It All Began in Monte Carlo (31 page)

“I was going to have it altered,” she said, “but there's nobody here I can trust. It'll just get stolen and sold on. That is how everybody makes money.”

“Stealing,” Mac said.

She slumped back into the chair, wrapping the soft fur around her. The cat came soundlessly running, jumped onto her furry lap,
curled up and tucked its head down to sleep. They looked, Mac thought, like a drawing from a child's storybook. An enchanted waif, a silver cat, a stolen fur coat.

“Where did you get it?”

She glanced at him, shrugged. “It was hanging in a cloakroom in a restaurant. My friend enticed the coat-check woman away, I took the coat. When I got it home—back to the place I was staying—I found something in the pocket.” She looked fearfully at him now. “It was a diamond ring. A large diamond. Yellow, but beautiful. So I sold that on and kept the coat.” She shrugged. “And that's the way it was Mackenzie Reilly. I'm a bad girl, or maybe a good girl gone wrong. Take your pick. But I'm no killer.”

“Who did you sell it to?” he asked, and got no reply.

They sat in silence for a while. The only sound was the cat purring. Outside the sky grew even grayer. Mac wondered how she stood it, confined in this room, jazzed up in pink to make its prisonlike structure more bearable. He wondered about her future.

He said, “Give me the name of the restaurant.” She was silent.

“At least the city.” Silence.

“Is that all you have to tell me?” he asked finally.

“That is all I am
going
to tell you,” she said firmly.

“Then there is more? You know who the coat belonged to, don't you? Whose the diamond ring was?”

Maybe she didn't, but if she would only tell him the name of the restaurant he could check for a reported stolen fur and trace its owner. He was sure the diamond ring was part of the La Fontaine haul in Paris, or the one the day after Christmas in Monte Carlo. He needed to know who she had sold it to.

She got up suddenly, unraveling herself from the fur and the cat. “Take it,” she said, thrusting the coat at him. “I want nothing to do with it. I don't want it anymore. I don't want blood on my hands. I am a thief, Mackenzie, not a killer.”

He took the coat, folded it carefully. It was soft as silk, delicate
as the woman who was gazing at him now, tears oozing from her waif's gray eyes.

“Goodbye, Mackenzie,” she said, striding to the door and holding it open. “Do not ask any more questions. Do not come and see me again.”

He took his own coat, felt in his pocket for his business card; gave it to her as he walked past her. She leaned into him and quickly kissed his cheek. “You smell good,” she said.

And then the door slammed behind him and he was out in the chandeliered hallway, out into the dark gray street.

He needed a drink.

 

 

Mac was not the kind of guy who spent a lot of time in bars, other than for work. They were not his milieu; he would rather be on his Malibu deck overlooking the Pacific than any bar in the world. Wasn't that almost a Humphrey Bogart quote?
Casablanca
?

He couldn't get the pathetic young gypsy out of his head; her pointed little face, her scraped-together lifestyle, the beautiful cat who was so like her. A pair of gray little waifs, beaten down by life. No wonder the cat spat and hissed. So did the girl.

He had to walk for a long time before he found a cab; there were not too many of them in the grim district where the gypsy lived. When he finally hailed one at a busy intersection, he gave the driver the name of his hotel, then asked him to wait. He went inside, collected his stuff, paid his bill, got back in the cab. He couldn't stand the dingy place anymore, it was as claustrophobic as her pink apartment.

He had the cab drop him a couple of blocks away. He needed air; he needed to walk. She was still on his mind; vulnerable, vivid.
Pathos
was the word he felt was needed to describe her. Carrying his small bag and with the fur coat tucked under his arm, he found a café. Golden light spilled from its large windows onto the cobbled street. Like a Van Gogh painting, he thought, as if he had stepped back into a different century.

He took a seat inside the glassed-in terrace and put his bag on the chair next to him, folded the mink and placed it carefully on top. The waiter was young, decent-looking, serious about his job. “Sir?” he said.

“A double brandy. Rémy please, if you have it.”

“Certainly, sir.” The waiter waited, pencil poised over his little pad, eyebrows raised in a question. “And for
madame
?”

Mac stared blankly at him.
“Madame?”

The waiter gestured at the coat. “Another brandy, perhaps.”

Mac understood. “Thank you, no. There is no
madame.
”

The young waiter was embarrassed. “I'm sorry, sir, I just thought . . . with the fur . . .”

“It's not a problem,” Mac said, though it was indeed a problem and right now he did not know what to do.

He thought the Inspector was correct and gypsy Valeria would be in danger if she talked. He almost regretted going to see her. What if the people she was afraid of, the dealers to whom, he was sure, she had fenced the yellow diamond ring, which he was also sure came from La Fontaine's collection, thought she had talked?

He downed half the brandy in one gulp, shuddering as it seethed down his throat, savoring the after-sweetness. Then he dialed the Inspector.

He answered on the first ring. “So?” he said.

“So I met the gypsy.”

“And?”

“She's merely a small cog in a big wheel, a by-chance thief who stole too much. It all got too big for her. That's my opinion.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The fur coat she was flashing when you took her in for questioning was stolen by her from a restaurant coat-check.”

“Which restaurant?”

“She wouldn't tell.”

The Inspector sighed.

“It was either in Monte Carlo, or Paris though, because in the
pocket was a diamond ring. A yellow diamond. Large, she told me. I'm willing to bet it was one of La Fontaine's.”

“I'll have a check run on which city she was working in, though I'm guessing it was Paris, after the La Fontaine robbery. After all, she had to have time to go back to Prague and sell on the ring. Then she came to Monte Carlo to spend the money. And wear the fur. Flashy, was how I would describe her.”

How strange, Mac thought. She was in fact so pathetic, so easily knocked off her high new-moneyed perch. “I'll bet she blew it all,” he said. “And I'll bet she didn't get that much for it either. She would have gone to one of the smaller guys in the chain, he would have smelled its true value from twenty paces and cheated her, made money on it himself.”

“What about the fur?”

“Haven't had a chance to check it yet, except for the pockets. Nothing there. And there's no label. I'll take a proper look when I get to the hotel.”

“Which hotel?”

Mac thought about it, surprised. Then he said, “The Four Seasons.” He'd had enough of lousy hotels, seedy apartments and the unattractive end of Prague.

He told the Inspector he would call him when he'd had a chance to check out the coat properly, then he called the Four Seasons and booked a room.

Sitting in the café, he chose something simple, and leaving the rest of the brandy, ordered a bottle of wine. It was local, the waiter told him. Who knew the Czech Republic had vineyards? He must remember to tell Ron about that. Mac was a bit of a wine connoisseur and was pleased when the wine turned out to be pleasant and aromatic. Relaxing, he tried once more to call Sunny. The phone's ring sounded as though it was in outer space.

Frustrated and worried, he ate the pork dish which was braised with vegetables, a hearty peasant dish for a cold Prague evening. In fact darkness had closed in. It was already night.

A cab took him to the hotel where he inspected his room, then took a shower, washing away the debris of a bad day. He wished he had never come to Prague. He tried Sunny again. No answer.

The mink coat was on the chair where he'd thrown it when he came in. Now he picked it up, ran his hands over the soft skins, pliable as a bolt of satin. It was a very expensive coat; anyone legitimately losing it, or having it stolen from a restaurant, would certainly have reported it to the police. He thought about the robbers, three smart women with their blond hair, their Marilyn masks and their long fur coats. And the diamond in the pocket.

He took the fur and pulled the sleeves inside out, felt them carefully, looking for a maker's name or initials in the silk lining. There was nothing, nor was there an owner's name embroidered inside, as was usual in a custom coat like this. He spread the fur on the bed, ran the flat of his hand over the lining, found a small pocket inside, fastened with a tiny jeweled button. Nothing there. But there was another pocket beneath it, a mere slit, edged discreetly with fine silk, a secret pocket meant, he guessed, to hold nothing more than a credit card or a hundred-dollar bill for those emergencies when a woman needed taxi fare. He put his fingers inside, still nothing. Wait though. His fingers closed over a piece of plastic.

It was one of those fancy business cards. Thin, opaque, off-white printed designer-style, in pale gray so you could hardly read it.

But Mac did.
SHARON BARNES
, it said.
THE BARNES MODEL AGENCY
. There was an address in Old Town, Prague.

Mac turned the card over and over in his fingers. He knew the name but could not remember where he had heard it before. One thing he knew, though, he would be visiting Sharon Barnes at her model agency the very next morning.

He decided not to call the Inspector again tonight and called Sunny again instead. Of course she did not answer and Mac fell asleep, still worrying about her.

Barefoot female servants, heads meekly bowed, waited for Sunny in the vast cool hall of Maha's house, hands clasped in front of them, wearing silky red tops that came down to their knees over the usual narrow cotton pants. Their hair was shiny, black, braided into a thick plait, tucked with a colorful blossom. Cool dark eyes surveyed her as Rahm Singh introduced her.

“You will take the
madama
to her room,” Rahm Singh commanded. “Show her everything.”

They lifted their heads and looked up at her; lamplight fell on their faces and Sunny choked back a gasp. Thick raised scars ran down the sides of their cheeks.

Seeing her shocked expression Rahm Singh explained. “The Mondragon took these women away from the slums where they were mistreated. She gave them a better life.”

He indicated that Sunny should follow them, then left.

The three slender women led her down a hallway to the back of the house, passing a room that seemed geared to entertaining, with divans and silk-shaded lamps dotted around its vast space. The tall windows were uncurtained and Mumbai sparkled like La Fontaine's diamonds in the distance. A room to the right held a dining table that Sunny guessed would seat at least twenty, with silver urns of
flowers set atop it and brocade-covered chairs around it. Beautiful carpets gleamed under the softly shaded lamps, in the gentle colors of old-style vegetable dyes, some intricately patterned; some telling a story; some modern and muted, and all beautiful.

The hallway led into a small library where unread books bound in leather lined floor-to-ceiling shelves and deep modern chairs were placed around small tables, with magazines and silver and crystal boxes of sweets and nuts. Beyond that, a garden room, light-heartedly furnished in wicker and English flowered chintzes, led out onto a flagged terrace with giant tubs of hibiscus and jacaranda and mimosa, the low walls aclimb with brilliant bougainvillea.

Sunny's room was down the corridor, past the library, in the guest wing. Double doors opened onto it and stepping through them she seemed to step into another world: a silken, brocaded, softly carpeted, marble-floored haven of multihued luxury; soft, cool and inviting after the long plane ride.

The four-poster bed, reached by a flight of five tiny steps, was huge and puffy and draped in white muslin. A white sofa and chairs were grouped around a coffee table, holding an old stone trough of gardenias. A table under one of the tall French windows was set for one with lovely dishes and exquisite antique silverware, a remnant, Sunny felt sure, of the days of the British Raj, and that had probably belonged to some important lady, maybe even the governor's lady. Curtains fell onto the floor in a heap of fuchsia silk; the carpets were also silken in turquoise and cobalt and cream and taupe; the paintings on the yellow-lacquered walls were modern Indian, bravura strokes of color; and the green-onyx bathroom, the color of a mermaid's lair, was so big Sunny thought she could get lost in it.

No time for getting lost, though. One of the women was already running a bath, spilling in handfuls of salts and pouring in sweet-smelling oil, while another folded towels and placed them on the edge of the circular tub, along with cakes of geranium soap and bath gels and lotions, scattering pink rose petals on the greenish water.
The third unpacked Sunny's small bag, taking away the crumpled clothes to be pressed, folding the T-shirt Sunny slept in, and arranging it on the bed, plumping up the pillows. Silent. Intense. And never a smile.

There was a knock on the door. Standing in the middle of all the splendor, Sunny called out to come in. Rahm Singh entered. He bowed and said he trusted everything was well, and that
madama
—as he called her—had everything she needed.

“What more can I want?” Sunny asked, smiling because he was so serious. “This is the best hotel I've ever stayed in.”

“The Mondragon wishes for everything to be correct,” he said stiffly. “After
madama
takes her bath and is comfortable, it is proposed that you be served dinner.”