The Stiff Upper Lip by Peter Israel Page B

a story to make the pain go away, and it does, but then when the story’s over, the pain comes back, so you have to make up another story. Only this time Monsieur le Commissaire Frèrejean was standing by my dresser and the plumber was just coming out of the bathroom, and the pain was back and throbbing, and there was no other story.
    They were in no rush. The plumber put on his suit jacket and they went into the sitting room and waited while somehow or other I got myself into the bathroom. I surveyed the victim rockily. All in all, you could say that Delatour’s muscle had done a pretty professional job. My left eye was mostly closed, and the skin around it had already started to turn blue. Otherwise there wasn’t much visible, and when I pried my lips apart, my teeth were standing in ranks, all present and accounted for. No broken bones either, only forget-me-nots of hurt whenever I breathed or swallowed. I took a hot shower, then a cold one, and did what I could to repair the damage. Then I dressed, slowly, and by the time I got out into the sitting room I was feeling some approximation of human.
    Also hungry-human.
    It was the middle of the afternoon. Mentally I tipped the desk clerk for having held them off that long.
    â€œIs it going to take a while?” I asked them.
    That would depend on me.
    â€œWell, long or short, I’m going to eat something. Do you want anything?”
    They would accept coffee, yes, but nothing else, thank you. I ordered up coffee for three and sandwiches for one, plus various other things that came into my mind while I pictured the sandwiches. But when the waiter brought it all up, about all I could get past my swollen gullet was the Glenfiddich.
    â€œWell,” I asked them, “did you find anything interesting, looking around? Or were you just browsing?”
    â€œWhere is Adlay, Monsieur?” Frèrejean countered blandly. “Where is Valérie Merchadier?”
    Them too. It was getting to be a refrain.
    â€œI take it you’d have found them if they were here.”
    â€œThat’s not what I asked you, Monsieur.”
    â€œI know it’s not what you asked me. I also know you gave me twenty-four hours to produce him. Well? I failed.”
    â€œYou led us a merry chase, Monsieur,” said Frèrejean imperturbably. “Now it’s over. You will please answer my question.”
    â€œI don’t know where they are.”
    â€œYou did yesterday, didn’t you?”
    â€œThat’s right. Until early afternoon.”
    â€œWhere were they?”
    I gave him the Neuilly address. Not that it would do him much good now.
    He jotted it down in a pocket-sized notebook.
    â€œThen what happened?”
    â€œThen I went off to try to prove Hadley hadn’t killed Odessa Grimes. I ran into a little trouble. I’d told them to stay in the apartment. They didn’t. I haven’t seen them since.”
    â€œYou realize, I presume, that at the least you can be charged with obstructing a police investigation?”
    This pissed the hell out of me. There I was staring at them out of one eye, and like it would have been clear to anybody but a blind Mongoloid that I hadn’t been obstructing anything lately except with my face. But they either couldn’t see it or wouldn’t
    â€œGo ahead,” I said. “Charge me.”
    Up to this point Frèrejean had done the talking, but the next question came from the plumber.
    â€œDid you?” he asked.
    â€œDid I what?”
    â€œDid you prove he didn’t kill Odessa Grimes?”
    â€œYes. At least to my own satisfaction.”
    â€œHow?” This from Frèrejean again.
    â€œWhen Grimes was killed, Hadley was otherwise occupied.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œIt means that he was fucking a woman.”
    â€œValérie Merchadier?”
    â€œNo. Her name is Lamentin. She was Grimes’ girl friend, at least some of the time.