“Air Force.” She rolled onto her side; her fingers traced a line up my chest. She put her lips together and made a propeller sound, her free hand flying around in the air.

I said, “I was search and rescue. We get people out of bad situations.”

She said, “Which explains the paranoia.”

“I’m a trained and experienced paranoiac.”

“I can respect that. I’m a cop.”

She stood up from the bed. “I’m going to take a shower.” The bathroom was adjoining. She strode proudly naked, upright and beautiful. When she got there she turned to me. “Coming?”

We took a long shower together. There were interruptions. Afterwards we were back on the bed, still naked but with wet towels bunched up around us. She said, “The bed’s wet now. Look what you have done, Keeler.”

I said, “You ever hear of someone called Le Bucheron?”

“The Woodcutter.”

“Right. Maybe some kind of a criminal figure here in town.”

Nazari started to retrieve our clothes. “Never heard of Le Bucheron. Why do you ask?”

I delivered a discreet flow of information. Controlled and limited by requirements, considering that she was on the police force. She stopped getting dressed while I spoke and listened intently, which suited me fine. I told her about the trail bike kids. I gave her a non-detailed account of my conversation with the mohawk helmeted guy with the ponytail and that I had confiscated his burner phone. The key terms were The Woodcutter and Le Foxy Kebab. I withheld the screwdriver and much else besides.

She got back to her clothes. “The Woodcutter.” She looked at me curiously. “Good name for a gangster. What’s he supposed to look like?”

“Fat and bald. I’m imagining the Buddha.”

She was putting on a clean pair of white cotton panties. It was distracting.

When we were fully dressed, I said, “We going somewhere?”

“I’m starving.” She took out her phone and pecked and tapped and swiped for a while. She looked at me with a little smile. “I hear Le Foxy Kebab is highly rated and open on Sundays.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nazari’s house was on a little road that forked off a two-lane departmental road running along the river, the equivalent of a county road back home. Hers was a reconstructed outbuilding from what used to be a farm estate. Which is why the exterior was all ancient stone from the original farm. Neighboring houses had been part of the same estate. Otherwise the view was a mix of open fields and groomed parcels from the old farm. I waited outside for her to get ready. It was a beautiful and warm evening. The moon was big and rising. The landscape glowed. Pale lunar light kicked off the stone masonry, the river water, and the tree tops.