“I prefer ‘investigating,’” said Crooks. “I spent thirty years trying to discover what the enemy didn’t want me to. Not something you can just turn off. The desire to know.”
Mac wasn’t sure he had an answer. He’d spent the last chunk of his life trying to do the opposite. Not to snoop, not to listen in. It would have been too much otherwise.
“I won’t ask how you found me,” said Crooks.
“Christmas card,” said Mac. “I remembered the address. Rue St.-Niklaus. I thought it was a funny name. It stuck with me.”
“Bullshit.”
“I looked you up,” said Mac. “You’re in the phone book.”
Crooks pulled off his glasses and cleaned them on his sweater. “So, then, you going to tell me? Car bomb, taxi bomb ... no bomb at all?”
“Long story,” said Mac.
“I’m retired,” said Crooks. “Take your time.”
“After,” said Mac gravely. It was not a subject he felt like going into. “If that’s all right.”
“It’s like that, then,” said Crooks, with sympathy. A man who knew pain and recognized it in others.
“And your wife?” asked Mac. “Still hitched?”
“Five years gone. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
They shared a moment of silence. Time marched on. They were still alive when others weren’t. Maybe when they had no right to be.
“How do you like your tea?” asked Crooks.
“Milk. Two sugars.”
“Coming right up,” said Crooks. “Make yourself at home.”
He returned a few minutes later, a tray on his lap. He set the cups and kettle on a worn maple table.
“So it’s you?” he asked, pouring the tea.
“Pardon?”
“Steinhardt ... wanted for murder. Hotel Bristol. The two Saudis. That what this is about? Don’t look surprised. You’re burning up the wires. What do you think I do to keep busy? Picked it up yesterday evening on the police band. Caucasian male, six feet tall, dark hair, senior citizen, armed and dangerous.”
“Senior citizen?” said Mac. “They really said that?”
“Well? Aren’t you?” said Crooks.
“Almost,” said Mac. “I guess.”
“One of the policemen said the suspect escaped by climbing out of the window. Reminded me of someone I knew way back when.”
“Was that here?” asked Mac, trying to recollect.
“Louveciennes,” said Crooks.
Louveciennes was a commune on the western outskirts of the city, home to the Château Louis XIV. It wasn’t a real château, at least not in the historic sense. It was a re-creation of a château that might have belonged to King Louis XIV, the Sun King, but built by the king of Saudi Arabia. At some point duringSkylarkMac had climbed out of one of the château’s windows.
“Forgot about that.”
