It All Began in Monte Carlo (40 page)

She held out her arms and he walked into them.

“What took you so long?” she asked somewhere between laughter and tears, as she had once before, in Monte Carlo. They hugged tightly, as though tomorrow might never come. And this time it almost had not.

 

 

Their host, Mr. Jai Lal, stood discreetly back. Mac looked up and met his eyes, and the man gestured to a small room off the hallway. “You will be private in there,” he said.

Mac swung Sunny up into his arms and carried her into the dim book-lined room, kissing her neck. The familiar scent of her skin was clean in his nostrils, her hair swung back in a glossy fall. The plastic flip-flops fell off as he set her down on the cushioned sofa. There were tears in his eyes.

She put up a finger, moving them away. “Strong men don't cry,” she whispered.

“Oh yes they do when they find the love of their life is still alive, that she has not been murdered and her body thrown by the wayside, that I'm here with her and I'll never let her out of my sight again . . .”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Mac, I'm so sorry, it was so stupid, just stupid pride, showing off, showing you I could be independent.”

“Sunny, Sunny, you are one of the most independent women I have ever met. There's nothing to prove except that you still love me.”

She kissed him, long, lingeringly, her hands in his hair, holding his face to hers. “I'll always love you,” she said, when they came out of the kiss. “I promise I'll never run away again.”

“I need to know what happened.”

His arm was still around her and Sunny rested her head on his
shoulder and told him about Maha and taking the chances life had to offer, and about ferrying the jewels to India. She left nothing out and when she got to the end she said, “So you see, Maha knew that she was being betrayed by Rahm Singh, she knew the men would kill; and she sent that man to get me out of that house.”

“Before they killed you too.”

Sunny looked steadily at him. “Maha saved my life.”

Mac thought about Danielle Soris and Yvonne Elman and the gypsy in the coffinlike Prague apartment, all done up so bravely in pink. He remembered the pools of Rahm Singh's congealed blood, blackish-brown on the pale marble kitchen floor; and the gatekeeper felled by a blow to the head. Who knew how many more had died in this trail of jewel heists and murder?

“She's guilty,” he said, “even though I'm thanking her for protecting you. Maha is guilty.”

“Have the police caught her?”

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

She said, “Jai Lal called the police chief; he told him the whole story and gave him the number of the killer's car. They will be here soon. They will find them. I'll tell them what happened, answer their questions.” Her eyes met Mac's. “I'll never betray Maha though, and she knew that. I don't know where she is, where she went . . . what will become of her. And that's the truth.”

“I know.” Mac understood, too, that Maha had been too smart to tell Sunny. Maha knew exactly what she had to do.

He kissed Sunny some more, then there was a discreet cough from outside.

“Mr. Reilly, Ms. Alvarez, I need to offer you some hospitality, please, before we are invaded by the police.”

Smiling, they got up and walked hand in hand to the door. Mr. Jai Lal beamed up at them.

“Excellent,” he said, turning and leading the way into his drawing room. “Excellent. All is well now. I can tell.”

 

 

Mac shook Jai Lal's hand and thanked him, then their host escorted them to a lovely drawing room where Ron sat on a comfortable divan, his broken leg arranged on an ornate embroidered footstool. Outside, a spraying fountain sent cool drops into the air; goldfish darted in and out of mossy rocks and a gilded aviary held flocks of tiny jewel-colored finches and yellow canaries who sang nonstop. It was, Mac decided, like being in a Bollywood movie. Even his rotund, beaming host seemed like a movie character.

He was wrong. Jai Lal was no Bollywood movie actor. He was a man of education and integrity, who used his wealth to work with the downtrodden and displaced.

Sunny and Mac sat side by side on a gilded brocade sofa, holding hands, with Ron opposite on the green silk divan, and were served iced mango juice in tall cold glasses, and small sweet and spicy cakes while Mr. Lal, sensitive to their situation, filled in the awkward silence by talking to them about himself, while waiting for the police chief to arrive. But what Mac soon realized was that he was really talking about Maha.

“Like Maha,” Lal said, “I lobbied to have the garbage mountains removed, to have the children taken care of; to get them homes and a glimmering of education, so they might at least read and write. And after that? We helped find them work. Even work as a gardener
is good, it is creative, an expression of beauty instead of the degradation they knew. Or a cook. Food is a prideful thing to those who never had enough of it. Or a servant, because polishing floors in a calm cool safe house is better than huddling in alleys praying not to be molested.”

Jai Lal went beyond that. He said that when he was able, he and Maha helped those special children who flourished in school, whose intellect and expectations were not blunted by their surroundings: the dreamers, the artists; the someday intellectuals whose curiosity took them to another realm, enabling them to get into universities on scholarships. It was obvious that Jai Lal was a wonderful man, but Mac needed to know how he knew Maha Mondragon.

“We worked for the same charitable causes,” Lal said. “She's a dedicated woman. You may not know that Maha managed to drag herself up from just such a background. I admire her courage, her fortitude and her morality.”

“But Maha is a jewelry designer,” Mac said. “Where did she get the backing to begin that work?”

“Here, we do not ask those kinds of questions,” Lal replied. “A woman's indiscretions are her own business. It was difficult for her, but when she showed me her first designs, I was able to find funds to help her pursue her work.”

“And then she became successful internationally, and very rich.”

Mr. Lal nodded. “I congratulated her.”

And then the police chief arrived, with an entourage and a lot of questions.

 

 

It was very late when Maha finally came home. The stars were out, diamonds in an ink-blue night sky and far more beautiful, she knew, than any of La Fontaine's gems.

Two policemen stood guard at her front gate but Maha had her own secret entrance, slipping in from the top of the hill, following the narrow stream as it flickered silver over the mossy rocks, pausing in the stillness to savor the night-blooming jasmine that she herself had planted when she first made this place her home.

Where the hill leveled out, there was a small red Chinese-style bridge over the stream, where Maha had liked to stand and watch the tiny green frogs play at the edge of the water; and by the trees hung white wicker cages with their pots of seeds, inviting wild birds into her domain. Maha had no fear, walking softly through the beauty she had created. There were no more snakes in this Garden of Eden. All was peace, here. Now.

She walked around the side of her house, noticing open windows that should have been shut; a light still burning in a hallway, reflecting in the panes. She shrugged, permitting herself a smile. It was no longer her concern.

When she came to the front of the house she stopped to check the driveway. She knew she could not be seen from the gate where the policemen kept guard.

Her cotton sari rustled as she walked across the terrace to the long cobalt-blue pool where the bougainvillea blossoms floated and Mahalakshmi, goddess of wealth and prosperity kept vigil; tall, gilded and brightly painted. In the dead light of night, she almost looked alive.

Maha addressed the goddess.

“It was good, in the beginning,” she said. “Knowing I was clever, cleverer even than the international police. You must remember that when I was a child the police were the enemy, scraping us off the streets and the muck heaps, out of sight, out of mind. But you already know all this. You have followed my every step.”

She sank to the ground, looking at her reflection in the dark blue pool, remembering who she had been and no longer was: the mastermind behind the rash of high-level jewel robberies, the woman with the houses and money, on her way to a legitimate place in society. This was to have been the last robbery. She had decked out her female robbers in expensive furs, and their Marilyn masks. Sharon had recruited them, of course; lawless young women already on the run, eager to make money and then get out. Maha never used the same women twice and they never knew who she was. Sharon kept the chain of potential female thieves waiting to be summoned from Prague or Budapest.

She had met Sharon at a fashion show and Maha had recognized Sharon's craziness immediately. Sharon was unstable, dangerous and game for anything that would make money. And Maha had used her well. It would have been fine if Sharon had not finally lost it and in her rage and hatred attacked the woman in Paris, then killed the woman in Monte Carlo. And murdered the gypsy who had stolen her fur coat and found the diamond in the pocket, then fenced it on to the very man who they used to recut the stones. She had shot her with that Black Rose pistol. How very Sharon. Always stylish.

So many killings, Maha thought, remembering the slums she
had escaped from, where murder was an everyday event. She thought she had escaped that, and now she was back where she began.

She went and knelt in front of the goddess Mahalakshmi. She bowed her head to the ground three times. Then, with one push she toppled the statue into the pool.

There was a great splash, a torrent of water, a cracking sound like that of a cannon.

Maha heard the alarmed cries from the police guards. She looked into the cobalt pool where waves lapped the surface as though in a storm. The statue of the goddess lay, smashed into two pieces on the bottom. Bougainvillea blossoms, coral, fuchsia, orange and white floated over her.

Police sirens screamed once more in the night and Maha turned and made her way quietly back up the hill, slipping out as secretly as she had come.

She did not look back.

 

 

Pru and Eddie were with Allie, at the cottage in the Dordogne, sitting around the kitchen table with the poinsettia in its clay pot, drinking red wine, their latest vintage, and nibbling on pâte and cheeses. A log fire roared in the big old stone grate and the silly Lab, Lovely, sprawled belly up, eyes closed, in front of it. Outside, Christmas lights still twinkled and the January wind howled. Inside all was cozy. Except they were missing a few people.

The beep of the phone made them all jump. Allie leapt to answer it. “Is it them?” Pru asked.

Allie turned to look at her, nodding. She said, “Ron, what's happening? Is Sunny safe? Where are you?”

“Sunny's had a bit of what you might call ‘an adventure,' but she's okay,” Ron said. “She'll tell you the story when she sees you.”

“And when is that?”

“Soon. We're on our way to Prague.”

“
Prague?
What about your leg?”

“It hurts like hell but it's fine. What about yours?”

“I autographed my own cast . . . ‘
All good wishes, Allie Ray,
' ” she said. “Then I added
‘Perrin'
in brackets after it. In purple Sharpie.”

“Glad I was included,” Ron laughed, then he said, “Sweetheart?”

Allie beamed, she liked it when Ron called her “sweetheart.”

“Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Well now, that's a bit rash, isn't it? You don't even know what I'm gonna ask.”

“Oh yes I do.” Allie knew her husband very well. “You're going to ask me to promise never to leave you and run off to India with a bagful of rubies and emeralds so I can prove myself to you.”

Ron laughed. “Got it in one.”

“When will you be back?”

“Tomorrow, day after. Mac has some unfinished business in Prague.”

“Another murder I'm willing to bet.” Allie was apprehensive.

“It's all connected,” Ron said. “We'll meet you in Monte Carlo. As you know, there's also a bit of unfinished business to take care of there. Oh, and Mac says to tell Eddie he has things under control. I'll call you from Prague.”

“Give my love to Sunny.”

Allie replaced the phone and looked at the others, who stared anxiously back.

“Sunny's okay. That's the good news. They'll tell us all about it when they meet us in Monte Carlo. And Eddie, Mac says to tell you to stay cool, he has everything under control. I know that's true,” she added, “because Lev Orenstein has been taking care of things. And Lev is the best. That woman doesn't stand a chance against him.”

She could see Eddie was not convinced, but nevertheless, she fetched a bottle of champagne from the cellar and Eddie cracked it open and they drank a toast. “To Sunny and her safe return,” Pru said, as they raised their glasses.

Alarmed by the pop of the champagne cork, Lovely lumbered to her feet and came and sat closer. She laid her head on Eddie's knee, eyes raised soulfully up at him. He stroked her smooth silly delightful head.

“I might just have to get myself a black Lab,” he said. “Exactly like this one.”

“Good idea.” Pru beamed. It was the first time Eddie had spoken optimistically about the future since they had gotten to the cottage. Kitty Ratte loomed over him like the sword of Damocles, waiting for the thread to be severed and the blade to fall onto his head.

They looked at each other. “Exactly like Lovely,” he said with a grin. “I want one just as daft.” And they all laughed, relieved that Sunny's ordeal was over, and that she was safe.