Free Bones of Paris (9780345531773) by Laurie R. King Page B

Stuyvesant
in close quarters.
    And why bother to change, anyway? If tonight was anything like last night, the damn bars would all be empty.
    But sitting on the bed with two-day-old sheets, smelling his own body, the thought of facing the world in this state was suddenly revolting.
    He kicked off his shoes, emptied his pockets onto the table, and caught up his soap and towel, walking down the hall to the cold shower. His current employer would have paid for a proper hotel—expenses reimbursed, after all—but he couldn’t count on a loose floorboard and convenient rooftop in the Ritz.
    Of course, there was nothing to keep him from billing Crosby for the Ritz and pocketing the difference.
    This time of day, the tiles were still clean and the tepid water pleasant against his skin. He rubbed himself head to toe with the bar of soap, then propped his arms against the wall and just stood, letting the sputtering stream run over his hair, letting his mind drift over the day. Sylvia’s quizzical face, Nancy Berger’s flexible mouth. The dragon, Mme. Hachette: looked like a hatchet, too. Doucet the cop: interesting guy. He was looking forward to seeing more of him. A cop with tired eyes that didn’t seem to look at the world with complete disgust. Blue eyes, they’d been. Unusual in France. Maybe not as unusual as green—
    He jerked upright so abruptly his skull knocked the shower-head sideways, shooting water over the pile of clothing. He slapped off the flow with a curse. The towel was drenched, but he found a dryish corner, then pulled on his slightly damp shorts and undershirt. He peered at his chin in the speckled mirror. Any point in shaving? Not really.
    Like he’d said, he would probably be in bed by nine, anyway. With or without Lulu.
    Back across the Luxembourg gardens, he crossed boulevard Saint-Michel without being knotted into a tangle of bicycles, then set off across the heart of the Latin Quarter in the direction of the Arènes de Lutèce.
Lutetia
was Rome’s name for the city, and the one-time arena was a restful spot in the Quarter—if one ignored the ghostly sounds of lions and dying gladiators.
    He spotted the pink geraniums on the rue Monge. Inside the brasserie mingled the clean smells of Pernod, shellfish, and garlic.
    No Doucet.
    Stuyvesant ordered a beer and stretched out his legs, listening to the conversations around him. A trio of Italians were debating fiercely, hands waving; a young couple sipped wine and flirted with glances and gestures, and occasionally with a caress of shoe-leather amongst the sawdust from the escargot baskets. Two Americans droned on and on about the stock market: how much they’d made, how high it might go.
    Jesus, he thought. Would it be entirely a bad thing for the market to drop a little, if it meant that places like this could be returned to the inhabitants of Paris?
    “Comment ça va, monsieur?” a voice said at his shoulder.
    Stuyvesant rose to shake Doucet’s hand.
Sure is tall for a Frenchman
, he thought.
Wonder where he buys his suits?
“Not too bad. Feels like it’s going to cool a little. What’ll you have?”
    The cop was known here, the waiter standing in attendance before Doucet had settled his stiff leg under the table. “Bring me one of those.” He gestured at Stuyvesant’s half-empty lager.
    “How would you feel about an oyster or ten to go with it?”
    Doucet’s eyes lit up, and he put his head together with the waiter over the types available, now that September was here. Personally, Stuyvesant would just as soon slurp cold mud, but he’d never met a French cop who didn’t go all soft at a platter of salty-glop-on-a-shell.
    “Thank you for meeting me outside of the office, Monsieur. It is true that I had a meeting, but my sergeant is also somewhat, how do you say, ‘by the book.’ He disapproves if he thinks I am about to share information with those outside the department.”
    A share of information had a promising ring to it, but