Carnal in Cannes (19 page)

Halting in the doorway, Harry scoped the premises. A futile attempt at classing up the seventeenth-century bricked interior made his eyes wince. Neon signs advertising beer brands were haphazardly clustered on the wall opposite the round table he chose. The angle gave him a clear view of the doorway and the ability to rapid-scan the clientele. A long rectangular bar stained a brownish-black ran the length of the wall to his right. A large mirror separated two sets of shelves, which displayed a variety of scotch and brandy bottles and a half dozen dusty liqueur bottles.

A blinking sign pointed to the alley exit. The wall below displayed gender body outlines, the universal symbols for the male and female facilities. Local residents, a mixture of dockhands, crewmembers, fishermen, and cargo handlers, comprised the bistro"s patrons. He heard mainly French, not a murmur of English, but recognized the harsh guttural going-to-throw-up gurgle of a Germanic dialect, and for the umpteenth time cursed his ineptitude with languages.

Casmir strolled into the dockyard café half an hour after one. Harry had whiled away the time programming Martine"s new iPhone with every blasted number she might need in an emergency in between speed-dialing Austen every ten minutes.

He almost didn"t recognize the Gypsy. Casmir had been more boy than man the last time Harry"d set eyes on him. Not anymore. The unshaven young man who took the seat opposite had eyes of a shade he"d never encountered, eyes the color of a raven"s feathers in the sun, the eyes of a middle-aged man who"d seen too much violence and too much depravity, the kind of eyes that viewed the world and people from a distance. Yet he knew the Gypsy hadn"t seen his twenty-fifth birthday.

“Whatsup?” Casmir made the two words one, slouched into the chair opposite Harry"s, and propped a booted foot on the scratched and gouged seat of the adjacent bench.

“I"m married.” Harry didn"t bother with niceties. “My new wife"s name was Martine Bellamy.” He studied Casmir"s features, his gaze attuned to any nuance, any slight hint that the Gypsy knew Martine"s name. A trained and seasoned 92

Jianne Carlo

interrogator, he knew the signs to expect. The slight shift in gaze, the flicker of a finger, or a change in foot placement. Nada. Casmir didn"t blink an eyelid; not a single muscle twitched; not a single appendage quivered.

“She worked clearing tables at Café Fleur de Lis in the Quartiers Nord. Know of it?” Harry waited to see if Casmir called his bluff.

Casmir"s perpetual brooding expression didn"t morph. “Oui.”

So the Gypsy knew the Fleur de Lis. “Martine rented a room somewhere in the area. I want to see it, and I want to speak to the landlord.”

“It will be double the normal rate.”

Harry had expected a tripling of Casmir"s regular fee. “She entered the country illegally. I need to know where, when, and how, and I want a detailed analysis of her every move since she arrived.”

“That will take time and more money.”

Suppressing an admiring grin, Harry signaled the waiter and pointed to the half-empty beer mug spreading a wide circle of moisture on the knotted, mismatched pine table. “Thirsty?”

A barely perceptible shake of the head was Casmir"s only response.

Harry estimated a full thirty-five seconds elapsed before the other man spoke.

“I will require a significant advance. Three thousand euros.”

“I need the information by end of day tomorrow.”

“Nine thousand euro.”

They haggled back and forth and finally agreed to a non-refundable advance of forty-three hundred euros. As Harry left the tavern, he called Austen again and swore a blue streak when the phone went straight to voice mail. Traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, snarled the narrow cobblestoned streets.

Harry zigzagged through the hordes knowing that he could get back to the
Glory
faster on foot than by cab or bus. Elderly shoppers dragging wire carts packed with paper bags filled with produce and cans, and five-deep throngs of tourists on group walking tours added ten minutes to the twenty he"d anticipated for the return journey.

He reached the
Glory
seething with fury, his hands flexing and curling as he visualized connecting with Austen"s jaw. An angry line of gray clouds gathered above the horizon to the south of Marseille, whipping Harry"s hair to one side and blinding the vision in one eye until he shook his head. Only then did it hit him. He"d forgotten his Stetson this morning. The realization stopped him in his tracks.

Before he could contemplate the significance of the omission, his cell vibrated, the movement so unexpected and so fricking welcome, Harry dug into his front jeans pocket and his scrambling fingers closed around the phone. He snapped the device so hard to his ear that a flame of pain blazed at the impact, but he barked,

“Austen, where the fuck have you been?”

“What"s wrong?” Suresh asked, and Harry wanted to holler in frustration.

Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes

93

Forcing a deep breath, he replied, “When I got back to the
Glory
, Martine was gone, and so was the whole damned crew, including fricking Austen, who was supposed to shadow her if she so much as looked as if she was going to step off the boat.”

“Harry, you"re yelling,” Suresh said, and the shock in his voice made Harry do a mental double take. “I"ve never heard you so much as raise your voice.”

“I don"t suppose you"ve heard from him.” Harry deliberately lowered his voice and didn"t rush the words. He hopped onto the boat.

“Sorry. That would be a negative. I wanted to let you know that Geoff called me a few minutes ago. He"s on the matchmaker as we speak.”

“Finally. Fucking good news.” Harry sagged against the aft railing, scrubbing one hand over his forehead.

“I"ll let you go, then. By the way, I did some preliminary research, and while I can"t be positive because the information is sketchy, it looks like there are only a handful of convents in all of Haiti.”

“Fucking A. Thanks.” He ended the call, his pulse skyrocketing at the news, and he took the stairs three at a time, then marched down the corridor to his stateroom. Although still hoping for a positive outcome, one where Martine was dozing on the bed or lounging on the balcony reading a book, his gut knew what he would find as he swung the door open.

Martine wasn"t on the balcony, but in the bathroom he found evidence she hadn"t left permanently, as the sample hotel soap that smelled of honeysuckle lay in the shower alcove. Harry opened the cabinet below the sink and discovered the small basket woven out of palm leaves, the familiar contents of which started an ache below his breastbone.

She wouldn’t leave these behind.

His brain still needed convincing, so he checked the dresser bottom drawer and sat heavily against the bed frame when he saw her neatly arranged clothes. His knotted tendons stung, and he cricked his neck left, then right. Until his fingers encountered dampness when massaging his trapezius, he hadn"t realized he was sweating.

She’s mine. And any special ops protects his own.

First course of action, find Martine.

Hauling himself to a standing position, Harry froze in place as a faint clanking reached his ears. Nine seconds ticked by, and he heard the muffled sound of footsteps on deck. Sprinting out of the room while thumbing five, Austen"s preprogrammed cell, he burst onto the deck before the first ring tone ended. The layer of the clouds to the south had morphed into a wide, dark band clouding a third of the yellow ball of the sun. Strong gusts slapped the sea against the
Glory’s
hull, and the metal chain connecting boat and dock rattled as choppy waves rocked the yacht.

“Harry? Where the hell have you been?” Austen growled.

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“Where the fricking hell have I been?” Harry rounded the stern and bumped smack into Austen. His phone clattered to the teak flooring as he grabbed Austen"s thick cotton T, hauled the man off his feet by his shirt neck, and asked through gritted teeth, “Where"s Martine?”

“With Yvonne. What the hell"s the matter with you?” Austen shoved Harry hard.

Harry lost his hold, and Austen stumbled but regained his footing quickly.

The adrenaline surging through Harry"s veins boiled, and a red haze fogged his brain. On autopilot his right fist jabbed at Austen"s five-o"clock-shadowed jaw.

Austen ducked, but not in time, and Harry clipped him.

Austen"s cell phone chimed.

Harry followed his jab with an uppercut.

Austen blocked the move with an elbow and punched Harry in the solar plexus.

Harry doubled over, his lungs burning, shards of pain streaming across his belly and chest.

“Hi, doll,” Austen said, his voice a tad uneven. “It appears that Harry"s worried about his wife. I haven"t had a chance to tell him that you persuaded a couple of designers to open early for you and Martine. Tell me you emptied his pockets and bought every haute couture garment in the city—”

The rest of Austen"s words were drowned as a container ship motored through the port, and the ship"s wake caused the
Glory
to bob both sideways and vertically.

Harry"s cell slid across the planked wooden deck to hit one of the railing"s vertical steel bars, and the device bounced back diagonally.

Harry dived to snatch the spiraling phone, and his forefinger connected with the plastic casing. The yacht"s rubber dock bumpers hit the pier, and Harry cursed as the iPhone hovered for tantalizing seconds before plummeting over the edge of the deck. “Fuck,” he growled. “Perfect, simply fucking perfect.”

Dusting his hands off, he rose to his feet and did an about-turn.

“What do you mean?” Austen wasn"t looking at him, and his grip on his cell was white-knuckled. “How long ago?”

Harry grabbed the railings as the boat rocked violently, his gaze never wavering from Austen"s bushy gathered brows and narrowed black eyes. “How far away are you?”

Right then Harry spied a slender, petite female clothed in skin-hugging jeans and a long-sleeved aqua tee weaving through the thinning crowd at the circular entrance to the dock. She wore a long scarf in hues of orange, scarlet, and gold, and the material fluttered on the east-west breeze that ebbed and flowed across the pier.

“I see you,” Austen stated as he met Harry"s gaze. “We"re waiting on deck.” He snapped his phone shut and, fingering the reddening slash near the left corner of Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes

95

his mouth, he muttered, “Yvonne left Martine in the La Canebière district about half an hour ago. She
thought
Martine was headed straight for the
Glory
.”

All the fear he"d discarded when he found her belongings earlier flowed from Harry"s scalp to the toes flexing in his boots, his thoughts tumbling faster than the spring melt-off pounding over the cliffs of Niagara Falls, his gut churning and spiraling as he replayed the events of the last twenty-four hours. Suresh"s insistence that there were too many coincidences leading to him only having one choice of bride pinged and boomeranged to the one inevitable question he didn"t want to contemplate.

Is Martine working for Delora?

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Chapter Ten

Martine ducked and slipped around the corner when she glimpsed Harry leaving Café Diwano, her heart jerking and flailing like a zombie newly arisen from the grave. Uncaring of the fleeting curious glances from passersby, she plastered her body to the cool brick walls. A group of men with grime-streaked cheeks and dirty fingernails shuffled past. Her chest heaved, and her lungs worked overtime sucking in air made malodorous by the smoke from the men"s unfiltered cigarettes.

Two narrow escapes in a row. She drew in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and immediately the vision of this morning when Harry"d almost caught her red-handed replayed in her brain. She"d shoved the envelope and the camera under her jeans and grabbed a lacy, see-through black and scarlet bra and pantie set from the drawer a heartbeat before he burst into the stateroom. He stared at the garments like a man parched from a day in the desert with no water supply.

And fate had been on her side when Austen bellowed for him over the intercom and Harry had to leave. As soon as he stepped off the
Glory
, she"d retrieved her treasures and found better hiding places before grappling with the frustrating contact lenses. The morning spent shopping with Yvonne had been tedious, and when Yvonne"s client called with an emergency, Martine had almost jumped for joy at the opportunity to steal away and make contact with her one friend in France, the man who had rescued her from the cargo ship, the Gypsy, Casmir.

She"d taken a chance coming to Café Diwano knowing that Casmir met with the Gypsy elders weekly here at the one site no one would expect. Counting off seconds sixty at a time, she scrutinized the crowded alleyway, knowing the Bandoleer also frequented this section of the Quartiers Nord. A pair of narrowed eyes the color of moss met hers. She hastily lowered her gaze to the dirt-crusted line between two cobblestones, unable to halt the burst of fear evaporating the saliva in her mouth. She risked a quick side-glance, caught the man"s profile, and her tense shoulder muscles sagged in relief at the male"s unfamiliar features. Not the Bandoleer.

Nibbling on an uneven nail edge, she sidled into the Café Diwano, keeping to the shadows of the gloomy interior. A swift sweeping glance revealed Casmir sitting at an eight-seater rectangular table kitty corner to her position. Long, lean form sprawled on the bench, an elbow propped on his bent knee, the wall lantern on the grimy brick opposite highlighting the blue hints in his shock of unruly black hair, he had his head cocked in a listening position.