The Gourmet Detective Books 5–8 by Peter King

Author:Peter King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2018-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE DOUBLE DOORS CLOSED silently behind me as I made an exit in what must have been record time. I hurried along a corridor, made a turn and hurried along another. I didn’t recall the geography of the place from when the little lady had escorted me in, but it didn’t matter. When you’re escaping from a dead man with a gun, all roads lead to safety.

I was puzzling over that paradox as I narrowly evaded a wheeled cart piled with mysterious-looking equipment. He couldn’t be dead or he wouldn’t be chasing me. But he was chasing me—ergo, he couldn’t be dead. But I had seen him dead and Lieutenant Delancey had confirmed it. … Was the lieutenant playing some devious game? The thought brought to mind recollections of a Charlie Chan movie in which the Honolulu detective had an actor impersonate a murder victim so as to get the murderer to confess.

No, I decided. That didn’t sound like Delancey’s style. He just wasn’t the Charlie Chan type. On the other hand, there was more to him than met the eye. Pay attention to getting out of here, I told myself. REFRESHMENT CENTER, said a large sign, and a group of men and women clustered around several vending machines.

It was far from a madding crowd but it would have to do, and as a temporary refuge it wasn’t bad. I squeezed in among these people who gave us all our news, our education and our entertainment. None of them paid me any attention.

My breathing was returning to normal and I was even contemplating getting a cup of coffee so that I could stand with it and really look like I belonged. The line was long—it must be that good New Orleans coffee—and I was looking for the end of it when I saw my nemesis down the corridor.

He was coming this way.

His hand was inside his windbreaker so he wasn’t attracting any attention—except from me. I looked for an escape route. Emerging from the crowd was not a first step that appealed to me and even after that, I didn’t know where to go. I huddled deeper into the coffee and Coke drinkers and edged over to get some extra cover from the potato chip, nacho, peanut and cookie buyers.

He was looking this way and that but as he came closer, he turned and disappeared down a side corridor that must have looked like a probable hiding place for his quarry. I seized the opportunity and dashed off in the opposite direction.

I didn’t really have a plan—other than my primary strategy of avoiding being killed. Several approaches suggested themselves. For instance, I could find a security guard and complain about a man with a gun running loose in the building. The only problem with that would arise if the guard asked if I knew the man and I replied, Yes, he’s dead.

I could just get out of the building and save Ms. Elsa Goddard for another day, when the outlook for escaping violence was more favorable.

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