The Paris Directive Read Online Free PDF Page A

bullet holes—an entry wound near the front of his left shoulder and a somewhat larger exit wound higher up on his back that she thought resembled ugly knots in the bark of a tree—they were the real thing.
    The sun felt great on his body, soothed his mind. And with any luck, maybe the first tan of the season. He stuck his hand into the water and his fingers went numb. No wonder no one was swimming. Actually there was someone—a woman he hadn’t noticed glidingsmoothly through the water like a crocodile with only the top of her head sticking out. Removing a shoelace, Mazarelle tied one end of his lace around the oarlock, the other around the neck of his beer bottle and dropped it into the river. The bread, cheese, and olives were delicious, and when he pulled up his Stella Artois it was refreshingly chilled. A perfect picnic.
    Stretching out, he closed his eyes and felt himself drift away. Thinking of Émile Fouché stuck in the can for the next few years and feeling sorry for the poor chump. A victim of globalization and the celebrated Inspector Mazarelle.
    It’s only when I’m having a good day in the flics that I’m feeling okay, not bad, thought Mazarelle. Maybe I did someone some good in this life. Makes me feel I paid my dues. If it’s a mediocre day, I’m no great Mazarelle fan. And if it’s a black day like today—the kind where you wake up in a half daze and your life in the flics marches past you like a circus freak show and you say, “My god, is that what I’ve done with my life? You mean it was all shit?” I’ve been a policeman now for two decades and more and that’s a long time. How much crap can I take? I should have left for Paris by now.
    Mazarelle opened one eye to see what all the noise was about. Some guy jumping up and down on the shore, frantically waving his arms and pointing at the river, crying for help at the top of his lungs. Mazarelle scanned the surface of the water. A city block away, he spotted the swimmer’s head thrashing about. In trouble. Grabbing his oars, he rowed swiftly toward her, so fast his oars in their rusty locks screamed in agony as the boat knifed through the river. For a good swimmer like that it had to be a cramp, and as he raced up to her he could see that it was. No reason to dive into the frigid water. He didn’t need to be a hero and freeze his balls off. All he had to do was get her out alive. Mazarelle extended the blade of his oar to the thrashing swimmer and she lunged for it. He grabbed her hands—two ice cubes—and in one powerful move yanked her into the boat. A nice-looking young woman, with a raspberry face. He wrapped his shirt around her shaking shoulders.
    “You okay?”
    She nodded her head, trying to catch her breath, and he rowed quickly toward shore. It was then Mazarelle heard the commotionbehind him and turned to see what was going on. The guy who’d been yelling, “My wife! My wife!” had leaped into the water and sunk like a stone. Two of the teenies jumped in to rescue him.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “Your husband. He was trying to save you.”
    “But he doesn’t know how to swim.”
    By the time Mazarelle had arrived on shore with the woman, the boys had fished out her husband and were standing around the motionless blue-lipped body as if he were already dead. His wife rushed to him but collapsed at his side, exhausted. Mazarelle, fortunately, was trained for emergencies. Once in Paris on the Métro he’d even helped a pregnant woman deliver her baby. Libération, reporting the story, called him the “Swiss Army knife of detectives.”
    Coolly the inspector ticked off what had to be done. First, he ran to his car and put in a call to the local hospital for an ambulance. Then, returning to the sobbing woman’s husband, he tilted his head back. Good, he was still breathing. Mazarelle dropped to his knees for CPR and began to pump him out, the river gushing from the man’s mouth, his nose. The miserable sinker coughed,