SHOWERED AND CHANGED, JAKE stepped back into the living room of his hotel suite.
There was a lean, pale man sitting relaxedly up on his bed, smoking a potcig and casually rummaging through the contents of his suitcase. “These aren’t from the best shops, old man,” he observed, tossing two of Jake’s tunics back into the case. “But then, one supposes, even the best shops in Greater Los Angeles aren’t exactly what one would dub haute mode.”
“Lucky for you my stungun is sitting way over there on that table. Who are you?”
“It’s a wonder, you know, that you can still even fit yourself into some of these togs,” continued the lean, pale man. “You’re getting a trifle thick in the middle. I can’t, for the life of me, understand how Beth could describe you as—”
“Are you, possibly, Denis Gilford?”
“Certainly.” Gilford took a long, relaxed drag of his potcig. “One assumed you’d recognize one. My portrait, after all, does appear daily over my highly respected column in the FaxTimes.”
“Who let you in here?”
“Ah, I happen to be something of an amateur cracksman.” Flipping Jake’s suitcase shut, the reporter shoved it farther across the bed. “Having a gift for breaking and entering can aid one in one’s journalistic career.”
“Tell you what,” said Jake. “This meeting got going a little too informally for me. Suppose you get out of here now. If I decide I need your help, I’ll contact you.”
“I know that you spun Beth a yarn about coming to London solely to seek your wayward offspring.” Gilford swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “It’s my feeling, and one that old Becky of Scotland Yard apparently shares, that you’re really in Blighty to track down the Unknown Soldier.”
Crossing to the table, Jake picked up his stungun and shoulder holster and strapped it on. “Nice to have met you.”
“Allow one to give you a bit of advice, old man. It would be much safer were you to allow old U.S. to go about his slaughtering.”
“Oh, so?”
“Besides which, most of the rascals he’s rid the world of so far richly deserved being chopped up.”
“You serve in either of the Brazil Wars?”
“One was a dashing frontline correspondent in the final go-round,” answered Gilford, standing up and stretching. “I ran into a great many oafs back then who were ripe for quartering. One sometimes wonders why our Unknown Soldier has waited so long to pay them off.”
Jake opened the door. “Goodbye now.”
“I did inform Beth, when the dear girl buzzed me earlier, that I strongly doubted that you were the sort of fellow I’d hit it off with.”
“There’s another example of your astuteness, Gilford.”
“However, Cardigan, old man, if you actually are seeking a lost child and need any information, do get in touch.” Smiling lazily, he strolled past Jake and into the corridor.
As they drove along the Champs-Élysées, which was part real and part simulation, Gomez asked Madeleine more about the young man they were en route to visit.
She said, “I don’t know Michel Chasseriau at all well. Even though he was associated with my husband at the International Drug Control Agency, I was quite surprised when he phoned me this morning.”
“You’ve met the lad before?”
“Yes, once or twice.”
“So you’re not exactly an expert on his character? He could be conning you, maybe even setting you up for another encounter with goons.”
“That’s possible, yes, which is why I want you along,” she answered. “You’ll want to turn right up ahead, Mr. Gomez, and get onto the Avenue de Friedland.”
“Let’s go over again what he told you over the phone.” Gomez made the indicated turn.
“Chasseriau seemed sincere—sincere and extremely nervous. He’s young, not more than twenty-five, and he strikes me as rather a timid person,” said the widow. “He’s been away from the office since Joseph’s death, with the excuse that he was ill. He told me, however, that he’d been staying home so that he could do a great deal of soul-searching.”
“Sí. I used to do a lot of that when I was in my twenties.”
“He claims to know something important about my husband’s death. He’s made up his mind he must tell me.”
“But he didn’t supply any details over the phone?”
“He was vague. He insisted he wanted to tell me in person.”
“He must’ve sounded convincing.”
“He did,” she said. “You want to turn onto this side street ahead, then park.”
Gomez did that.
The young IDCA agent had a flat on the third floor of a narrow brix building.
“What sort of music would you like to hear, madame and monsieur?” inquired the elevator.
“Let’s try silence, por favor.”
“As you wish,” said the voxbox in the dark neowood ceiling of the rising cage.
When Gomez saw that the door of Chasseriau’s flat was a few inches ajar, he caught Madeleine’s arm. “Wait here,” he cautioned.
He pressed himself to the plaswall next to the opening, listening as he slipped his stungun out. Nothing but the routine hums and murmurs of the flat reached his ears.
Nodding once, he reached out and shoved the door open wide.
Nothing happened.
After counting to thirty, in Spanish, he risked a look inside the quiet flat.
There was no one in the small living room. On a plastiglass bench sat an open suitcase with some clothes wadded into it.
Gomez let out his breath, went walking in. The flat consisted of the small living room, a small bedroom, a small bathroom, and a tiny servokitchen. There was no sign of the young IDCA agent in any of them, but it looked to the detective as though Chasseriau had done some hasty packing and departed. Left in such haste that he’d neglected to take along the suitcase that was still sitting in the living room.
Gomez went over toward the door of the flat to communicate his findings to Madeleine. As he neared the open doorway, he heard voices in conversation.
Stungun ready, he dived into the hall.
“I was just explaining to Mrs. Bouchon, Gomez, that even though you’ve broken yet another vow and continue to ditch me, which is something I’d really take to heart were it not for the fact that I have a very positive image of myself, I’m still willing to play ball with you,” said Natalie Dent, eyeing him in a not completely cordial manner. “By the way, the fact that I’m here should indicate, even to someone as peabrained as you sometimes appear to be, that my sources are as good as yours. If not actually better.”
Madeleine asked him, “You do know this young lady?”
“We’re longtime pals.” Gomez put his stungun away inside his coat.
Natalie said, “I take it Chasseriau isn’t at home.”
“Nope,” said Gomez. “The evidence indicates that he has flown in some haste. I don’t think he was snatched.”
Natalie poked her pretty chin with her forefinger. “I’m wondering.”
“About what, Nat?”
“Whether or not,” she said, “I should tell you what it is that’s been bothering poor Mr. Chasseriau.”