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“I should win an Oscar. Or Palme d’Or. I was a mess, trying to hold everything together. Mom was always working, so I had to take care of her and myself.”
“That must have been hard.”
“Yeah, I grew up at a young age. I was eleven when I started cooking for us. Basic things, like pasta, macaroni, and grilled cheese. Nothing like the rabbit you made today. We could barely afford something like that. Hamburger Helper sometimes.”
“Hamburger Helper? Like someone who cooks burgers for you?”
Mickey cackled so hard that Strap jumped. His arm landed on hers. “Sorry for laughing. No, it’s something poor people eat. Noodles and ground beef. To stretch the meat further.”
“That sounds revolting.”
“Yeah. It was. What do poor people eat here?”
“In France? Couscous. Baguettes and brie. Croque monsieur. We do povertyen classe.”
“Ha. Well, we didn’t. But it was probably better than it would have been if my dad had been in the picture. He probably would have starved us.”
Strap was silent. When she looked over, his face was as red as the raw rabbit he braised.
“He wasn’t like that. Obviously, you didn’t know him,” Strap said.
Mickey winced.
“Thanks for reminding me,” she said icily.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I wish you could have known him.”
“Me too.”
“He was an incredible man. Anything he had, he shared. As I said, I shudder to think who I might have become if not for him,” Strap said.
“What were things like before you met him?”
“Dark. I was on the streets of the 18th Arrondissement. I don’t even know how I survived to fifteen. If not for Mick, I probably would have ended up gunned down there over a deal gone wrong.”
“You met Michel there?”
“No, Mick would have never gone there. It was the Champs Elysees … hunting grounds for rich people and tourists. When I targeted Mick, I got something much more valuable than a wallet.”
“Wrong place at the right time?”
“Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. He looked so angry, I thought he was going to kill me. But it wasn’t stealing that made him so mad. ‘Your technique is shameful,’ he said to me. ‘You’re a strapping kid. So why do you act like a teenager copping his first feel? Being a thief is seduction, not grab ass.’ So he offered to teach me.”
“But he was a criminal. Didn’t he just help you get better at a bad thing?”
“I mean, yes and no. He had a code. Like Robin Hood … rob from the rich, give to the poor. A lot of thieves pretend to believe in that. But Mick lived it.”
“That does sound sorta like a superhero,” Mickey said.
“Yeah. When I met him, I looked like a starved rat. But he had so much class, so much refinement. One shirt he bought me cost more than the room he rented. But it wasn’t just clothes, food, or a place to stay. He loved me. We were inseparable.”
Strap’s stories made her wish so badly she had gotten to meet him … just once. Maybe he wasn’t the bad man she imagined him to be. Could a bad guy be good?
“You were inseparable … until you weren’t. What happened?”
The light left his eyes, and he looked away. He lifted himself from the chair, suddenly captivated by the dishes in the sink.
Mickey grabbed his wrist and pulled gently.
