Free Death By Degrees by Harrison Drake Page A

his tongue and I was reminded of how much better French sounded from a fluent adult than from one of my kids whose French consisted mostly of colours, numbers and basic conversational elements. I couldn’t really fault them, they were still miles ahead of me.
    “Quentin?” Chen said. “So, since you give us the guns and that, can we call you ‘Q’?”
    Quentin smiled. “You wouldn’t be the first to make that joke, and I believe you will not be the last.”
    Chen had a childish grin on his face.
    There were some things we were never going to outgrow.

    We left headquarters an hour later with plenty of time before we needed to be at the airport. Everything we needed was back at the hotel, but we all felt the scenic route was in order. With the Parc de la T ê te d’Or running behind headquarters and the hotel, it seemed the logical way to go. The park was as beautiful as it had looked from the hotel, and it was much larger than I had expected, what with having its own lake, zoo and velodrome.
    Everyone seemed to be somewhat in awe of the place, so I took the lead. We walked north around the lake then south along the other side, past the velodrome to a restaurant on the water’s edge. The velodrome tempted me as we walked past it. There was one in London, had been for a number of years, that the public could use after a couple of lessons. I had never gotten around to it. There was just something about riding a bicycle around a steeply-banked oval that made me want to try.
    A young man led us through the restaurant to the outdoor patio overlooking the water. The weather was beautiful with hardly any wind to speak of, barely a cloud in the sky and a comfortable temperature. Eating outside in a suit usually wasn’t my idea of a good time, but on a milder day with just a slight breeze I could forget what I had been wearing.
    The four of us sat watching people in paddleboats and rowboats drift along the calm lake while others lounged beneath trees or sat on the shoreline. It felt like I was looking at an old painting, gazing back in time to simpler days. It took me some time, then I remembered the painting: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. Art was not my strong point and the only reason I knew that painting was that I owned it in the form of a three-thousand-piece puzzle. I had wanted a larger puzzle than that, maybe even the thirty-two-thousand-piece monstrosity, but I’d been forced to compromise. Kat was adamant that we didn’t need a puzzle taking up the largest room in our house for what could be months.
    “So, Eddie,” I said, between bites of sandwich. “You said ‘not professionally’ when Cho talked about gun training. Care to elaborate?”
    “My dad is a hunter and a bit of a gun nut. He used to take me out hunting with him quite a bit, and then to the gun range in the off season. Haven’t been out as much lately, too busy with work and, before that, school.”
    “What kind of hunting?”
    “Mostly deer, although we did go bear hunting a couple of times.”
    Kara looked up. “Bear?”
    “Yeah, black bear. Wasn’t really my cup of tea. Don’t know why it seemed so different than deer.”
    “What’s bear taste like?” Chen always had the most interesting questions.
    “That’s part of the problem. The best meat comes from the young bears. They have a different diet, mostly berries instead of fish. It can be a little greasy, but kind of sweet as well. Depends on how you cook it. I could serve you my mom’s bear chili and you’d never know the difference.”
    “So you know how to shoot then?” Eddie nodded. “If the shit hits the fan and it comes down to it, feel free to use my gun,” I said.
    “Be easier if you’d just let me have one.”
    “Yeah, it would be. But you heard the lady.” I couldn’t say I was too thrilled with how much Eddie wanted one, but him wanting a gun was probably no different than Chen calling Quentin ‘Q’.
    “What is…