Angel With a Bullet by M. C. Grant Read Free Book Online Page B

away. Mr. French notices my gaze.
    â€œBaccarat doesn’t approve of me smoking,” he explains. “But I grew tired of going outside every time I wanted a puff.” He tilts his chin to a metal box in the corner that resembled an air conditioner. “The HEPA air purifier takes care of the big job, but this little guy also helps.”
    He lifts his pipe to take another puff and then unrolls the wallet like a mat, exposing a series of stainless-steel tools, each in its own velvet sleeve.
    I hand him the envelope as he slips on a pair of thin, white gloves and places a magnifying loupe against his eye. Mr. French stands at the coffee table, which is at counter height for him.
    â€œIt doesn’t have a stamp,” I say.
    â€œOh?” He looks up, puzzled.
    â€œIt’s the paper,” I explain. “I was wondering if you could trace where it was sold and who might have bought it.”
    â€œAhh.”
    â€œIt feels old,” I continue. “Not antique. Just …” I can’t find the word.
    â€œLet me take a look.”
    Mr. French places the envelope on the velvet mat, pulls out two pairs of long, very thin tweezers, and expertly removes the note without using fingers. After reading it, he lifts it to his nose and inhales.
    â€œYou’re right,” he says. “Not actually old, but stale, musty. Remainder stock most likely.”
    â€œRemainder stock?”
    â€œStock the vendor couldn’t sell. It usually gets shoved to the back of the store until its price is discounted enough for its quality to no longer matter to the purchaser.”
    â€œDo you think you could track it?”
    He looks up at me with furrowed brow. “We will have to assume several factors.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œThe sender lives nearby, which is why the envelope didn’t require postage.”
    â€œDelivered by hand.”
    â€œExactly. The second assumption is perhaps the larger leap. We have to assume the paper, although old, was purchased recently and hasn’t been sitting for years in the sender’s desk drawer.”
    I nod. “I know this isn’t your usual area of expertise.”
    â€œNonsense.” Mr. French beams again. “Although some see philatelists as mere stamp collectors, if anything, we adore a good mystery. The story behind the stamp is often worth more than the stamp itself. For example, would you believe that I have stamps licked by Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor, Winston Churchill, and Richard Nixon? A fellow philatelist that I know has more exotic tastes. He has stamps licked by Mussolini, Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and Eva Braun. So let’s give this the old college try.”
    I lean down and hug him.
    â€œI’ll be in touch,” I say, making my retreat in such good humor that I even wave goodbye to Baccarat.
    She doesn’t appear to notice.

Six
    I never grow tired of riding cable cars. Crammed in a rickety metal box with three dozen tourists, weaving and bobbing to avoid being smacked in elbow, breast, or face by swinging cameras at every bend is the highlight of going to my office.
    The bus is cheaper and drops me closer, but regular working people don’t amuse me as much. Only on the cable cars can you watch model-thin women shiver violently because they thought San Francisco was going to be as warm as L.A.; or laugh at the pot-bellied men with bulging billfolds and garish T-shirts adorned with double entendres that make one groan; or wonder at the wide-eyed children dangling precariously from side rails, limbs inches from injury.
    The offices for NOW are housed in the top three floors of a squat four-story brownstone, one block west of Alta Plaza. The ground floor, painted blue and white, contains a tasty little Greek restaurant named for the mythical flying horse, Pegasus.
    The trouble with working above a Greek restaurant is the tantalizing aroma. The big buildup to lunch often makes