Free Corsican Death by Marc Olden

gynecologist, and what’s more, he never spoke about his love life to anybody. Bolt had never heard him say more than a sentence or two about a woman, and even when that had happened, Jean-Paul had suddenly stopped talking about her and switched to something else.
    There was a sadness in the huge cop, something that he kept buried deep inside, perhaps sharing only with his dogs. His cooking was considered good enough for him to be offered a chef’s job in a top Paris restaurant, which Bolt had learned was like playing quarterback on a superbowl football team. Cooking in France wasn’t an afterthought.
    It was a skill, like brain surgery, portrait painting, good novel writing. You didn’t laugh about it, and you especially didn’t laugh about it in front of Jean-Paul Lamazère, who had a reputation for using his big feet to break the bones of people he didn’t like. Bolt, who had met him four years ago on a European assignment, liked him a lot.
    They were both loners, tough and submerged in their work, crowding out anything else. For Jean-Paul Lamazère to get up this early in the morning and come out to the airport to meet Bolt was an act of great affection. To help the federal narcotics agent, on his own time and at a great deal of risk, said even more.
    “Ask me questions,” said Jean-Paul. It was good to see Bolt, but he wished Bolt would let him drive faster. He knew he was a good driver.
    Fumbling through papers on the back seat, Bolt picked up a small black-and-white photograph of a bearded white man not over thirty. “White man with a beard, thirty, maybe less. Long hair, shoulder-length, moustache, beard, and eyes that belong on a dead rat.”
    Jean-Paul nodded in recognition. “One of yours. American. Jesse Staggers, age twenty-nine, height six feet one inch, weight a hundred and eighty pounds. Dishonorable discharge from your army in Germany three years ago. Caught dealing drugs to American troops. Also accused of killing an American GI who would not pay him for some dope he sold him. No stockade time, however. A bad man.”
    “What’s he doing in my life?” Bolt rolled up a car window. Cold as hell in France in the morning, no matter what time of year. A cow mooed at him, then disappeared as the car sped down the empty highway.
    “Monsieur Staggers is a driver for some of our Corsican friends. When the opium leaves Turkey, it is stored in Germany, usually Munich. You know all of that, but I’m telling you again so you know what Monsieur Staggers does. In Munich, the black opium gum is changed into morphine base, a crude powder. Now enter Monsieur Staggers. He drives the morphine base from Germany down to France, where the Corsicans have their scientists change it into heroin.”
    “Courier and driver.”
    “Oui. Sometimes they pay him off in money—dollars, Swiss or French francs, German Marcs, whatever he wants. Sometimes they pay him off in heroin, part of a kilo. Monsieur Staggers cuts the heroin several times and resells it to your American soldiers in Germany or France for a nice profit.”
    “A sweetheart.”
    “Not really.” Jean-Paul swung around a car in front of him, passing it quickly. “He thinks he’s a tough guy, likes to talk big, brag, boast, and sometimes he, as you say, does a rip-off. Is that how you pronounce it?”
    Bolt smiled. Jean-Paul had said “reep-oof” but it was close enough. “Yeah, that’s how you say it. He’s the one I’m meeting?”
    “ Oui. Go to Ansel’s. It’s a cheap nightclub with watered drinks, and champagne made from ginger ale by a bartender who I think pisses in it to make sure it has bubbles. Don’t laugh, it might be true. Corsicans hang out there, so does Monsieur Staggers. He’s driven for Alain, who does a lot of the hiring for the Count. The Corsicans don t keep drivers on the payroll, they hire them as they need them. Tell Staggers you want to buy and show him money. But be careful. He has killed. We cannot prove it, but we hear