimace. Cheap peasant food. No perfume or cologne, the sink crusted with shaving soap, nothing in the wastebasket, he walked toward the window. There under the inside corner of the bed, lying on its thin edge, stuck between the rough wool blanket and the wall, an envelope. He bends to see, it's postmarked B_______, and thick with folded paper, he intends at first to read what must be a long and potentially interesting letter, but sees instead what has to be 6 months salary in francs, wrapped in a single sheet of stationery. He sits on the bed to count it. Then reads the letter. Oh ho. Congratulating himself on recognizing the fugitive couple for what they were in spite of their relaxed posturing, he removes the money, which isn't mentioned in the five paragraphs of the letter, then quietly locks the door behind him as he heads calmly, purposefully, through the next three moves of the long gambit his life is now; too resolute for a pawn, not brave enough for a knight, a bishop of secrecy, going back to his queen with his discovered en prise.
A concise visit with Marda, after a much longer stroking session with Special-Lieutenant Plenc, a bath at home and on to the cafe, just in time to watch the sun touch the horizon under a sky as flat and grey as the plains below it, the strip of light and its gold-orange ball like a promise, a winning ticket. Now we'll see, thought Lantis, almost trembling with gratification, both sides of his furtive life gilded by unexpected fortune.
He ordered the prix fixe, some wine, and watched the light fading through the long windows, the only immediate obstacle to his complete satisfaction the drunken stare of that novelist with the ridiculous Spanish name, Jaime what-was-it? Lantis tried to ignore him, caught in the dull unwavering beam of his attention, gaze not withdrawing as the waiter set down his salad and he murmured his thanks. Hartz, that was it. One of the Dangling Partisans, rumored to have informed on his companions, a disgraced academic collapsing into inevitable poverty, his table cluttered with the quick formula of oblivion, cheap gin and absinthe.
Hartz continued to stare, turning away only to drink.
He couldn't know, they wouldn't let him walk around, knowing. I would have heard.
It's envy, he can tell I'm on my way, up and out of this rat-hole of a city where he'll die, probably this winter, alone and unnoticed unless there's a problem, a mess.
The tailor, tomorrow a new suit, then another month at the hotel, a ticket in advance to the south, and then once across the border...