From Barcelona, with Love (14 page)

“I know a member of that family,” Lev said. “Socialite, great looking, a bit crazy. I bump into her in odd corners of the world.”

“That would be Jassy,” Mac said.

“Right. Jassy.”

“She's Paloma's aunt. She's looked after her since Bibi left.”

“What about the grandmother? The Matriarch. I hear she's a force to be reckoned with.”

“So far it's just Jassy. I don't know anything about the Matriarch.”

“Okay, I've got to get on this plane. Ms. Hot-to-trot Carole is getting irritable because her security is missing. Like I only have three other guys surrounding her. You couldn't get to Carole if you brought in the cavalry. So, what d'you want me to do?”

“Use your contacts, ask around, especially in Europe. Bibi has to have left a trail. And my guess is if she's still alive, she won't be too far away from her kid. She was a good mother, she'd be concerned, be looking out for her child.”

“Got it,” Lev said.

Mac nodded. Lev knew every underworld contact, as well as the top social ones. He would not let him down.

 

Chapter 19

The next phone call
came from the Ravel family lawyers in Barcelona and took Mac by surprise. The man introduced himself as Felix Montrin, then got right down to business.

“The Ravel family Matriarch personally asked me to get in touch with you, Mr. Reilly. She is aware of your reputation as an investigator. She needs help. This whole family needs help, especially the child. And here's why.”

Montrin outlined the situation with Peretti. “He's not even a
blood
relative,” he said, in his somber perfectly English-accented voice. “The man is only after her money. So you see, Mr. Reilly,” he concluded, “why this family now asks for your help. You are there, in Los Angeles, where the ‘events' took place. And you see that now,” he added, “it's essential Bibi be found.…”

Again the dreaded words “dead or alive” hung silently in the airwaves.

“I'm already making inquiries,” Mac told Montrin. “I'll get back to you when I have something to discuss.”

There was silence for a few seconds then Montrin said, in the tone of a man unhappy with what he had to do, “Mr. Reilly, the Matriarch would like to meet with you personally.”

“In the hopes of persuading me to take on the case?”

“Probably.” Señor Montrin was deadly serious. “I have taken the liberty of booking you a first-class seat on the Delta flight leaving for Barcelona on Monday. You have a suite at the Méridien hotel, where I am sure you will be most comfortable. The Marquesa de Ravel asks only for a fraction of your time. One day, in fact. You are booked on a return flight Wednesday. And of course, should you agree to take on this case, the Marquesa asks me to tell you that your fee will be whatever amount
you
stipulate. The Marquesa
insisted
I tell you, Mr. Reilly, whatever figure
you
suggest, she will agree.”

Mac said, “The Marquesa is very trusting, but I'm not in the habit of stiffing old ladies and children out of their inheritance.”

He heard Señor Montrin's answering sigh. The lawyer was obviously not happy with his client's open-ended financial offer but had no choice but to go along with it.

“Can I assume you will be on the Delta flight Monday, Mr. Reilly?”

The man was talking about tomorrow! Mac thought about Sunny and their vacation plans. Rogue River? Mauritius? But he'd only be gone a couple of days and anyhow Sunny was up in Napa. Remembering Paloma's frightened brown eyes, he told Montrin he could assume he'd be on that flight.

Barcelona beckoned.

First though, he would go meet the villain of the piece. The ex-husband, ex-stepfather, Bruno Peretti.

 

Chapter 20

Palm Springs, California

Melvyn's is the kind of
old-fashioned watering hole patronized over the years by a multitude of stars: Sinatra and his Rat Pack, Tony Curtis, Rita Hayworth, John Wayne, Tracy and Hepburn, Garbo and Dalí. Tom Cruise, Madonna, Trump, and Travolta. Like that. It's still buzzing with stardom today, thanks to the owner, your host, Mel Haber, who knows how to keep his customers happy and constantly laughing.

His small hotel in Palm Springs is known as the Ingleside Inn and has traditional bungalows with green lawns and a multitude of flowers. The food is also traditional, and good, and who knows, you could still be sitting next to that movie star or celebrity at the long dark bar, where they know a good bourbon from an indifferent one, and the waiters have been there forever and a day, and will be there forever after, because surely there is a Melvyn's in heaven.

Mac knew the place from way back, before he was
Malibu Mysteries
and was just another private eye on the scent of a trail of wrongdoing. After all, the desert is a big empty space with plenty of room for trashed weapons and hidden corpses, though now it's mostly rolling green golf courses and coral-roofed houses half hidden under tumbles of vivid bougainvillea, with smiling retirees happy to have left winter back in Minnesota or Alberta. There were still, though, Mac noted appreciatively, sitting up at the bar, a lot of good-looking women around. Women with tanned legs and long hair, keeping a keen eye out for that rich older guy on the prowl for a new lease on life.

Mac had already scouted out Bruno Peretti's house, located at the very end of a narrow road that wound round the foot of a mountain, emerging into a plateau with a view of the dark valley floor atwinkle with lights, and a sky that matched. The desert had its own clear-eyed beauty, still innocent after all these years of being hit on by developers and tourists.

Mac got out of his car and took the time to breathe deeply. The night air was warm in his lungs, with a velvety texture on his skin that sent a shiver of pleasure through him. He wished Sunny could be with him, but she was still in Napa sipping wine and no doubt being chatted up by rich vintners.

He looked at Peretti's house. A blank wall faced the sandy street, sand-colored too, and low enough for Mac to see over it without making an effort. He leaned against the car, arms folded over his chest, taking in the scene. It was very quiet. Not even a car or a dog's bark. There were other houses farther back down the road but Peretti's stood alone in a fair-sized bit of land. A long, narrow lap pool gleamed turquoise to the left of the main building, which was classic mid-century modern, low-slung and with a lot of plate-glass windows. A large sign over the wrought-iron gate warned visitors to beware of the dog, and as if to clarify that threat, a large wooden kennel, the size of a big kid's playhouse, occupied the space next to the front door, over which a spherical amber lamp glowed. A light also shone from the windows on either side of what Mac took to be the hall, and in another room which fronted, he guessed, onto the pool area. Maybe Bruno Peretti was home after all.

He walked across to the gate, put his thumb on the electronic buzzer and left it there. No one inside picked up the answer-phone demanding angrily to know what the fuck he thought he was doing. No dog barked. Mac checked the security camera aimed right at him, and the sign that said this property was guarded. There was nothing to be gained for him here; he needed the man himself. He needed to ask him a certain question, the answer to which—or merely his reaction to it—would give Mac a clue as to where exactly Peretti stood in this case.

And that's why he ended up at Melvyn's where, those in the know had told him, Peretti could be found six nights out of seven. Nobody seemed to know what Perreti did on the seventh night but Mac was pretty sure he wasn't just resting on the Sabbath and dedicating himself to God.

He realized his informants were correct about Peretti and Melvyn's when he spotted the Rottweiler-type dog sitting in a silver Corvette, its snout stuck out the open window, tongue lolling and a nasty look in its red-rimmed eye. He asked the valet-parker about it and was told that Mr. Peretti always parked his own car because the dog was trouble and nobody would go near it.

“I'll bet,” Mac said, carefully skirting the parked Corvette and walking under the small arched awning and through Melvyn's welcoming doors.

The dining room to the right was almost full, not bad for notoriously slow Sunday nights, and the bar was doing good business. Peretti was there, a martini glass in front of him. The seats on either side were taken and Mac stood in back of him, waved a hand at the barkeep, and ordered a Diet Coke. He never drank on the job. At the far end of the bar was a small dance floor where a couple of gals gyrated slowly to the music from the local piano man, who Mac thought played a good tune. He'd always liked a bar with a guy who sang and played, it brought things up a notch from just a place to down a drink after a long day.

Hearing Mac's Diet Coke order, Peretti turned his head slightly. He glanced at him out the corner of his eye, then went back to his drink.

The light was dim, the wooden counter sufficiently old to have a history, and the black-and-white autographed glossies of four decades of movie stars glimmered with memories. Mac thought this would be a nice place to bring Sunny some weekend when they could both shake free.

Talking of free: the blonde with the oversized behind outlined in tight yellow capri pants got up from the stool next to Peretti, collected her friend, and departed. All Mac had to do was slide into that still-warm seat. He did not like the way it felt and wished he were somewhere else. Then he thought of Paloma de Ravel's troubled eyes and remembered he was not on vacation.

“How're y'doing?” he asked Peretti, raising his glass to ask for another Diet Coke.

“Good.”

Mac wondered how it was possible that a single word could have an Italian accent.

Peretti hadn't asked, but anyway Mac said, “Me too.”

Peretti stared face-forward at the bar.

“Nice place they've got here,” Mac pressed on.

“It is popular.”

The shrug that accompanied these words was Italian too, a contemptuous lift of a shoulder, a curl of the lip.

The barkeep noted Peretti's almost empty glass and without asking mixed him a fresh martini: Bombay with a lick of vermouth, straight up, two olives.

Peretti lifted the glass and looked at Mac. “
Salute,
Diet Coke,” he said, with a glint of mockery in his narrow light eyes, whose color Mac couldn't quite define in bar gloom. Peretti fished out the olives and placed them on a saucer, then took a hearty gulp of almost pure gin, throwing back his head and sighing.

Mac thought it must have hit him like a bolt of lightning. He remembered the Corvette parked outside and wondered if Mr. Peretti intended to drive home, up that winding sandy road with the valley all atwinkle on his right and a mountain looming on his left. He kinda hoped the dog could drive.

Peretti was staring straight ahead at the bar again. “I know who you are,” he said, without looking at Mac.

Mac nodded. “And I know who you are. So I guess there's no need for introductions.”

From his black linen shirt pocket, Peretti took a bunch of notes folded into a silver money clip, removed a fifty, and slapped it on the counter. “I'll bet fifty I also know why you're here.”

Mac said, “'Fraid I'm not a betting man, especially when the odds are stacked. And since you know why I'm here, maybe you can help me out with some info. Like why all of a sudden you want custody of the stepdaughter you gave up two years ago.”

Color crept into Peretti's handsome face, with the hard chiseled cheekbones and the same dangerous look in his eyes as his Rottweiler-type dog. It was the only sign that he was rattled. He did not down his drink and snarl at Mac, he simply said, “Since you seem to know all about my business, Mr. Reilly, there's really no need for any discussion.”

Mac shrugged too, copying Peretti's contemptuous little lift of the shoulder. “What I really wanted to know, Peretti, was whether you murdered your wife's lover? Or was it really just a slip of the brakes?”

In one quick move Peretti rose from his bar stool and punched Mac, who, for once taken by surprise, slid to the floor, while the bartender yelled at them and the other patrons backed off in alarm. And then the waiters came running and so did the Palm Springs cops.

*   *   *

“And that was
sort of that, for the night,” Mac told Sunny, on the phone, driving back to L.A. in the dark, with the windmills sucking up that desert air at the side of the 101, and with a black eye and a jaw that hurt like hell. “Well, almost,” he added, thinking of the phone call from the Ravel family lawyer he had received earlier.

“That guy can surely pack a punch,” he said, touching his face tenderly. But Sunny only laughed.

“I'll kiss it better when I get home,” she said.

Mac put on his indicator and changed lanes to get away from the trucks that seemed to take up the entire freeway at night. “And when will that be?” He had a good reason for asking.

“Oh, Monday night, I guess.”

“That's too late,” he said.

“Too late for what?” She sounded puzzled.

“Too late because by then I'll be in Barcelona.”

 

Chapter 21

Napa Valley, California

When Mac called her,
Sunny was lying in bed in a small green and white room at a little inn someone had recommended and that, surprisingly, had turned out to be charming. For once she had left Tesoro home. Actually she'd left her at the beach house to be looked after by Roddy. Outside her glass doors was a balcony that overlooked a grassy slope with a chinaberry tree tossing in the freshly-up night wind and an almost full moon lighting the backdrop. Even though Sunny had left the curtains open because of this enchanted view, she could not see it because she was wearing a cashmere eye mask, as well as the matching cashmere bed socks.
Pink,
for God's sake, a Christmas gift bought by the currently unemployed actor in Rome, when he'd been flush from a small role in a Cinecittà epic, when he'd worn a toga and breastplate, as well as a sinister frown that he'd complained later needed Botox injections to remove the almost permanent creases. He'd even questioned whether or not he could charge the movie production company for the shots and had been quite miffed by Sunny's laughter.