Chief Plackett sighed. He glanced toward his office window, as if hoping he might escape out it. Or toss me through it into the Mondaymorning traffic.
“You want to go to France, Ryder? Is that what I’m getting? Because of a homicidal artist who died thirty-odd years ago?”
“There are contacts Hexcamp may have made in France. Or murders committed there. We opened doors, but can’t step through them from here. Add to that -”
“I know. I saw the picture,” Plackett said. “I stopped by Forensics an hour ago. Freakish stuff.”
He looked at me as if I was supposed to explain it. I shrugged. “It’s a total enigma. There’s no way it could be me, not if it was created years ago. The face is mine today, or at least recently.”
“It sure looked like you. Even as simple as it was.”
The drawing was simple, but so skillfully executed that the economy of line added to the resemblance, my face and stance reduced to an essence, every line mine alone. Plackett walked to his window, hands clasped behind his back. The sky was darkening, thunder tumbling nearer. It was getting ready to rain on my parade.
“We’re operating on bare bones now,” the chief said, his pat speech whenever a department tried for a few extra bucks. “Cutbacks in equipment, community programs, vehicle maintenance. There’s absolutely no way I can send you gallivanting off to Paris when I can’t even -”
“Us to Paris,” I said. “Harry and me.”
“We can’t possibly find the funds necessary to -”
“Excuse me, Chief,” Gloria Besherle, the chief’s administrative assistant, said from outside the door. “I couldn’t help hearing. May I come in?”
Plackett nodded. Gloria was a large woman and seemed to be wearing a tent decorated by Jackson Pollock. She winked as she brushed by me, pulled a spiral-bound folder from the shelf beside Plackett’s desk, and flipped through it. “This trip you’re considering, Carson. Will you talk to any French law-enforcement types while you’re there?”
“Why’s that, Gloria?” the chief asked.
She tapped a page with a two-inch red fingernail. “There’s a special grant, Federal monies earmarked for continuing international education in law-enforcement. Mobile’s a world port, and the grant supposes we might need continuing education on international legal issues with shipping and smuggling and whatnot, such as extra-departmental interfacing with Interpol.”
“Interpol?” I said. Our usual extra-departmental interface was with the county mounties.
Gloria looked up. “It’s worded vaguely enough that contact with French law-enforcement administration would just about satisfy the grant requirements.”
“We could stop by a cop house over there,” I said. “Ask what wine goes best with handcuffs.”
Plackett took the book from Gloria, moved his finger across the passages in time with his lips. “It’s not much of a grant, under three grand. I guess I could squeak Ryder or Nautilus into Paris for a couple days, but one’s the limit. Detective Nautilus, you’re the senior man. The trip is yours to refuse.”
Harry wanted to take a two-day tour of France as much as I wanted to fly-fish the Gobi Desert.
“Much as I’d love the opportunity to interface with our French counterparts, it’s not my face on the art. I think Detective Ryder is the right choice, Chief.” Harry looked at me and winked. “Bon voyage, Carson.”
“If you’re going, Ryder, I’m going,” Danbury said. “It’s part of the story and part of the deal.”
I paced her porch. Thunder rumbled in the distance, purple clouds skirting the western skyline. “You’ve got to watch Hutchins. You volunteered, she’s yours.”
“I told you, my house is like Fort Knox. I sneeze too loud and cops come.” She tried the bright-smile gambit. “Harry’ll keep an eye on Hutchins, won’t you, Harry? Maybe fill my birdfeeders so Carla stays inside? I’ll leave instructions.”
“Harry can’t do that,” I announced. “He’s putting the full-court press to finding Coyle, right, bro?”
Harry leaned against a porch column with his arms crossed. He looked dispassionately at me, then at Danbury. It was an unsettling look; he appeared to be measuring something, like a carny trying to guess a person’s weight.
“I guess pouring some seeds down a tube ain’t too difficult. How many these feeders you got, Danbury?”
Danbury clapped her hands. “Atta boy, Nautilus.”
I gawked at Harry. What the hell was he doing?
“You can’t go,” I repeated to Danbury. “One person moves faster than two.”
She jammed her hands against her hips. “Answer me three questions, pogobo. One: Who made the contacts? Two: Who already has a working relationship with Madame la sister? And three: What will you say if someone asks you the meaning of life?”
I shook my head; talking to Danbury was like talking in a blender. “I don’t expect I’ll be asked -”
“Je ne comprends pas le sens actuel de la vie,” she said, “mais asseyez-vous et servez-vous du fromage et du vin et nous nous en disputerons pendant six heures.”
I stared at her. I think my mouth was open.
She winked, gave me a gotcha grin. “Translation: ‘I don’t know the current meaning of life, but sit and have some cheese and wine and we’ll argue about it for six hours.’ It’s a Frenchie-type answer.”
I continued to stare.
“I grew up speaking Français with my maternal grandmother; it’s all she spoke. I ever tell you what DeeDee stands for? Danielle Desiree.” She put her chin on her uplifted index finger, batted her eyelids. “You like zee pretty name, no?”
“I ‘spect that clinches things,” Harry said, not hiding the smile at all.