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"I don't know about that. It's hard for me to handle more than a few dishes at
once, and chefs have to oversee dozens."
"Une petite brasserie...."
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"Very petite. Such as the size of our kitchen here."
The quiche was good even if I had cooked it.
While I did the dishes and thought, she wandered back into the music room. I
wondered what to do about the package. I was 90 percent sure it was trouble,
but with the strange mailings I'd had ... who knew? And if it happened to be
trouble, was it an amateur effort or a professional one? Also, did the package
contain anything of value if it weren't trouble? There was no way of knowing
without opening the package.
Finally, I went out to the car barn and began to fiddle with tools until I had
what I wanted.
It took me a long time, but using a mirror and a razor knife fastened to a
cross arm attached to a rake, I had a tool I could use around the corner of
the stone-walled car barn.
Then, trying to open the package carefully was tricky. I'm one of those people
who has trouble directing actions in a mirror. It must have taken me a dozen
attempts to make the first cut in the heavy package tape and almost as many
for the second.
I only started the third attempt.
Crummtt!
The explosion ripped my rake-tool out of my hands.
There were only fragments of confettilike cardboard and shards of paper-thin
metal those and a depression next to the car-barn wall.
"Johan!" Llysette came running from the house.
"I'm fine. Just stand back."
She didn't.
"The ground explodes, and you are here, and I should stand back?"
"Yes."
"Johan." Her green eyes flashed.
"I didn't want to worry you."
"You still are impossible."
"You're right." I had to smile sheepishly. I hadn't been careless but stupid,
and I didn't feel like admitting that totally openly. "I do need to clean up
the mess."
"The ... mess ... will it explode?"
"There's nothing big enough left to explode."
She shook her head.
She was right about that, too.
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After Llysette went back into the house, I searched the area but found little
except for a larger assortment of shreds of the thin metal and what looked to
be the remnants of some form of pressure sensor. Basically, the idea had been
to shred me with the metal, had I been stupid enough to open it. Well, I had
been stupid enough, just not in direct range, and I suspected I'd hear from
someone, sooner or later.
But I just collected the mess and tucked it into the rubbish bin. There
wouldn't be anything traceable, scientific forensic work or not.
Then I went back to the house.
"Johan." Llysette put her arms around me almost before I closed the door. "I
did not mean "
"I know. You were worried, but I was trying to keep the Watch out of this.
What would Chief Waetjen say if I'd handed him a bomb?"
"You could have been killed."
"If I'd opened it in the normal way ... but if it were a professional job, the
chances were less, assuming I took precautions." I shrugged. "I did. If
there's a next one, we call in someone else." I knew there wouldn't be. There
might be something else, but not another bomb. The bomb was almost an
admission that Jerome's people in the gray steamers were doing their job very
effectively.
"That you promise?"
"I promise."
She kissed me, and the kiss was warm enough that one thing led to another and
that Llysette didn't get back to practicing.
As a result, I was still struggling to catch up on dinner when Bruce's ancient
Olds's convertible whistled through the darkness and up the drive to the side
door. I had extracted a promise from Llysette not to mention the explosive
nature of the afternoon, the explosive nature of either the early or later
afternoon.
Bruce stepped up to the door at six-fifty-eight, with two bottles of wine in a
basket. The wind had picked up and was swirling snowflakes across the drive,
the light kind of flurries that wouldn't stick.
"Greetings, Johan." He handed me the basket. "And Llysette." He turned his
head and smiled.
Standing by the foot of the stairs, she returned the smile. "Good it is to see
you."
"Greetings and thank you." I glanced at the wine. "Yountville. You're
definitely spoiling us."
"I am not spoiling you, Johan," he said with a grin as I took his coat.
"I wondered about that."
"New Bruges has too few cultural adornments to risk losing one." He inclined
his head to Llysette. "This is part of my small effort to persuade her to
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remain."
The shy smile that crossed her face was part Llysette, part Carolynne, and an
expression I treasured.
"Business?" he asked briskly.
"Strictly social." I shook my head. There was no way I was going to tell Bruce
about the bomb no sense in ruining his evening. "Except I'm running a little
behind."
They followed me into the kitchen while I checked the pepper-roasted potatoes
and the steamed mixed squash and tasted the mint-apple-plum sauce for the
lamb.
Somehow, I got it all together, and we sat down at the table by seven-thirty.
Bruce took one bite of the marinated rack of lamb, then a second. "Very good,
Johan. Very good."
"Thank you."
After a sip of the Yountville, he tried the potatoes and nodded. "Tasty."
"They are good also," Llysette offered. "In France, Johan, he could have been
a chef."
"I don't question his cooking, dear lady." Bruce paused. "Then again, the best
chefs have also been known to be handy with knives and other weapons. Perhaps
he would have been a well-known chef."
"You are so complimentary," I told him, passing the hot croissant rolls to
Llysette.
"With whom else can I be so honest?"
He had a point there.
"Have there been any new ... developments?" he asked.
"Outside of a few clippings to ensure we are fully informed of the tense
international situation? No."
Bruce took a roll and set the basket in the middle of the table. His arm
fanned the air, and the three candles in the silver candelabra flickered, then
recovered. "Technology interests?"
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