Private Paris (Private 10)

“Angelina,” the doorman said without hesitation. “Rue de Rivoli.”

“For tourists!” cried a young woman smoking a cigarette. “Jean-Paul Hévin on Rue Saint-Honoré, no doubt. The blend they serve is heaven. An aphrodisiac.”

“Ah,” scoffed her friend, a sallow man in a suit and a thin tie. “I have nothing against aphrodisiacs, but the hot chocolate at Les Deux Magots is sublime.”

A fourth person chimed in to nominate the Café Martini, and a fifth said Carette in the Trocadéro was without a doubt the best purveyor of hot chocolate in the world.

The Uber car pulled up. Louis was roaring with laughter when we pulled away, and they were all still arguing the point. “I love Paris,” he said. “I really do.”

We went to Angelina first. The staff at the Viennese-style tearoom did not recognize Kim Kopchinski from the pictures we showed them. Neither did the various waiters and waitresses we talked

to at Jean-Paul Hévin, Les Deux Magots, the Café Martini, and Carette.

It was almost 4 p.m. by then, and I’d all but decided that this was nothing but a wild-goose chase. When we climbed back into the Uber car outside Carette, I was going to declare surrender and suggest that we return to Private Paris. But then something occurred to me.

“Where was the best hot chocolate in Paris seven or eight years ago?”

Louis looked perplexed, but the driver said, “That’s simple. Besides Angelina, in those days it was definitely the Hôtel Lancaster on the Rue de Berri. Best hot chocolate of the new millennium.”

I shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”

“And it’s not that far,” Louis said. “We go.”

About ten minutes later, we pulled up in front of the Hôtel Lancaster, another of Paris’s famed five-star hotels. The entrance was far more understated than the Plaza’s, and we had to search for the front desk, where we asked about the hot chocolate.

We were directed to a tearoom overlooking a courtyard, and soon found an older waitress named Yvette, who took one look at the photograph and smiled.

“C’est Kim,” she said. “She’s been coming here off and on for years.”

“Lately?” I asked.

She nodded and said, “Yesterday, about this time. And the day before that.”

We thanked her, and she walked away.

“She’s not a celeb or a high roller,” Louis said. “She’ll be coming in the main entrance.”

We crossed through a lobby to a short hallway that led to double glass doors, where the valet and doorman were posted. I’d taken two steps when I saw Kim Kopchinski sprinting diagonally across the street, heading for the opposite sidewalk with Whitey in close pursuit and carrying a pistol.

Chapter 53

BY THE TIME Louis and I burst out of the Hôtel Lancaster, they were well down the block, heading south and west. I took off after them, with Louis bringing up the rear.

I was closing the gap when I realized that Big Nose was running ahead of me on the opposite sidewalk, paralleling them. Just shy of the Champs-Élysées, he cut across the street.

Kim and Whitey reached the corner.

A blue van screeched to a halt in front of them.

Whitey grabbed Sherman’s granddaughter, and she screamed, “I don’t have it anymore! I threw it—”

The pale man pushed her inside. The van squealed away, leaving the Nose, who had slowed to a walk. I hadn’t. He saw me coming just before I tackled him and knocked him to the street.

“What is this?” he yelled, and began to struggle beneath me. “Police!”

“You like hitting people with hammers?” I shouted, and was about to pop him low and in the back so he’d stop squirming.

But out of the corner of my eye, I saw something white and brown launch at me from between the parked cars. On instinct, I ducked a second before it landed on me and started viciously biting at my ear and neck.