"Joseph never drank, not at all, and he obviously never used drugs of any kind."
"The police suggest he'd been at a party."
"That's merely a supposition. There were, admittedly, several Xmas gatherings that evening that he might have gone to. Parties given by colleagues and friends. There's no evidence, however, that my husband attended a single one."
Gomez, after sipping his ale, inquired, "Where were you that night?"
"Home, here on the boat. As I already told your agency chief."
"You did, A "
Jake asked, "You think that witness is lying?"
"Perhaps. I think it more likely that Joseph was staggering, but that he'd been drugged somehow."
Gomez said, "You also told Bascom you thought your husband was going to be visiting a colleague that night."
"Joseph had been paying several visits over the past two or three weeks to a man who worked with him at the International Drug Control Agency office here in Paris," she said. "His name's Zack Rolfe."
Nodding, Jake said, "But Rolfe, from what we've been able to find out, says your husband didn't visit him that night. Or any of the other nights."
"Yes, I'm aware.of that. Zack now claims that my husband has been having an affair with a young woman in the agency."
"Yeah, but Rolfe doesn't know who she is."
"Yes, exactly. Zack's story is that he was only doing my husband a favor by letting him pretend he was with him on all those nights. And obviously everyone seems to believe Zack."
"Did you ever try to phone your husband at Rolfe's?" asked Jake.
"No, because I never had any reason to. And Joseph didn't especially like to be interrupted during a business meeting, not unless it was a very serious emergency."
Jake said, "Rolfe's lying?"
"Obviously, yes."
.'Why?"
38
T e k L a b
"I don't know."
"How did you feel about Rolfe before this?"
"Joseph seemed to like him, and trust him." She shrugged gracefully. "To me Zack isn't the sort of man who causes strong feelings either for or against him."
"Perfect agency type," commented Gomez.
"My husband had been worried about something," said the widow. "For about the same length of time, I believe, that he'd been calling on Zack evenings. But, since Joseph had a strict rule never to discuss IDCA business with me, I have no notion what it was that was upsetting him so."
"And he didn't mention being worried about anything outside the agency?" Gomez finished his ale and set the glass on the floor.
"No," she replied, shaking her head. "He didn't tell me, if that's what you have in mind, that he was fearful the sins he'd committed during the Brazil Wars were about to catch up with him. "
"Were there sins, ma'am?"
"No, there weren't," Madeleine replied. "At least I don't believe so. Joseph never discussed his days as ambassador to Brazil with me. All of that took place before we were married, you understand.
"
"If your husband had been seeing a woman," asked Jake, .,would you have known?"
"Joseph wasn't interested in affairs of that sort, Mr. Cardigan,"
she assured him, smiling. "The work he was doing at the agency was what excited him."
"And, recently anyway, that was also what worried him."
"Yes. Whatever it was, it somehow ties in with the real reason why Joseph was killed."
"The police and his fellow IDCA agents don't agree," Gomez reminded her.
"And that," said the widow quietly, "may be another part of the puzzle."
39
Gomez, after he and Jake had separated to pursue different sources of information, strolled for a while along the brightly lit boulevards of nighttime Paris. He walked by a dozen or more sidewalk caf&s, most of them operated by the Dutch conglom Bistros, Inc., and through three small hologram parks. When twenty minutes or so had passed and the curly-haired detective was completely certain that no one was tailing him, he made his way to the Boulevard Voltaire.
He paused beside a sidewalk stand where a chunky woman in her fifties was peddling plazflowers. Sniffing at a bunch of simulated yellow roses, Gomez studied the story-high illuminated archway across the street.
"You planning to buy those goddamn blooms, monsieur? Or are you just going to snuff all the smell out of them?"
"Ali, Marie, and here I thought you'd never forget me."
40
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"Mon dieu! Gomez." Chuckling deeply, the heavyset vendor bestowed an enthusiastic hug on him. "You're in Paris."
"So I've been led to believe. How are you faring?"
"Better than you, judging from your appearance." Marie shook her head sadly as she scrutinized him. "Since I saw you two years ago, you've gotten paler and thinner. And you reek of cheap booze."
"I'm trim actually. And that's expensive ale, consumed purely and strictly in the line of business."
"You still a dick?" She tipped her head and smiled at him.
"I am, private now." He nodded at the arch across the way, which had the words METRO ESTATES written large on it in oldfashioned neon tubing. "Fact is, I'm planning on dropping in on our mutual chum, Limehouse."
Marie grunted. "That halfwit."
"Well-informed halfwit. He still living down in the estates?"
"Oui, he's down there, moldering away."
Gomez patted Marie on her broad back. "It's truly warmed my heart, chiquita, especially at this sentimental time of year, to encounter you once again." After slipping her a $10 Banx note, he went trotting across the street.
The arch rose up over a large hole in the sidewalk. Two flashing arrows pointed at the broad stairway leading below.
Gomez paused to take a slow, careful look around, then headed underground.