“Just a minute,” Lucy said, hustling to keep up with her. “Don’t you think Serge was being a bit cagey?”

Elizabeth stopped and faced her. “What did you expect? You practically accused him of being complicit in a black market scheme. I’m sure he was offended. I just hope he figured you’re only another rude American.”

“I didn’t mean to offend him,” said Lucy, her cheeks reddening.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Elizabeth. “He’s used to dealing with all sorts of people. I think the French take a smug sort of comfort in the idea that they are the most civilized people in the world.”

“Well, I have news for them,” said Lucy. “We Americans think the French are rude.” To her horror, she realized that she’d been speaking, rather loudly, to nobody in particular. Elizabeth was already at her desk, slipping gracefully into her chair and greeting the woman with a big smile. The only thing she could do, she decided, was to make a hasty retreat.

She hurried to the door, which was opened for her by a liveried doorman. With no taxis, buses, or Métro, Lucy realized she had a long walk ahead of her, and her back was beginning to bother her. Thank goodness she had disregarded all that advice about looking like a Parisian and had worn her comfy running shoes, she thought, producing a small packet of ibuprofen from her purse and popping a few tablets into her mouth.

As she strode along the Grands Boulevards, looking in the store windows, she decided she wasn’t convinced that Serge had been completely truthful with her. For one thing, he didn’t seem genuinely upset that Chef Larry had been attacked. Sure, maybe they were only colleagues, as he’d insisted, but she knew that if her colleague at the Pennysaver, Phyllis, was nearly stabbed to death and was lying unconscious in a hospital, she’d be very worried. Frantic, even.

He was smooth, she decided, and charming and terribly handsome, and those were good things, right? Except maybe they could be used as camouflage to hide his true nature. Her mother used to say, ‘Never trust a handsome man,’ but then, her deceased mother seemed to have had something to say about everything, and the pity was that she remembered all her pronouncements, even when they were ridiculous, as this one clearly was. Of course you could trust a handsome man. Why ever not?