Free London Twist: A Delilah Novella by Barry Eisler

recommend something?”
    “Ah, you’re putting me on the spot because I’m French?”
    Fatima laughed. “Do you get that a lot?”
    “Sometimes. But I don’t mind. I love wine.”
    She was thinking about a Beaujolais Cru, but was surprised to see on the menu a 2007 Emilio’s Terrace from Schlein Vineyard in Napa Valley, California. That was a rare find. She ordered them a bottle.
    “Why do you carry a knife?” Fatima asked, when the waitress had departed.
    “I was attacked once, in Paris.”
    “I’m so sorry. Were you… hurt?”
    A politely oblique way of asking and Delilah appreciated it. As usual in such matters, she wasn’t lying. She was simply rearranging the truth.
    “No. I was lucky. But I decided I didn’t want to have to be lucky again. So when I go out, especially at night, I make sure to carry my little friend.”
    “Can I see it?”
    Delilah looked around. A few men were watching them, and Delilah made sure to avoid eye contact, lest someone mistake it as an invitation.
    She eased the Hideaway out and concealed it in her palm. She wasn’t worried that Fatima would notice the unusual material. Composite knives could be had commercially, though not of this quality.
    “Behind the menu,” she said. “Too many of these men are looking at you and I don’t think it’s okay to carry a knife in London.”
    “At me? I think they’re looking at both of us.”
    “Well, that’s probably true.”
    She gripped the blade and extended it grip-side forward to Fatima. “Here, let’s see if it fits. Over your index and middle fingers. Careful, it’s very sharp. Oh yes, I think it fits quite nicely.”
    Fatima made a fist, turned it toward her face, and observed it for a moment. “Wow.”
    “You see? Small, but concealable, accessible, and very hard to take away. Those assholes got lucky tonight, no? That those other two men came to save them.”
    Fatima laughed and gave her back the knife. She extended it edge-first, something someone experienced with blades wouldn’t do.
    The waitress brought the wine. Delilah eschewed her offer to pour. She wanted just a little at first. The rest should have a chance to breathe.
    “Who do you think they were, though?” she asked as she filled each glass with a small measure. “One guy with a knife, one guy with a baton… undercover cops? But then why would they have said, ‘Police no good’?”
    She was deliberately playing it clueless. There was no way those men were cops. A cop might carry a baton, but he wouldn’t attack without warning like that. And she’d yet to see a cop pull a knife and hold it to someone’s throat to gain compliance. Or chase an assailant away after without bothering to arrest him.
    “I don’t know who they were,” Fatima said, picking up her glass. “But I’m glad they showed up.”
    For the second time, Delilah had the sense that Fatima was being untruthful about those men. She needed to think more, to process things. But that would have to wait.
    They touched glasses and drank. “Wow,” Fatima said. “You’ve upheld your national honor. Even if you didn’t order something French.”
    Delilah laughed. “You like it?”
    “It’s delicious.”
    “Yes, the 2007 harvest was a winemaker’s dream. A warm, dry spring; no heat waves during the summer months; the fruit maturing slowly and evenly. Any honest French vintner must salute this wine.”
    Fatima, still obviously giddy from the aftermath of danger, finished her glass quickly. Delilah followed suit, then poured them each another. The wine was wonderfully warm in her belly, and she felt a slight, welcome fuzziness at the edges of her perception.
    They settled back into the couch side by side. The sounds of laughter and conversation around them were comforting and convivial, a cocoon of warm sound that made their end of the couch feel personal, private, a refuge from the world.
    “May I ask a question?” Delilah said as they sipped the wine. “Not for the interview.