The war was over nearly two years, the Nazi occupation history. Postwar
Paris in the spring was a much nicer place than a military surplus
store in any season.
Henri, the waiter, approached. He had in his hand a small paper
tablet. He gave Jay a nod that was both servile and arrogant and
offered him the tablet. '
'Ere iz ze list you wanted. Monsieur Greedlee.'
'Merci.' Jay took the tablet and waved Henri away. He looked at the
list, scanned down the row of names-no ... no ... no ... wait!
Jay sat upright, bumped the table, and sloshed espresso from the cup.
Yes! There it was!
He snapped his fingers loudly, caught Henri's attention.
'Garcon! Voulez-vous bien m'indiquer ou se trou ve Ie telephone? Je
desire appelez faire!'
Henri rewarded Jay with a sneer.
'Bettair you should work on ze pronunciation and ze grammar first,
monsieur!'
The arrogant prick knew he wanted to make a call, but he had to correct
his French first.
'Montrez du doigt, asshole!'
Henri shrugged off the insult and did as Jay requested-he pointed
toward the cafe.
Jay stood and hurried to find the phone.
Wednesday, June 15th Woodland Hills, California
Michaels had supper at the hotel, and when room service brought him the
chicken sandwich, it had bean sprouts on it. Well, of course. This
was L.A.
He ate the sandwich mechanically, not really tasting it.
He was screwed, there was nowhere to go from here. Toni had been
right, he wasn't a field agent. He couldn't just -hop on a plane, fly
to a crime scene, and expect to spot some crucial clue that the local
police and FBI forensics team had somehow missed. He knew better. But
he had needed to see the place for himself, hoping it would somehow jog
something in him.
Well, it hadn't. And here he was in a hotel in La-La Land, eating a
chicken sandwich with bean sprouts, without a clue as to what he should
do next.
On the bedside table, his virgil lit, telling him it was bad to the
bone. That was probably Toni, calling to tell him what an idiot he
was. At the moment, he was inclined to agree with her.
The tiny screen on the multipurpose toy didn't show Toni's face,
however. It was Jay Gridley.
'What's up. Jay?'
'I think I got him. Boss.'
Michaels stared at the virgil.
'What? How? Where?'
'I crunched all the commercial airline flights leaving SoCal in the
last twelve hours. Burbank, LAX, John Wayne, in Orange County.'
'And you found Ventura?'
'No. But I did find a Mr. B. W. Corona.'
