The Grave Gourmet Read Online Free PDF Page B

You think we pay you to stand around on street corners chatting with your buddies without giving a good goddamn about the buildings you’re supposed to be guarding. Is that it?”
    â€œSir, please, I only had two or three cigarettes that night.”
    â€œDurand, you’re truly pathetic. Two or three, my ass. Did anything unusual happen? Your only hope is to tell me something I might want to know, otherwise I’m going to pull you off duty and put you on write-up right now. Better make it good.”
    â€œSir, please, I didn’t really see anything. Nothing. Just this one delivery being made.”
    â€œOut with it, Durand.”
    â€œI was having a smoke on the corner and having a natter with Vigie Clement, who was guarding the Austrian Embassy just across the street.”
    â€œYou mean the Austrian embassy that’s two hundred yards down the street.”
    â€œThat’s the place. So Clement says to me, ‘Check this out. Here are a couple of guys actually making a delivery to that fancy restaurant at 2:30 in the morning. These rich dudes don’t know the difference between night and day.’ He said two guys were carrying a big bag into the restaurant. That’s all, sir. Then I went back to my post. But I didn’t see it. Clement did.”
    â€œAnd why didn’t you report it when the bulletin went out?”
    â€œWell, it didn’t seem all that important, it was just a routine delivery, right, and I couldn’t very well have said I was off station, now could I have, sir?”
    Back in the car Rivière breathed hard through his nose like a bull in an arena, in the grip of his endorphin rush. Capucine felt she should be humiliated at participating in the shameful bullying of a pitiful human being worthy of her every compassion. But she was almost as exhilarated as Rivière. It was like being on a roller coaster. She wanted to shoot her arms up in the air to intensify her giddiness.
    Vigie Clement turned out to be considerably lighter than his colleague and was easily lifted off the pavement. He delivered the entirety of his brief testimony with his heels a good two inches clear of the street. He had walked down from his station to the corner opposite Durand’s post. From that vantage point he had had a full view of the side entrance to Diapason. At around 2:30 he had seen two men drive up in a car—manufacturer not noted, much less license plate number—and remove a six-foot-long duffel bag from the trunk. With a man holding each end of the bag they carried it into the restaurant straining under the weight. He had not seen them get back into the car since he had had to return to his post quickly. He was keenly sensitive to the responsibility of his duties and couldn’t in all conscience stay away from his post for too long no matter how interesting things were. He was sure the lieutenant would be sympathetic to that.
    As he got back into the car Rivière put his hand on Capucine’s thigh. “Voilà, little sister. That’s how it’s done. Now we know how the body got back into the restaurant. I did the hard part. All you have to do is find those two guys. Think you can handle that?”

Chapter 6
    T he next night again proved sleepless for Capucine. At first light a clamor in the kitchen woke her from a fitful half sleep. She found Alexandre at his massive stove resolutely making omelets, his brow crinkled in concentration. The aroma of cèpes richly colored the kitchen. Alexandre never looked this determined so early in the morning.
    â€œPoor bébé , Alexandre said, bleary-eyed, “you spent most of the night tossing and turning. And when you did get to sleep you kept mumbling about an astrolabe and a missing chart.”
    â€œI remember that. I was dreaming that I was on Columbus’s ship and we had no charts and were sailing around in circles.”
    â€œTsk, tsk,” Alexandre tsked, gently nudging