Page 81 of The Fourth Option
With Paladin curled at her feet, Belle sipped the whiskey and stared through the leaves at the ink-black water.
“I’ve lived my whole life in this city,” she said, her voice low over the crickets. “I’ve heard stories about when it was grand. You can still see it; the bones of something beautiful. People used to take pride in what they built. Now?” She shook her head. “Now it’s partiers on Bourbon Street looking for their next high. Addicts in the streets. We call them homeless, but most of them are just lost in a fog. The city’s rotting from the inside out. And the people in charge? They’re selling it off piece by piece. That’s the bullshit Connor was trying to expose,” she added. “The rot.”
She glanced at him over the rim of her cup, one leg bouncing on her knee. “You’re into philosophy, right? I mean that’s what the rolling library is about, isn’t it?”
“I studied it for a while.”
“Where?”
“NYU.”
“You know,” she continued softly, “people love to get philosophyquotes inked on their skin. I did a bad hand of cards across a guy’s back once.”
“What does that have to do with philosophy?”
“I asked him the same question. He said it was from Voltaire. ‘Each player must accept the cards life deals him. But once they are in hand, he alone must decide how to play them.’?”
“It’s not really Voltaire,” Walker said.
“I looked it up. Google says it’s Voltaire.”
“Google’s wrong. It’s from a book about Voltaire.”
“Oh well, somebody has a 7-2 off-suit tattooed on their back for life and is telling people it’s because of an eighteenth-century philosopher.”
They both laughed.
“You’re not cursed, Chris,” she said. “You’re just someone who’s been dealt a brutal hand. But you’re still here. Still choosing. That means something.”
He looked away, but her words lingered. Voltaire’s words. Not guilt. Not fate. Choice.
“Philosophy is about how we, well, human nature, doesn’t change. Isn’t that the gist of it?” Belle asked.
“Some people think so.”
“What you are is what you were when,” she said.
“Massey. Impressive,” he said.
“What is?”
“That you know Massey.”
“I went to college.”
“Though he’s a sociologist not a philosopher, but yeah, I’d say that’s it.”
“So, what were you doing ‘when’?”
“Is this where we get to know each other?”
“This is what normal people do, Chris.”
“Okay. My ‘when’ stage. I was with my mom in the van behind you. She wanted me to see the country.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, there’s more.”
