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

I had learned that Alex had been working for the Selwyn Corporation, professional fundraisers for various causes, some of them legitimate. It was at this time that he had met Rachel. They had been planning to go to Europe together. Alex had gone over first. He had been playing with a combo in Paris, Les Monstres Sacrés, a sort of hobby with him; he loved the raffish Paris music scene. Shortly after his arrival, he had disappeared or dropped out of contact.
    Rus hadn’t heard anything; Alex hadn’t gotten in touch with him during this most recent visit.
    The place to begin the search was with Alex’s combo. They were playing at a café called El Mango Encantado, on Rue Gregory l’Angevin near the Centre Pompidou. Rosemary, whose French is a lot better than mine, telephoned one of my favorite little hotels, Le Cygne, on the Rue du Cygne near the Beaubourg. We booked Rachel separately into the Crillon, a famous luxury-class hotel in the first arrondissement. For a girl with limited funds, she was doing all right for herself. But what the hell, first time in Paris is the time to go for it. It was close to the Louvre, she explained to me. That was where she was planning to spend her time while I looked for Alex.
     
     

 
    EL MANGO ENCANTADO
    12
     
     
    Rachel and I walked east on the Boulevard St-Germain, then north on the Boulevard St-Michel, across the Seine by way of the Pont St-Michel, and across the Îie de la Cité, catching a glimpse of Notre-Dame as we entered the Boulevard Sébastopol on the Right Bank.
    El Mango Encantado was on the Rue des Blancs not far from the Centre Pompidou. It was one of the many South American café-restaurants that had opened recently to cater to the increasing numbers of South American students and exiles, who were such a part of the current Paris scene. It was a small dimly lit place where you could hang out all day over a glass of wine. Nearby was the Beaubourg, the great art museum and library founded by Arne Pompidou. This was a very mixed area, a combination of old and new, ancient and modern, and, in Baudrillard’s phrase, the hypermodern.
    The combo was just setting up. The leader, Marcello, was pointed out to me, a curly-headed Uruguayan who was also their piano player. I asked him if I could buy him a drink.
    Over a Cinzano, Marcello told me that Alex had been staying in a flat on the Boulevard Auguste-Blanqui in the thirteenth arrondissement.
    “Do you know the thirteenth?” he asked. “There’s a big shopping mall in the Place d’ltalie. I’d meet Alex at a restaurant there, a place called Roszes. He was always late. I’d walk around the shopping mall, waiting for him, watching the old dames with their dogs and having an occasional apéritif. I didn’t see him when he came down from Amsterdam, however. Juanito was with him, though. Hey, Juanito, what can you tell this fellow about Alex?”
    Juanito was the drummer, a small, big-chested fellow with Indian features and heavy horn-rimmed glasses. He had been the son of a diplomat in Chile before Pinochet.
    “Sure, I met him at the Gare du Nord when he came down from Amsterdam. We had lunch together at the Café Tranquilité on the Rue Simon-le-Franc. You know the place, near the Place des Innocents where the dope dealers hang out.”
    I knew the place. The art students of the Beaubourg use it frequently. And of course the tourists. These streets are closed to traffic, though an occasional car does get through, this being Paris, and pokes its way through the crowds like a hippo tiptoeing through the tulips.
    Juanito continued. “I think Alex was waiting for somebody. He put down his newspaper every few minutes and looked right and left. Then some guy I’ve never seen before comes up and whispers something to him and goes away.
    “Alex excuses himself and says he has to see someone. I’ve never seen Alex act like this. I haven’t got anything on that afternoon, so I follow him.
    “He goes to Goldenberg’s on the