The Last Smile by Marvin H. Albert

Author:Marvin H. Albert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, detective, france, private eye, sleuth
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

“If it was Arnaud Galice,” Fritz told me, “he’s changed himself beyond recognition. The same height, but nothing else the same. As you’ll remember, he was quite stout.”

“As stout as you, when you’re healthy.”

Fritz went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “And with chunky features. This man I saw is slim, with a thin nose and lean cheeks. If it was Galice, he’s been through a strenuous diet and had a face job. Also, this man has a short, pointy beard and full head of hair, both black. Whereas Arnaud Galice was balding and clean-shaven, and the little hair he had was fair.”

“Yet you did recognize him.”

“Recognize is too definite a word for it. This man reminded me of Galice. The way he walked. Galice fell from a porch roof and injured his spine when he was about ten. It left him with this peculiar gait—throwing his right foot out to the side with each step, and alternately hitching his left hip forward. Not enough to be called a limp. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking for it or had observed him over a long time.”

I couldn’t remember noticing it. But I’d only seen Arnaud Galice twice. On both occasions he’d been sitting most of the time. Fritz had known him, through his father, since he’d been a kid.

“Let me have it from the top,” I said. “When and where you first saw this man who may or may not be Arnaud Galice.”

I hadn’t had a chance to see Fritz the previous evening. After my second meeting with Francesco Ascoli there’d been another with Major Diego Bandini, who reported that they hadn’t found Aldo or Robby among their rogues’ gallery files as yet, and that all carabinieri posts had been alerted to look for Dollinger. The license numbers I’d memorized belonged, as I’d figured, to stolen vehicles.

When I’d been ready to leave Rome, the only flight I could get on landed me in Paris at midnight. By which time Fritz was sleeping under sedatives and not to be disturbed.

This morning Paris was cold but clear. The sunlight streaming into Fritz’s hospital room showed him to be back among the living, with the head of his bed cranked up to prop him in a half-sitting position. His hospital gown bulged with the thick bandaging across his chest and midsection, his face and hands still had a wasted look, and his voice was draggy. But he’d definitely won his battle with Death. This time.

That’s the trouble with that kind of fight. You can win a hundred of them and it doesn’t change the fact that you’re going to lose the war in the end. But if you relished bucking the odds as much as Fritz, holding off that end had a kick of its own.

“I wasn’t making any progress in discovering who Friedhelm Dollinger has been associating with lately,” Fritz told me. “So on Friday afternoon I decided to stake out his place for a time. To see if I could spot anything of interest going on there.

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