The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) by Robert Sheckley Read Free Book Online Page A

of light industry as we approached Paris. Then more arterial highways began feeding in and we were at the Porte de la Chapelle, entering the Périphérique that circles Paris.
     
    It was still morning. I had planned that we would check in first with my old buddy Rus. Rus is a light-skinned Negro from the Caribbean, Jamaica or Barbados; his story changes over the years. The way Rus tells it, he had worked his passage to America as a kid, lived in Key West and Miami for a while, managed to join the American army in time for World War II, lived through the Normandy campaign, and had taken his discharge in Paris. He met Rosemary, a pretty blonde Dutch girl studying art history, and they married. Rus never left France again, except for summer holidays on Ibiza. Dutch girls make the best wives of any European nationality, in my humble opinion. Rosemary spoke English better than Rus, in a marked New Jersey accent. But if you listened carefully you could hear the shading of “th” sounds to “d”, a remnant of her native accent.
    The taxi came into the Boulevard St-Germain and took a left turn down the Rue de Bellechasse.
    “Well, well,” Rosemary said, looking at me when she opened the door, “look what the cat dragged in. Long time between drinks, huh, Hob?”
    She led us in through the tiny kitchenette.
    Rus’s apartment was dark and tiny and crowded with furniture. There was a bright Mexican blanket on the queen-size bed which they used for a couch by day. Near the bed was an ornamental brass table from Morocco with a tall brass hookah on it. In the corner of the room was the little drawing table with a gooseneck lamp, where Rus did his sketching, the radio close to him. There were a few original sketches on the walls, the work of friends of his. The room had a homey smell of wine, black tobacco, and the Sunday roast.
    Rosemary had broadened out some in the years since I’d seen her last, but she still was a very attractive lady—ample, open-faced, her flaxen hair beginning to gray, her smile as cheerful as ever.
    “Rosemary,” I said, “I’d like you to meet my client, Miss Rachel Starr.”
    “Hi,” Rosemary said, “any client of Hob Draconian is a friend of mine. How’s the Alternative Detective Agency, Hob?”
    “I’m here on Agency business,” I said. “And all my friends are going to get a piece of the action.”
    “It’s not really very big action,” Rachel explained. “I can’t afford much, though maybe we can figure out a bonus at the end if everything goes all right.”
    “Nobody expects to make anything out of the Agency,” Rosemary said. “It just gives us something to talk about.”
    Rus and Rosemary lived in a small apartment at 6, Rue de Bellechasse, not far from Invalides and the Chambre de Deputies. It was one of those rent-controlled Paris apartments that still exist, even in the high-rent districts, to reward those who don’t move. It was rumored that Leslie Caron lived in this building, though nobody had actually seen her.
    Rus was the same as always, a huge, soft, caramel-colored butterball of a man, hunched over his drawing board in a corner of the living room, drawing cartoons all day to the accompaniment of a whisper of jazz from his radio. He got up to greet me, enfolding me in the big abrazado that Ibiza exiles share when they meet.
    We sat down over a couple of Stella d’Artois beers and discussed old times and new. Rus was a center for news and information about Ibiza and its far-ranging exiles. Rus and Rosemary held an open house every Sunday. It was what the French call un bouf , an eating. He was a quick and inventive cook, Rus was, renowned for his miniature Mexican pizzas and baby spare-ribs.
    Rus and I had both known Alex back in the old Ibiza days. At that time, Alex had been a young lawyer who dropped out for a taste of la dolce vita Ibiza-style. After a while he had returned to a practice in Washington, D.C., and that’s the last I’d heard of him.
    From Rachel