Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(116)

In his palm was what appeared to be a piece of wood. But Beauvoir knew it wasn’t. It was a Swiss Army knife, for hunters. Its hidden blade designed to gut animals.

Jean-Guy looked from Gamache’s steady hand into his steady eyes.

It was one thing to shoot a person. A horrific act that could never be forgotten. Nor should it be. As Beauvoir knew all too well. But it was something else altogether to stab someone. To drive the blade in.

Jean-Guy had never considered it.

But Gamache had. And was. And would. If necessary.

*

“Great,” said Ruth, as Gamache and Beauvoir strolled into the bistro. “It’s Rocky and Boo-Boo.”

Gamache looked at Beauvoir and shook his head in despair.

“Isn’t that Rocky and Bullwinkle?” asked Gabri, putting a beer down in front of Clara, as Beauvoir kissed Annie and took Honoré in his arms.

“Moose and squirrel.” Clara nodded and took a long sip of the cold Farnham Blonde Ale.

“It’s Yogi and Boo-Boo,” said Reine-Marie, greeting Armand with a hug.

“Et tu, Brute?” asked Gamache, and Reine-Marie laughed.

“Honoré,” Jean-Guy whispered in the little boy’s ear, and smelled the scent of him. A combination of baby powder and Annie.

And Jean-Guy understood why the Chief Superintendent had asked that Ruth be there when they arrived. So she could publicly mock them. It was a tiny, telling detail. Like Clara’s portraits, made up of small strokes, and dabs. Deliberately placed. For effect.

To those who knew them, Ruth’s insults were simply a ritual. A kind of calling card. But to strangers it would sound like the derisive mocking of two people so incompetent even an old woman could see it. And felt free to say it.

It added to the picture of Gamache as friendly, warm, easygoing. Soft. A man more suited to insults in a country inn than the cold, serrated edges of police work.

Beauvoir could see Matheo Bissonette and Lea Roux sitting in a corner. Listening. Lea’s smile so tight her lips had disappeared. She looked like a viper.

The American visitors were staring at them openly. Not even bothering to pretend not to be interested.

They would know who Gamache was, of course.

This was a critical moment.

Would they get up and leave, afraid the S?reté had bumbled onto their plans?

Would they pull out their weapons and open fire on the S?reté officers and everyone else in the bistro? It would be far from the first time the cartel had done something like that.

But the two men just sat there, as though watching a not very interesting talk show.

“I didn’t know you were here,” Jean-Guy said to Annie, surprised and relieved that his voice sounded so normal.

“I left a text on your phone,” said Annie. “We decided to come down, to get out of the heat of the city.”

Though it wasn’t much better in the country. The air was ripe with humidity. It felt one degree short of becoming water. There was no breeze and no letup in sight. People scrambled for shade, and prayed for the sun to go down.

Everyone except the children, now holding hands and dancing in a circle on the green. Two boys were wrestling over a ball.

The bistro was filling up, many of the seats already taken.

Gamache walked over to the table with the two Americans. There was a slight scraping of wood on wood as the older man pushed his chair away from the table and dropped his hand to his lap.

Every hair on Jean-Guy’s arms and the back of his neck stood on end, his skin tingling. As though a November breeze had come through the room. But he had Honoré in his arms and couldn’t do anything, even if the man pulled a gun. And shot the chief.

Beauvoir forced himself to turn away. Shielding Honoré with his body, he stepped in front of Annie.

While the others had resumed their conversation, about Clara’s show at the Musée des beaux-arts in Montréal, now just a week away, Ruth was watching Jean-Guy. A curious look in her curious eyes.

Gamache smiled at the two men. “Do you mind?” he asked in French. When there was no answer, he said, “Anglais? English?”

“Yes.”

“Are these chairs taken?”

“No, help yourself.”

Gamache put his hands on the back of the two empty pine chairs at the table, then hesitated, staring at the men.

“You look familiar. Have we met?”

Across the room, Beauvoir thought he’d faint. He’d given Honoré to Annie, and was prepared to draw his weapon if need be.

Conversation swirled around him, words without meaning, though he did his best to appear to be following the conversation.

Jean-Guy didn’t dare look at Gamache chatting amiably with the head of the drug cartel. But he could hear them.

If they don’t kill him, thought Beauvoir, I will.

Isabelle Lacoste was seated next to Clara, a smile fixed onto her rictus face, though he could see her right hand had dropped below the level of the table.

Jean-Guy’s heart was pounding so hard he could barely hear what they were saying.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” said the younger man. “We’re just visiting.”

“Ah,” said Gamache. His English had a soft British accent. “You’re lucky. Not many people find this village, or this bistro. New chef. Try his grilled trout, it’s delicious.”