𝗜𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁 𝗔𝗳𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗿𝘀 | 𝐁𝗼𝐛𝐛𝐲 𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐝𝐲/𝗥𝗙𝗞

XXXVIII: "Mona Lisa"

Maurice Bellamy parks his car slightly crooked, one of the many alcoholic skills he's acquired from the last couple of weeks. He lets go of his grip on the steering wheel and replaces it with a bottle in a brown paper bag. The man drowns his liver in malt liquor — he usually prefers wine, like any Frenchmen, but it's for the special occasion. "What a man you turned out to be, Maurice," he whispers to himself. Calamities brew in the stagnant air, and he is wise to it. With absent equilibrium, everything he's built over his lifetime — his sole bank account, house, car, and family — will be left in ruins, but the man finds the whole thing amusing. Just before Delphine passed, he received a large sum of money from a new investor, in lieu of using his cut on his daughter, he bought stocks from the Bourse, too. Now that he's threatened Jean Tannery, he can kiss them goodbye.

Maurice exits his car with a pink rectangular box in his arm, containing a seventeen-inch composition doll with a downy plush ensemble. He smiles with joy at the thought of Evelyn having something to hold and play with when he and Julia inevitably abandon her to hunt out pennies from anywhere they can find. This is the calm before the storm; the final moment of peace a man can have before he must work twice as hard, and when his child's innocence lost has yet to happen. Opening the door to his august mansion, the man is immediately greeted by two servants who will be let go in a week or so when he decides to move back to the old apartment he resided in before meeting his wife. He savors every little thing his eyes can see; the fresh cut flowers from the garden, the paintings of some kings or queens from different eras, and the gramophone that's playing new Billie Holiday — he savors the things he foresees will no longer be his.

But there is one thing, without a doubt, will forever be his. "Papa, you're home!" Five-year-old Evelyn, standing at forty inches, running in his direction with arms outstretched — the only thing that can bring his wilting flowers back to life. He gets down on one knee and pulls his daughter into a long embrace, the longest he'd ever given anyone. "This is for you," he mutters, handing the box to her. While Evelyn is joyously unboxing her gift, a gracile figure has been watching them from afar — the somber look on her face tells Maurice everything he needs to know. The explanation of what happened at the office is no longer needed; she already knows everything from listening to the graceless words Jean Tannery enunciated over the telephone.

[Cambridge, Mass., 1951]

Maurice Bellamy was not able to fathom his daughter's decision; he had curated a plan inside his mind before driving hours just to see her. That morning, Julia had made him a stack of French toasts, thus he was brimming with confidence — a good breakfast supposedly indicates a good day — assuming Evelyn would forgive and forget the unforgivable and unforgettable things they did; the backstabbing, the killing, and the alcohol. But they ran out of luck — the Gods stayed on the fence that time — because Evelyn knew every trick he was pulling, and she managed to dodge them like speeding bullets. That being so, Maurice couldn't find it in his heart to simply leave and bring back the bad news to his already weeping wife. Thus he drove and drove, and did some more of it until he caved into his old habits.

A young bartender glanced at the heavy door of his bar when an older man entered the premise; his slow walking and wandering eyes made it clear to the worker that he'd have his work cut out for him. "What can I get you?" He asked, eyes fixed on the green-eyed stranger. Maurice Bellamy was busy following a train of thoughts as he remained unresponsive on the wooden bar stool. "Sir?" The bartender asked again, getting impatient as other customers pulled faces. The quiet man fidgeted with some keys inside the pocket of his pants. "Do you know how to make the Boulevardier?" He asked quietly, as though his words weren't meant to be heard. "Boule, what?" The bartender's tone went up a pitch as one of his dark brows sloped.

Maurice sucked air through his gritted teeth and placed a cigarette between them. "Negroni's long-lost autumnal cousin," he remarked in complexity. A bon vivant named Zelda something had introduced the drink to him at a flapper party in Paris many roaring years ago. He knew her husband would never approve of a ménage à trois — not out of loyalty but out of pettiness — thus he stopped pursuing her, it was fairly easy considering she wanted him more than he wanted her. "You know how to make a Negroni, correct?" Maurice snatched a random matchbook on the counter to light his cancer stick. The bartender observed him uneasily but managed to respond with a nod. "Swap gin with bourbon, and you'll have a Boulevardier. Straight up, d'accord?" Maurice pocketed the matchbook as he gestured for the man to get back to work with a curt facial expression.