The Bone Thief by Jefferson Bass

Author:Jefferson Bass
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 0061284769
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2010-03-23T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

“SHERWOOD FOREST CAFÉ OR SIR GALAHAD’S PUB?” Sinclair offered the hotel map for my perusal.

“Tough choice,” I mused. “If I were going just by the names, I’d go for Sherwood Forest, but it looks like it’s right off the casino floor, so I’m guessing it’s pretty noisy. Sir Galahad’s is on the second level, so maybe it’s quieter.”

“Sir Galahad’s it is.” He motioned toward the escalator, and we headed down a floor from the meeting rooms. “Who the hell was Sir Galahad? Got any idea?”

“Hmm. One of the Knights of the Round Table.” I dug around in my memory banks. As a boy I’d read some of the Arthurian legends, but tales of chivalry were a far cry from blunt-force trauma and knife marks in bone. “Seems like Galahad was the squeaky-clean knight,” I ventured. “Raised by nuns. Chaste and very pious, when he wasn’t busy hacking foes to bits with his broadsword.” I fished around for any additional factoids I’d stored about Galahad. “Spent a lot of time on a quest for the Holy Grail. That’s about all I recall.”

“That’s a lot. I don’t recall that much about the talk I just gave.”

The escalator deposited us in front of a shuttered Italian restaurant and, beside it, a theater whose nightly show was “Thunder from Down Under,” billed as “Australia’s Hottest Hunks” and “Las Vegas’ Best Male Strip Show.” It struck me as interesting irony that the male strippers were performing a stone’s throw from an establishment named for the Arthurian knight who embodied chastity and purity.

Sir Galahad’s was closed, too, so we ended up buying coffee from a Starbucks stand and doughnuts from a Krispy Kreme counter. I suspected that the Krispy Kremes were not what had sustained Sir Galahad on his search for the Grail, but they did taste divine: warm, cloudlike puffs of dough, deep-fried to airy perfection, then varnished with a crisp, delicate sugar glaze. “That’s tasty,” I marveled. “That would be worth a serious quest.”

Sinclair shook his head. “I gotta disagree with you there. I’ve never been a fan of the Krispy Kreme. I’m a die-hard Dunkin’ Donuts man myself.”

“Dunkin’ Donuts? But they’re so cakey.”

“Exactly,” he said. “That’s what makes ’em good.” He shrugged. “You’re from Tennessee, I’m from Jersey. Maybe it’s a geographic thing.”

“Maybe that’s it,” I conceded. “It did take a while for Krispy Kreme to cross the Mason-Dixon Line.”

He laughed. “There was a big article in the New York Times when the first Krispy Kreme opened in Manhattan. The barbarians were at the gates.”

“If you think Krispy Kreme is culture shock for New Yorkers,” I said, “just wait till Cracker Barrel hits town.”

“Hey, bring it on. The more biscuits and gravy and fried okra people eat, the better it is for my business, and yours.” He offered me his half-eaten doughnut. “You want the rest of that?”

“No thanks. One’s my limit. When I was in my thirties, three was my limit. In my forties it dropped to two. Now, in my fifties, it’s one.

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