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Authors: Anthony Bidulka

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BOOK: Amuse Bouche
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It wasn't quite the Riviera, but close. I studied the region between Cliousclat and Sanary to see if my Spidey sense would give me a clue as to where Tom might stop between now and Monday. The only thing I could come up with was Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Chavell and Tom struck me as the type of people who might be wine aficionados. If so, Tom wouldn't pass up a chance to visit this historic village. So that's where I decided to go. The weather was sunny and mild, I was driving a hot car and the fact that I also love fine wines barely entered my mind.

Really.

Chateauneuf-du-Pape is situated between the larger centres of Orange and Avignon. A fourteenth-century papal castle sits high above the town and is the recognizable symbol of all Chateauncuf-du-Pape wines. The pope who built the castle also began the vineyard. Today there isn't much left of the place other than a neat dungeon, a few jagged, rocky walls and a 107

Amuse Bouche

cellar. But it's well worth the walk up for the view and all the little wine shops along the way offering tastes of their wares. Needless to say, the trip to the top can be time-consuming but fun; the way down—less so. By the time I made my way up and back down the hill, I decided food was in order. I needed something to soak up all the taste tests. I found a sunny table at a restaurant called La Mule du Pape with a bird's -eye view of the town's bustling Centreville. I didn't have a clue where Tom Osborn was but there are worse ways of spending a sunny Sunday afternoon in the French countryside.

Monday morning I pointed my Mercedes south and headed for the Mediterranean. I connected to the
autoroute a peage
(a toll road) A7, known as L'Autoroute du Soleil, which passes by Avignon, turned east on A8, through Aix-en-Provence, then south again on A52 by Auriol and finally hit A50, taking it all the way down to the coast.

It was mid-afternoon when I reached Sanary-sur-Mer. I found a spot to leave the car and spent an hour walking around with a bag of popcorn purchased from a street vendor.

Sanary is a charming seaside town with an active, tourist-oriented harbour surrounded by palm trees and sheltered from the mistral by Anthony Bidulka

wooded hills to the north. Every store, restaurant and bar along the waterfront is a shade of complementary pastel as if arranged by an artist creating the perfect palette. Although intimately near the famed hustle and bustle and haughtiness of the French Riviera, Sanary seems to maintain a low-key, almost lackadaisical atmosphere. As I meandered down the main drag, stealing glances into bistros and boutiques. I could pick out the occasional luminary from the hoi polloi, trying to get away from it all by slum-ming in Sanary. Incredibly tall, painfully thin women walked as if they barely existed off the runway, with messily handsome men who live in cologne ads. There were old men with young women and even older women with even younger men; middle-aged mothers surgically altered to appear younger than their daughters and daughters made up to look older than their mothers. To me it was a people zoo. I held back the urge to toss them some of my popcorn.

After checking into a quirky little hotel at one end of the main thoroughfare, I took a walk on the beach and snooped around in the shops.

The prices were surprisingly reasonable, but nothing caught my eye—at least not sufficiently to make me consider adding to the weight of my suitcase. Before I knew it, it was almost 7:00

p.m. and I was famished.

Amuse Bouche

The place Tom had arranged for us to meet seemed as good a place to eat as any. It looked much like the other bistros on either side of it. It had a wide open front facing the water and small, round tables with multicoloured linens starting in the dimly lit back area and spilling out onto the street like Smarties poured from a box. If you've ever been to a fancy French restaurant and disliked how close together the tables are—it is authentic. I chose one about midway at one edge of the pack so that I was half-indoors and half-outdoors. It was the perfect spot to keep an eye on the other cafe patrons and the steady stream of street traffic. I ordered
moults marinieres,
which are mussels with shallots in a white wine sauce and appeared to be the joint's specialty, along with a bottle of mineral water. And then, I don't know if it was the heady, salty smell of the sea or too much sun in one day, I ordered a small terrine of
-pate de merles
as my
Amuse Bouche
and sat back to enjoy the view while waiting for my client's errant boyfriend.

By 8:30 p.m. I was fairly certain my worst suspicions were coming true. Tom Osborn had successfully led me on a wild goose chase. He had no intention of meeting me that night. Or prob-110

Anthony Bidulka

ably ever. But why? Had he, as Chavell worried, met some man and decided to run off with him?

Had he ever wanted to be found at all?

Following the itinerary had been too easy. I should have listened to the little bird in my head when I first accepted this assignment: too easy.

I knew now that if I was going to find Tom I was going to have to adopt an entirely different tack. Unfortunately, J had no idea what that would be. But, until I figured it out, I decided to drown my discouragement in a regional favourite,
pastis.
This was not a particularly professional decision to make at this point in the case, but I was beginning to feel disheartened with the whole experience and needed some lubrication to help swallow my defeat. I figured it all boiled down to not having enough time for a background check on my client and his lover.

Still, there was something more at work here and that unknown thing was setting me up to fail.

I needed to rethink my strategy.

But it wasn't going to happen tonight.

Pastis
is the drink of choice in Provence. It tastes like black licorice and the secret is to mix the clear liquid with water, making it cloudy and somewhat less lethal. I didn't like it. But I had two before switching to beer.

l1l

Amuse Bouche

Although it had no lyrics, the music playing in the cafe was undoubtedly French. As it darkened, low wattage bulbs and candles created a cozy atmosphere that blurred any visually unpleasant details of the restaurant and the people within. The crowd in the cafe hadn't changed much since I'd first sat down several hours earlier. I was particularly enjoying a threesome of twenty-somethings two tables over. Two women and a man.. Supermodel wannabes. Six impossibly long legs were inter-twined beneath the table making it difficult to guess who was with who. Perfect hair, perfect muscle tone, perfect teeth. The pretty people.

At some point during the evening I had noticed a man sitting by himself just behind the glow of these lovelies. He had dark, smoldering eyes, unkempt, nearly black, short hair and a Rupert Everett jaw covered in day-old stubble. I didn't pay attention to what he wore because each time I looked over I was caught in the net of his eyes. He was staring at me as much as I was staring at him. I was sure of it.

It had been a while since I'd had sex, and an even longer while since I'd been picked up in a bar. But the signals were there. Sitting alone.

Nicely groomed (in a rumpled, foreign kind of way). Eye contact. Faraway smiles. The occasional ricking of lips. Oh yeah. Signals galore.

112

Anthony Bidulka

And so the fever began.

Pastis
and beer helped make it clear to me. I was a young, attractive, unattached man sitting in a French cafe near the azure Mediterranean on a beautiful evening smothered in an atmosphere of amour. Why shouldn't I get laid? The game went like this: I would take a sip of my drink; look over at the man as if I'd spotted someone I knew just over his shoulder—try a little smile—then look out at the sea with a thoughtful look on my face. And he would do the same.

Each time I looked over, he looked right back. There was nothing coy about this fella.

After half an hour of this I decided we needed a new game. I was too shy to walk over to his table and obviously he was not the aggressor type either. I paid my bill, which had added up nicely over the course of the evening, stood up, gave him one more meaningful look and left the cafe slowly. I didn't want Mr. Smouldering Eyes having any doubt about which direction I'd taken. I wasn't sure if the rules were the same in this country, but I was fairly confident that, like music, the universal language of cruising would transcend all linguistic and cultural barriers, Sauntering down the well-lit street I kept my pace as slow as I could without actually standing still. I didn't want to appear too obvious.

113

Amuse Bouche

There weren't many people wandering about and most of the shops had closed for the night.

This would make it harder to orchestrate a chance encounter. I couldn't hear any following footsteps and didn't dare turn around. The only way to stop and give him time to catch up was to window shop. Unfortunately, the window I chose was displaying women's shoes. I wondered if they carried size thirteen.

"Monsieur?"
the deep voice said.

I turned around and smiled at Mr.

Smouldering Eyes. At that inopportune moment I remembered I was all talk and no action. What was I thinking?
Pastis.
I'd have to remember that. No more
pastis
for Russell.

Ever! But those eyes, set deep into a dark, masculine face, were so moist they shone.

"Hello."

He talked for about thirty seconds and then looked at me questioningly as if everyone knew Swahili. "Excuse me?"

I think he got the message and slowed down.

"I'm sorry, do you speak French?"

"Yes. But the slow version."

He grinned. Nice teeth. "Good. I speak French and Italian but no English."

"Let's stick to French then," My Italian was non-existent. He had the courage to make the first move by approaching me, so I thought I'd 114

Anthony Bidulka

return the favour and begin the banter. "So, what are you up to tonight?" Classic line.

"Your name is Russell Quant, yes?"

It took me a second to recover. How did this guy know my name? My head was instantly clear and wary. "How did you know that?"

"I've a message for you."

Not again! Let me guess. From Tom Osborn?

"Prom Tom Osborn," he said. I'd have to remember to mention to Alberta that I'd become a psychic. "He asked me to wait for you in the cafe. I could not be absolutely sure whether you were the correct man. I wanted to wait until you left the cafe before approaching you. I did not want a scene."

I wasn't sure I followed his logic, but, whatever. Maybe I was a little more mad at him than I should have been, but this message thing was getting old and Mr. Smouldering Eyes had obviously not been watching me because he found me irresistibly gorgeous. So that was two strikes against him. "What's the message?" I snarled, but, damn it, I was pissed off

Black-haired beauty pulled a scrap of paper from his pants pocket and read somewhat stilt-edly: "Tom Osborn tells me you are to say this to Mr. Chavell. You are to say to Mr. Chavell that there are problems in Tom's life that he is not aware of and he therefore wishes to remain in Amuse Bouche

Europe for now while he considers these problems. You are to say to Mr. Chavell that Tom no longer knows what his feelings for him are and that he needs time to think. You are to say to Mr.

Chavell thai Torn has met some friends and plans to stay with them for the foreseeable future. Mr. Chavell is to stop searching for Tom.

Tom will contact him when he is ready."

Tom had obviously figured out I was a detective hired by Chavell. The message contained a lot of information to digest. What problems?

What friends? "Who are these friends? Who are you? Are you one of these friends?"

"I can't say. I don't know that information."

He seemed confused by my questions.

"Why didn't Tom meet me himself? Why send you? He has no reason to fear me. If he didn't want to return to Canada, there was no way I could force him to."

"I imagine he wanted time to get away."

"From me? Where did he go?"

He shrugged.

"But I represent no harm to him. All Mr.

Chavell wants to know, deserves to know, is why Tom did what he did. You haven't answered that."

"I'm sorry. This is all 1 know."

"Is Tom still in France? Are these new friends of his living in France?"

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Anthony Bidulka

The man stared at me. Surprisingly I got the sense that he was telling the truth. He didn't know much more than he'd already told me.

"Has Tom found a new lover? Is this new friend a lover?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry,
monsieur."

"Is it you?" I was taking a wild stab here.

"Are you his new friend? His new lover?"

"No, no, no. It's not me." He held up his hands as if warding off a blow.

"Then who?" I thought that if I caught him off guard he'd spill something. But he looked at me with those alluring eyes and shook his head again. "Can you get a message to Tom?"

"No. I don't know where he is. I expect to never see him again."

This seemed odd. Who was this guy? "How did you meet Tom in the first place? How did you get involved?"

I could see his eyes dart back and forth and his feet made little movements as if he was preparing to take off in a rush if he needed to.

The intensity of my questioning may have been frightening him. He had that "what have I gotten myself into" look on his face. "It is my job."

"I don't understand."

"It is my job to deliver messages."

I wasn't sure if I understood him correctly.

Was he a courier of some sort or a mailman?

117

Amuse Bouche

"You were paid to deliver this message to me?"

He nodded vigourously. "Yes, yes. That is my job."

So this man didn't know Tom at all. Tom had hired him to wait for me in the cafe. Tom must have gotten enough of a look at me in Cliousclat to give this deliveryman a usable description.

Unless Mr. Smouldering Eyes was lying to me, he wouldn't have any more information than what he'd read off the paper. "Can I see the message?"

BOOK: Amuse Bouche
8.06Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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