Soma Blues Read Online Free Page A

are conducted over a glass of wine.
    “Now,” Fauchon said, “about this fellow Stanley Bower.”
    “Who?” asked Hob.
    “The person you identified.”
    “Did I? You know, Emile, I just might have made all that up. In order to get to the Lipp, you know.”
    “Hob, that is not funny.”
    “I thought you wanted me to be more evasive and conversational, like your private detectives in books. Aside from those circus people, did anyone else see what went on?”
    “We have no eyewitnesses. Of course we interrogated the people at the Café Argent, where this Stanley Bower was just before his murder. We talked to the proprieter, who served them.”
    “Them?”
    “Bower was talking with some fellow shortly before his murder.”
    “What fellow? What did he look like?”
    “He was sitting in the shadow. The proprietor did not get a good look at him. Just a man. He left. Bower left shortly after him, and that’s when the cars arrived.”
    “Nothing else about the other man? Color of hair? Height?”
    “He was sitting. He wore a hat. The proprietor couldn’t even give us a description of the hat.”
    “That’s great,” Hob said. “And for this I’m missing my party.”
    “What time are your guests due?” Fauchon said.
    “Beg pardon?”
    “The guests of Marielle for whom you are to cook the chili.”
    “They’re probably arriving just now,” Hob said, expertly wrapping a soggy mass of wine-flavored sauerkraut around a bit of rosy knockwurst and popping it into his mouth, following it up with a piece of crusty baguette and a sip of wine.
    “Start telling me something,” Fauchon said, “or I will summon a gendarme to escort you home. There is still time for you to play host.”
    “You’d actually do that, wouldn’t you?”
    “The cruelties of the French police are beyond the comprehension of the Anglo Saxons,” Fauchon said with a little smile of satisfaction. He put his napkin on the table and started to get up.
    Hob reached out and touched his arm. Fauchon sat down again.
    “You’re pretty good at making jokes, but you don’t take one worth a damn.”
    “Tell me about Bower.”
    “English. About forty years old. A nodding acquaintance. Met him in Ibiza a couple of years ago. He knew somebody. House guest. Let me think a moment. Yes, he was staying with Elliot Turner, the actor.”
    “You know Turner?” Fauchon said.
    “Yes. Why?”
    “I recently attended an Elliot Turner film retrospective at the Ciné Montparnasse Study Center. Is he as nasty as the parts he portrayed?”
    “Oh, much worse.”
    “They say he is quite a ladies’ man.”
    “They lie. He is a flaming homosexual.”
    “Indeed? In his movies he is always lusting after somebody else’s woman.”
    “In real life, he was always lusting after somebody else’s boy.”
    “And Stanley Bower was a friend of his?”
    “I suppose so. As I said, Bower was staying at Turner’s finca in San Jose. His house guest. I never saw them together much, but I imagine either they were friends or Bower was blackmailing Turner.”
    “Did you learn what Bower did for a living?”
    “He didn’t seem to do much of anything. I believe there was family money. That’s what Bower hinted at, anyhow.”
    “Hinted?”
    “I call it that. Bower liked to buy a round a drinks at El Caballo Negro and brag about his family connections and how his grandfather had been the best friend of Edward the Seventh. Or maybe it was another Edward. That’s how he talked to the Americans. But when any English were present, he didn’t have much to say about all that. It was impossible to tell whether he was trying to put one over on us or indulging in that British sense of humor that becomes so sly that even it’s possessor can’t tell who he’s sending up.”
    “Did you know Stanley Bower was a drug dealer?” Fauchon asked.
    Hob shook his head. “Explains why you’re so interested in this case, though. Are you sure of your information?”
    “A small bottle