Going for a ride

"I don't know" Lucien shook his head as he responded.

"You don't know" Lucas knitted his brows as he said with some doubts in his voice.

"Yes. The reasons are much more complicated than it looks, and I want to confirm them myself before I fully accept my suspension".

Seeing that Lucien was not telling him the reasons for his suspension, Lucas said with some understanding in his voice.

"Alright, I understand. Be sure to tell me everything when you are done solving the matter, okay".

"Of course" Lucien replied.

"Yeah, and you better come to see me soon too. Who will talk to an old man like me after you are gone?" Lucas said with a small smile on his face as he watched Lucien walking away.

"Alright, Lucas, I will see you later" Lucien said as he walked away.

Though he kept on hearing Lucas's voice from afar.

"How much vitality does this old man have?" Lucas said to himself as he thought about going to the abandoned building that he was assigned to yesterday for his promotion inorder to see if he could get any clues concerning yesterday's event.

But first, before he goes there, Lucien decided to do something that will cool off his mind.

And the best location would be at the third-largest river in France, La Seine.

Walking towards La Seine so that he could board a small boat, Lucien didn't forget to buy a bottle of wine from a small street vendor along the road with the little money that was found in the dead man's clothes that he was currently wearing.

Luckily for him, he found about 15 euros in the back of the blue jeans, or else he would have to go home to get some of the money that he had stored safely at home.

Heading closer to the riverbank, Lucien could see a ferryman with a small boat.

"Hello monsieur, are you planning to tour through the river that flows through the heart of Paris?" The ferryman said as he looked at Lucien like he was looki at some kind of potential wealthy customer.

"Yeah, I am. But I am not really planning to move around that much, I just want to stay for a couple of minutes".

Seeing the bottle-shaped brown bag that made its contents in it obvious, the ferryman looked at Lucien with a knowing smile.

"Ahh! I understand my friend, the matters of the heart are just too complicated for one man to know the direction that it will take next" The ferryman said as he shook his head in sadness.

He has seen such things every day where men would his boat just to go drink to their hearts contents along the river of la Seine.

Were there pitiful individuals who needed help, advice, and encouragement? Yes, they were.

But was he obligated to be the one to do such things? No, he wasn't.

Their pain and sadness are his livelihoods. The longer they spent drowning themselves in alcohol on the seine river, the more his money increased.

Apart from the various couples that come here on a romantic date, guys like this come here after a painful breakup.

But the only thing he hates when dealing with guys like this is their excessive rants and complaints which usually happen after they had gotten drunk.

And although he usually tries his best to respond to those rants, since customers like this were one of his most paying customers.

But after repeating the same process every day as well as sharing the same boat with such persons has left him numb to the extent that he doesn't even respond to their useless complaints anymore unless he charges them for it which they would happily pay up for.

"No worries, leave everything to me, I'll handle it".

"So how much do you charge for a 30 minutes ride" Lucien raised a brow as he looked at the ferryman strangely.

Although he didn't know what the man was talking about, he didn't want to bother himself by thinking about it since he currently had a lot of things in his head.

"For a 15 minutes ride, I usually charge about 6 euros, but since we are talking about 30 minutes, I'll give you about 12 euros" The ferryman said after making some calculations in his head.

But Lucien looked at him strangely before saying.

"Look at me very closely, do I look like a fool that could be scammed easily?".

"I don't understand monsieur, I am only telling the best price that I can offer you" The ferryman said with a bit of confusion in his voice.

"You don't understand, right" Lucien nodded his head as he looked at the ferryman.

"Tell me, how do I look to you? Do you take me like some kind of tourist?".

But still, the ferryman shook his head in confusion as he responded.

"I still don't understand monsieur, aren't you a tourist who have just lost your lover in the beautiful city of Paris after you two have already experienced what the city of love has to offer".

"Haaa….Why do I always have to deal with this?" Lucien said out loud as he could already understand what was happening.

Truth be told, Lucien didn't look like someone who was from France because he was of mixed blood.

His mother is a Frenchwoman, while his father is an American, hence his surname Whitlock.

And for some reasons which he knew nothing about, he looked more like an American rather than a French.

Which resulted in him being charged far more than the average French when he wants to buy something.

And although looking like a tourist did have its perks since he knew many ways to take advantage of it.

For example, the brothel owned by Mrs. Odette which he had purposely taken advantage of with his foreign looks.

After all which woman doesn't want to get a taste of a foreign well-endowed Johnson.