Private Paris (Private 10)

“They were shooting at us!” I yelled. “We’re the good guys, Peaks!”

“Drop the gun now, or I will kill you.”

“Screw you,” Louis said. He turned and began running back the other way.

“Don’t shoot him!” I shouted. “We’re going to the street.”

When I spun around and headed after Louis, however, there was an unmistakable prickle at the back of my neck, a sensation that only happens when there’s a gun aimed my way. Ignoring it, I followed Louis through the lobby and out into the street.

I heard screams down the block. Whitey and the Nose jumped an iron fence that surrounded an outdoor seating area off the bar and were sprinting away from us.

We chased them down the Avenue Montaigne, up the Rue François 1er, and then north on the Rue de Marignan. But my hip was killing me, and they were far younger than Louis. By the time we hit the crowded sidewalks of the Champs-Élysées, we’d lost them.

We trudged back to the Plaza Athénée to find six police cars out front with their lights flashing, and a crowd growing on the sidewalk across from the hotel. At first the police tried to keep us out, but when Louis explained that we were not only witnesses to the shooting but the targets, we were allowed entry.

There were ten, maybe fifteen uniformed officers already inside, and four detectives from La Crim, including Investigateur Hoskins, who took one look at Louis and me and said, “Really? The second night in a row you’re involved in a shoot-out? Really?”

“Calm down, Sharen…investigateur,” Louis said. “They came after Jack. One of these men was the same pale guy who shot up Open Café.”

“That true?” Hoskins asked.

“He wore a pair of panty hose over his head, but I’d put money on it,” I said. “They were looking for the same woman they tried to kill last night.”

“Do we know why they’re after her?”

“Something to do with drugs,” I said.

“They didn’t say anything else to you?”

“Uh, no…wait. Yes. They asked if she was still smoking, and I said like a chimney, and then Louis started banging on the door.”

“Well, just so you know, you’ve both caused an international incident,” Hoskins said. “There were Saudi royals in there when the shooting started.”

“We noticed,” I said.

“If they and their bodyguards weren’t there, I might have caught them,” Louis said. “They blocked us. Threatened to shoot me.”

“What about royal family don’t you understand?” Hoskins asked.

“Last time I looked, France was a European country,” Louis snapped.

“And last time I looked, the Saudis were vital allies of France,” she retorted. “I guarantee I’m going to be hearing all sorts of flak over this.”

“My condolences,” Louis said. “What about Pincus?”

“Nothing more than you knew this morning,” she replied. “You’ll need to come into La Crim in the morning to make a statement. Both of you.”

“First thing,” I promised. “Can I go back to my room?”

“They were wearing gloves?” she asked.

“They were, and, like I said, panty hose over their heads. So I don’t think they left much evidence other than the hammer Whitey threw at me.”

“I’ll send an officer up to collect it,” she said, and then turned away.

It was almost eight when I left Louis. Despite all that had happened, I was going to make my date with Michele Herbert. When I reentered the suite, it felt unprotected, strange, and violated. I double-locked the balcony doors, took a shower, changed clothes, and went back out in less than fifteen minutes.

The police had begun letting witnesses leave, and the loggia was emptying out. The staff was clearly out of sorts, and several of them, including fair Elodie, the concierge, glared at me as I walked through the lobby. I guess word had gotten around that the bad guys had been trying to kill me, and somehow I’d become a villain for aiding in a breach of the Plaza’s legendary decorum.