The Gilded Seal by James Twining

Author:James Twining [Twining, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2009-04-30T10:24:10+00:00

P A R T I I I

This way for the sorrowful city,

This way for eternal suffering,

This way to join the lost . . .

Abandon all hope, you who enter

Dante, The Divine Comedy

(Inferno III.i)

C H A P T E R F I F T Y- O N E

HOTEL CLICHY, 17TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS

23rd April— 7:32 a.m.

Leigh Lewis wedged the phone against his shoulder and

dialed room service. He let it ring, one minute, then two,

gingerly exercising his bruised jaw, before stabbing the hook

switch angrily and dialing reception.

He had only been out of the States once before. Well,

twice if you included Niagara Falls for his honeymoon, which

he didn’t. Canada didn’t count.

He remembered it well. It had been London in the fall of

1977. A two-week holiday with his girlfriend of the time who

was crazy about the Sex Pistols and, by extension, anything

else British. When the Pistols split up after a fi nal perfor-

mance at the San Francisco Winterland Ballroom in 1978,

she had told him tearfully that rock and roll had died that

night. Personally, he’d been happy to see them go. The rela-

tionship had fizzled out soon after Sid murdered Nancy that

fateful night in the Hotel Chelsea.

He hadn’t enjoyed the trip. Sure Big Ben and Buckingham

Palace had been swell. He’d ridden in a bright red double-

decker bus, had his photo taken with a real “Bobby” and seen

the punks loitering along the King’s Road. But it had rained

non- stop, their B&B had been small and dirty, and the food—

2 3 0 j a m e s

t w i n i n g

and this was what he couldn’t forgive or forget—had been

shit.

Not that Paris was shaping up much better. Browne had

given him the run- around yesterday, and so far all he had to

show for his trouble was a bruised face, a couple of blurred

photos and a hangover.

As for his hotel, it was in the middle of the red-light dis-

trict. His tiny airless room had one window which gave on to

a dingy alleyway that the local prostitutes used for sex and

tramps for pissing in. Needless to say, there was no air-con,

forcing him into an impossible choice between the stench

and intermittent groaning from the street below or sweating

through the unseasonably warm nights. The paper was pick-

ing up the tab, of course, but that was hardly the point. It was

no excuse for the hot water running out by eight in the morn-

ing or food not being served after nine at night. It was cer-

tainly no excuse for his phone calls going un- answered when

all he wanted was a goddammed cup of coffee.

He slammed the phone down and pulled on a pair of jeans

and a Georgetown sweatshirt—his cousin’s son had left it at

his place a few summers ago. Grabbing his key, he marched

out into the hall as fast as his bad hip would let him, and

made his way down the staircase, the carpet rough and cov-

ered in invisible bits of dirt under his bare feet.

“What the hell kind of operation are you clowns running

here?” he raged as he rounded the corner that led to the small

ground- floor reception area.

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