Chapter 75: The boys of the city

The man in-between is searching for you

Finally, they found the boys at the boulangerie Vescis. Gavroche was absent, but the other three were sharing between them two pieces of bread that were clearly leftovers from the day before, but it was obvious that they did not mind the food being a bit stale. They were laughing and quarrelling good naturedly, both older boys taking turns in sharing their bread with Pucet, who was clearly making an attempt to, by sneaking from both his companions, acquire the lion's share of the spoils.

Joly, who knew his manners, entered the boulangerie, buying some pastries – fresh this time – and offered them to the boys as he came closer, as a sort of upfront payment for what he was about to ask them. He was unsure of the price of the information he was searching yet – but if his previous information was anything to go by, a few pastries probably wouldn't do the trick. Still, it was never good to approach the boys empty-handed, and he did not mind spending a few coins if it meant that the children might lose a bit of their previous scruffyness.

Jean received the offering with an appreciative grin and shared them between his friends with grand gesture, inviting the students to sit down with them on the empty crates that they had found a resting place on as if he were inviting them to his salon. Maybe, after a fashion, he was.

Joly complied, and Bossuet took the last of the boxes, while Lamarin and Stephane remained standing – the former leaning against the wall of the baker's shop, the latter a bit aside, scowling, as if trying to distance himself from the situation.

"How are things?", Jean inquired between bites, his munching only incompletely masking the wary gaze that flittered between the four students.

"Tense", Joly admitted with a grim smile, quite at the same time as Bossuets more sarcastic "interesting". Exchanging a quick gaze and an almost amused smile, they wordlessly agreed for Bossuet to continue the conversation.

"I'm sure you heard of what happened at the funeral of Evaristide Galois", he began and the three nodded as one. "So I am sure you can imagine everyone is quite nervous at the moment."

"It's all swarming with cognes", Pucet supplied, "at the cemetery. They are running around like headless chicken." He chuckled, obviously still oblivious to the deeper implications of this.

"No surprise there", Bossuet answered wrily. "Any particular direction they are turning to?"

"Word's on the street that there was trouble inside the national guard", Jean supplied. "Some of them apparently hit each other." He grinned. "Everyone's talking about that."

"It was pandaemonium", Joly admitted, shivering as he remembered the chaos at the cemetery. "If chaos was the aim of the hour, then whoever did that truly achieved their goals."

"Any suspicion as to the culprits?" Bossuet added. "What's the talk of the town?"

"From all I know you have the better information, to be honest", Jean answered, monopolizing the conversation, as Pucet busied himself with food and Sylvain sat quietly, listening. "Lots and lots of speculation. I've heard all sorts of names and scenarios. Chaos, like you said. I think most people assume the national guard was doing funny business and had it coming."

"I see", Bossuet answered, not dissatisfied with the state of affairs. It seemed, all things considered, the actions of their opponents worked less in their favor than originally planned. "That's good to hear, for sure."

A piece of silence fell, as Joly wondered how they would move from the more casual conversation of the state of affairs to their more concrete question, but as it turned out, he did not have to. Sylvain beat him to it.

"But that's not all, right?" he spoke up, his pastry already gone. He had watched the conversation without chipping in and obviously come to his own conclusions. Bossuet smiled. "Indeed, no."

Jean licked his fingers. "Okay", he answered, turning the attention back to him, all business again. "So, what's the deal?"

"We are looking for a man names Francois."

Jean turned towards Lamarin, who had spoken. "Francois, eh? Now that's specific. Don't you have a couple of those yourself?"

Lamarin bit his lip, hiding a smile. "Yes, you're right. My apologies. There's a bit more than that."

Bossuet nodded and took over.

"That Francois seems to be a man of relatively diverse occupations." He gave a wry smile and a wink. "Not quite your average student, more a man with his fingers in all sorts of different pies."

Jean nodded, understanding, mouth full of pastry. Bossuet gave a telltale look to Stephane Barilou, who, with a minuscule roll of his eyes, complied, knowing it was the most sensible thing to do since he was the only one to ever have seen the man.

"He's very tall", Barilou began, straightening up and indicated a height that surpassed his own, not inconsiderable one, by almost a hand's breadth. "Blonde, bright eyes, not sure if blue or green. Quite a good looking fellow, although his sense of dress leaves something to be desired. He claims to have been a merchant from the port, but for various reasons I don't believe that for a second. He stoops a little, probably because he's used to most people not reaching up to his height."

"He must have had dealings with a woman named Elise Vertige", Joly took up the ball. "A woman who has died of Cholera two days ago. Or at least, she knew him."

"That's something to start from", Jean nodded. "I don't know the guy, but sounds like someone you might find with a bit of snooping. Provided it's worth our while."

"It will be", Joly assured the gamin. "Don't worry about that."

"I don't", Jean answered candidly. "But just so that I know how deep of a hole we're jumping in – why are you looking for that guy?"

Joly hesitated for a moment, then decided that there was little risk to give this specific information to the gamins.

"More as a means to an end, to be honest", he answered. "We're actually looking for Joseph Sicar. And judging by something Elise Vertige says, we think this Francois could be a means of finding him."

Jean narrowed his eyes.

"That was one of the Cougourde's, right?" he tried to remind himself, not having been as familiar with the revolutionary groups as Gavroche, but still around long enough to know something about the figureheads.

"Yeah." Surprisingly, it was Sylvain, who answered. Joly turned around to him and found him looking, surprisingly, somewhat spooked. He frowned, but the conversation moved on and he let it pass for now.

"I guess he's been missing then", Jean concluded. "But why don't you look for him directly?"

"I think we can assume", Bossuet explained, "that Joseph either is unable or does not want to be found. More likely the latter. I do not think that extends to this Francois."

"Fair enough." Jean looked around to Sylvain and Pucet, gauging their reaction. "What do you say?" he asked?

Sylvain gave a somewhat noncommittal shrug. "We can listen around", he answered cautiously. Pucet nodded in agreement.

"That's settled then", Jean said and turned around to Joly again. "Provided, of course, as we said, it will be worth our while."

Joly let his hand slip into his pocket, fishing for the purse he carried with him and extracted a few coins.

"I'm quite sure we can find an agreement", he answered.

And they did.

To be fair, it took a while.

Old Vera, for once, had no clue of Montparnasse's whereabouts – although her gruff advice for caution indicated that she already had somehow gotten wind of Montparnasse's change of place and occupation of late. The officer's club was deserted, and the silver hall offered nothing but the slow drip-drip-drip of the moisture from the walls and some of the sewer's pipes. The decaying rooms of the Salpetrie buildings was likewise empty.

The patron of the tobacco shop that he frequented claimed to not have seen him in days, and – just for good measure – he had popped in his head in the Gorbeau tenement, careful not to be espied by his parents, but likewise to no avail.

Montparnasse had always been an elusive creature, but they moved in similar circles, and Gavroche was supposed to be good at this.

However, after having checked all haunts, places and contacts of Montparnasse that he could think of and hearing, strangely, from all of them that they had not seen the thief in quite a number of days, Gavroche found himself to conclude that this led him nowhere.

For all their need to hide and adapt, the downtrod children of Paris were, to some extent, creatures of habit. And it seemed, as if Montparnasse had not drawn upon any of his contacts in recent times. Or they were all lying to him. Which – of course – was also possible.

But this would imply that Montparnasse most definitely did not want to be found, which would make his task infinitely more difficult. Or, as the gamin realized with a flash of intuition, maybe it just meant that he had now different haunts to frequent instead.

Which meant that checking out his hiding places and business contacts would not get him anywhere nearer to his goal.

Gavroche pondered this for a moment and decided to move into a different direction instead. He directed his steps towards the docks, towards the area that he usually tried to avoid himself. Not that he harboured a hatred against prostitutes, but it was an area where street lads were sometimes mixed up with the boys offering their services there, and this was something Gavroche was not very keen on.

But he knew the area well enough to find one of the ladies that Montparnasse occasionally frequented, and there, finally, he found at least a lead.

"Toureille?" he asked, surprised, and the woman nodded.

"Mariette told me he was there when she came to collect her boy." A quick flash of sadness wandered through her eyes, quickly dispelled, and Gavroche did not pry. He could read the half song sung as it was without needing to know the details.

"What was he doing there? Was he hurt?" Eponine had not mentioned anything along those lines.

The woman shrugged.

"How should I know? He doesn't come to me for explanations."

Gavroche nodded. That was fair enough. But it was at least something to go on.

Toureille's haunt was a place that most gamins tried to stay well and truly clear of. None of them liked to be reminded of their own mortality – and although Toureille was known to have a soft spot for the children of the street and would occasionally hand out a remedy at a relatively low price or deal in manageable favors, meeting him meant that one was usually in pain. Or sick. Or both.

Which was why Gavroche fought hard to suppress the rapid beating of his heart as he approached the wooden shack that held the improvised street hopital that Toureille ran.

He was relieved not to be received by screams or moans. Instead, his knock was answered by the man himself, who, wearing an apron, seemed to be busy cleaning some unfathomable instruments.

"Bonjour, young man", he greeted the gamin, measuring him up and down, a slight frown on his face. "Complexion fairly rosy.. a bit on the thin side, but then, all of you usually are. No sounds accompanying your breathing, no blood, no apparent pain..." He cocked his head. "If it's not my professional advice, what might lead you here?"

There was something off about his smile that ran a shiver down Gavroche's spine, but he was good at hiding such things and moved on.

"I'm looking for someone."

Toureille raised his brow, placed aside his instruments and, in an unconscious movement, smoothed his dark hair.

"I see", he answered, opening the door wider. "Why don't you come in? Let's see if I can help you."

Something within Gavroche felt a deep reluctance to follow the invitation, but he did his best to not let it show, and stepped over the threshold without hesitation. He did, however, cautiously look around under the pretense of assessing the surroundings, but in reality trying to gauge the best way to leave the premises, should need arise. That habit had proven useful more than once in his past life on the streets.

"So, who are you looking for?" Toureille asked once Gavroche squatted on one of the flat, hard straw cots that passed for hospital beds in this place. The gamin decided for straightness.

"Montparnasse."

Toureille's brows rose.

"Montparnasse? The Patron-Minette-guy?"

Gavroche nodded. "The same."

"Funny you should ask that", Toureille mused. "He left here not an hour ago."

Gavroche jumped off the cot in an instant, unable to contain his excitement.

"What?"

Toureille laughed, apparently good humored and amused by Gavroche's eagerness.

"Easy, easy, young lad. It's not long ago, but not so recent that a minute or two will matter. Why don't you have a coffee before you move on. I'm sure you're still going to catch him."

"Where did he go?" Gavroche had heard the offer, but was pointedly ignoring it. "Do you know that?"

Toureille smiled. "I might. But why would I tell you?"

"Because he wants to see me." Gavroche had had a few moments on his way to Toureille to come up with a reasonable explanation, and for all the rumors about him, he was not inclined to fall into the medic's debt if he could avoid it. A good lie seemed to be better.

"Well. As far as I know he's at home", Toureille answered. "You should easily catch him there."

Gavroche tried to retrace how long it had taken him from his visit to La Salpetrie to reach Tourelle's hovel and decided that it was certainly more than an hour. But the building had seemed deserted, Montparnasse's cot untouched. They all hadn't been there for a while, he figured. So either Toureille was lying, misinformed, or...

He decided to take a chance.

"Yeah but he changed house recently, you know that. I have something for him that he's waiting for. And he couldn't exactly leave his address in his old hovel, could he?" He tried for a sly smile.

"Probably not." Toureille was watching him through narrowed eyes. Gavroche was aware there were a lot of things he could say at the moment, including many that would call his bluff. But that apparently brought up the eternal question that all creatures of the Paris underworld faced time and again – with which action would you bring more trouble on your head?

Even if his story was a bit unlikely – if it were true, then dismissing him might bring Montparnasse's wrath, which was not something to be trifled with.

On the other hand, he might convey his location to a gamin. Who, himself, might use this information for trade, or to find the man himself.

So, in the end, it all hinged on Toureille's estimation of Gavroche's harmlessness. And on how much he knew about what Montparnasse was actually up a number of other things.

And so the boy smiled. And waited.

"Well." After a moment, the street medic shrugged and folded his hands in his lap. "I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. You seem like a nice enough lad and surely mean him no harm." Gavroche shook his head without hesitation.

"I would try 3, Rue de la Texanderie. That's where I suppose he will be. At least that is where...", he hesitated, then shook his head and smiled. "That is the best I can give you, young man."

Gavroche jumped up from his cot and gave a small bow in thanks.

"Thank you so muhc sir", he answered enthusiastically, beaming at Toureille who gave him a small, answering smile.

"Well, you are welcome. I would not want you to land in trouble with your employer. You seem to be a fine lad."

He turned around to the cupboard and opened a small box, retrieving a few dried apples and offering them to the gamin. "Do you want some for the road? You're thin as a waif, I'm sure you could use a bite or two."

Now it was up to Gavroche to measure his options. The friendliness of Toureille was a bit too much for his taste – this was too easy, somehow – and the offering of food set his nerves on edge.

It could all be harmless. Or it couldn't.

Therefore he settled for the most inconspicuous option that came to his mind. He took the apples, gave thanks and went on his way as quickly as he could, feeling a massive relief as the door of the hovel closed behind him and he was out on the streets again.

He made a mental note to warn Sylvain, Pucet and Jean to try to avoid this man or at least be cautious.

You never knew.

Rue de la Texanderie was a long, narrow road winding its way through the Quartier St. Paul just north of the Ile de la cite, with Notre dame just looming behind the next row of houses. Number three was a three story-building towards the end of it, where the road ended on the small Place du Chatelet which opened up to the Seine again.

The area was respectable, not quite burgeois, but harbouring small, respectable businesses – a tailor's shop, a tanner and a butcher placed next to each other, a tinker and a few other shops of that sort. In between them, there were small tenements and houses, number three being one of them, fairly unremarkable, without any decoration worth to be mentioned.

Even though the Seine was just a row of streets away, the area was quiet in the settling dusk as Gavroche neared the place and wondered, how he should approach the matter.

Just a few, short days ago, he would have laughed at his thoughts. It was not that he carried much appreciation for the former lover of his sister, but him and Montparnasse met each other often enough to know each other well, and there had been no bad blood between them.

Now, that had certainly changed during the last days. And Gavroche was not quite aware of how much Montparnasse knew he knew. And he was not quite sure he wanted to gamble on it.

It would have been something different, had he met him in the streets, where the open space and surrounding people would have provided some measure of protection. Searching him out in his hiding place seemed a much more risky thing to do.

And so, he did not immediately knock. Instead, he measured up the building. It was standing on its own, close to both its neighbors along the line of the street, which were similar in built and size, but a small gap seperated it from either of them. There was no fence or garden, but small patches of grass and vegetation on either side of the house, that did not look well groomed but rather gave the impression of an area, where nature was given free reign to expand itself.

Windows looked out into this area as well, all of them slightly too high above ground for Gavroche to peek in from the streets. The facades, however, were not as smooth as to discourage climbing.

And thus, Gavroche found himself on the side of the house, shoes discarded, digging his fingers and bare toes into the rough wall of the building to look into one window after the other, trying to understand what sort of house he was dealing with.

The first two windows confirmed his suspicions that he was dealing with a tenement for the members of lower burgeousie. The rooms were small and the furniture showed they were inhabited by a number of people. In the second window, he saw a girl about his age tending to three younger siblings, treating them to an obviously self-made dinner of soup with a few bits of bread.

While the furniture, clothes and food spoke of struggle more than of riches, it did not reek of the poverty and desolation that Gavroche had known from his family. More likely than not, the parents were out earning their keep somewhere, leaving their eldest to tend to the others as well as she could, and given the fact that the kids looked slightly tattered, but clean and quite content, she did not seem to be doing to bad a job of it.

Something in his insides twitched at the sight, like a bad memory or an old wound not quite healed. This, he thought, could have been them. If they all stood up a bit better for each other when misfortune hit. If all of them hadn't been so independent, so bent in their own struggles. Also, if their parents hadn't been Thenardiers.

For a moment he imagined these parents coming home from their days toils, tired, receiving a bowl of soup their daughter had cooked to the best of her abillities, giving greetings and bestowing caresses on the head to those children still awake and a much more gentler greeting to the littler ones already sleeping, giving some praise, some loving words, some of those little things that were able to make all the difference.

He clenched his teeth and sunk back to the ground, intent to move to the next window.

It had never gotten him anything to cry over spilt milk.

And, with a sudden flash, he had Courfeyrac. And the others. And maybe, just maybe, if luck for once was on his side, he might have a sister or two again. That was a more rallying notion than he would have expected and the wave of warmth it produced surprised him, but this was not the right time to get lost in it. He stashed that thought aside for later inspection and moved on with his task.

He approached the next window with the same caution as the previous two, only slowly rising himself to the rim of the window to peek inside. The curtains were half drawn, and in the dimly lit room, he saw three men. And Gavroche immediately congratulated himself to the decision not having knocked on the door.

The room was as sparsely furnished as the others, but clean and in good repair. A large bed occupied the left hind corner of the room while the right side was occupied by a combination of washing table, drawer and cupboard. A slightly faded carpet gave a homely look to the wooden boards that passed for flooring in this tenement,

Montparnasse was leaning against the wall on the left side, his posture relaxed on the outside, but, to Gavroche, who knew him well enough, tense. Next to the bed, there was a man that Gavroche did not know. His clothing seemed to good for these surroundings, much more real bourgeoisie and less workingmen trying not to slip into the realm of abaisse; a good waistcoat and well cut brown jacket, top hat standing on the bedside table. His features were pleasant, if a bit plump, a man, that he could imagine giving him an off-handed coin with a friendly smile, ruffling his head as he did so, and forgetting about him the second he turned away. His forehead was broad, cheeks spoke of a few too many good meals, but his eyes and posture were alert and he had an air of concentration about him.

Next to him on the floor, there was a bag half opened and displaying a few leather caskets and some instruments, linnen cloth and a few other items Gavroche could not place at first sight.

None the less, the conclusion was clear. The man was a doctor.

And his patient, lying in the bed, pale, but breathing steadily, was none other than Frater Antoine.

Gavroche, having seen enough, let himself drop to the floor again and swore under his breath. This was not exactly a surprise, but to see it confirmed was something different altogether. There was no denying any more that Montparnasse had thrown in his lot with the assassins that had targeted his friends. That, to him, was annoying and a bit sad, but for Eponine, this did not bode well at all.

He crouched down at the side of the building and considered his options. He had promised his sister that he would try to sway Montparnasse, but looking at the scene he just witnessed, he was unsure that this would be even within the realm of the possible. It was not only the way that he had looked at the monk. It was also the resources quite obviously at his disposal, well beyond anything he had had before during their long acquaintance. And since Montparnasse had always harbored a desire for grandeur, this was something he would not let go.

Push coming to shove, between his new friends and Eponine, Montparnasse would chose Eponine.

And all that remained was to hope that, in a similar fix, Eponine would chose the revolutionaries. And not Montparnasse.

Having reached that conclusion, Gavroche got up and with the infallible bluntness that children sometimes possessed, moved Montparnasse from his mental list of "allies" to "foes" and turned to leave the alley.

Only to realize that the exit was blocked by a massive bulk of a man, seemingly filling the complete passageway back to la Texanderie.

Gavroche froze.

It was Gueulemer.