Two of the booths were occupied. A family with young children and a party of thirteen or fourteen-year-old teenagers eating French fries with ketchup and grilled meat on sticks. A guy wearing a baseball cap was seated on a stool at the counter. He too was chewing on a kebab. Holding the stick with one hand and idly nibbling.

The special was Le Foxy Burger, so I ordered it. She ordered a salad. I paid in cash at the counter and then we waited in our booth nursing cans of Coke. There was no fat bald guy, just two men working the kitchen, while the guy out front watched the game on TV. When the food was ready I went up and fetched the tray from the counter.

The burger was serviceable. Like a burger, but with spices. Like a kebab, but on a bun.

“Good?” She asked.

“Works. You?”

“Nothing special.” She pushed the remains of her salad away.

I studied the remains of my Le Foxy Burger. It wasn’t gourmet, but I’d had much worse, often and for extended periods of time. I wasn’t complaining. She was looking at me. I said, “Whatever.”

She looked around Le Foxy Kebab. “You see a fat bald guy?”

“Nope.”

“Have you got the phone?”

I pulled out the burner phone. Slid it across the table. Nazari flipped through it. Thumbed some keys and buttons. “Call list only has one number.” She looked at me. “Shall we give The Woodcutter a call?”

“He already called. But he didn’t have anything interesting to say.”

“Maybe if I could hear his voice, as a native French speaker, it might shake something loose.”

“Is that what they teach you in the textbooks?”

“Yeah, it is. You get them talking and something shakes loose eventually.”

“Such as?”

“Accent, intonation, emotional state, physical condition. For example a fat person might speak differently than a skinny person. She’ll have a fuller acoustic cavity. A person with allergies or with a cold will also speak in a particular fashion. There’s always something. On top of that people generally like to be listened to.”

I said, “Let me do it. You shouldn’t get involved.”

She slid the phone back to me. “Put it on speaker.”

I selected the number and found the button to put it on speaker. Dial tone chimed from the little phone.

It rang for a while.

Then someone picked up. “Yes.” Same voice as before. Male, and deep, like from a large body.

I said, “This is Keeler.” Nazari and I had our heads together over the phone, which was on the table between us. She shot me a look.

The voice said, “The dead man walking.”

I said, “Aren’t we all dead men walking?”

The voice said, “Thank you.”

The phone clicked off.

Nazari said, “Why did you tell him your name?”

“Why not? It won’t matter in the end. Did you get anything?”