There's Something About St. Tropez (40 page)

Lev put Sunny on the phone and she told Mac what she had seen. “Krendler walking,” she said. “Like a man risen from the dead.”

“Not quite,” Mac said. “Meanwhile Krendler's plane is in Toulon. He could have caught a shuttle to Nice, easy.”

“Mac?”

“Yeah?”

“He had a greyhound. A brindle. On a leash.”

Lev tapped her on the shoulder. “We have to get out of here.”

Sunny nodded. Sara was already in the backseat, quivering with nerves. Sunny climbed into the driver's seat and Lev shut the door. “Talk to you later,” he said through the window. “Meanwhile I'll get my guys onto Krendler.”

As she drove off Sunny was surprised to find she was trembling. She had never seen Lev in action before and the speed and efficiency with which he had taken charge impressed her. Who knew—maybe he'd even saved Belinda's life. Whatever, it was surely comforting to have him around, and now she couldn't wait to get back to Mac and go over what had happened. Could it really have been Joel Krendler? It had happened so fast, she was no longer sure. After all, it could have just been a look-alike.

But then there was the greyhound, looking exactly like the bronze one in front of Krendler's green marble fireplace. Now that was a fact.

 

55.

 

 

Mac got Ron Perrin on the phone.

“How's the vacation going?” Perrin boomed.

“What vacation? I'm following up one murder, one art theft, one missing woman involved in a rental scam, one attempted abduction and one seriously disabled wheelchair-bound fuckin' billionaire who might or might not have just been spotted walking though Nice airport.”

“Sounds like fun,” Perrin agreed.

Mac heard the grin in his voice and the sound of music in the background. There was a slurping noise and he said suspiciously, “What are you eating?”

“Figs,” Perrin said. “Ripe and just picked from our own tree. The juice is running down my chin.”

It was not an image Mac cared to think about.

“Krendler's the cripple, right?” Perrin did not bother with political correctness.

Mac sighed. “Right.”

“I think I might know somebody, who might know somebody, who knows him. She's an opera singer that my connection's connection happens to be having an affair with.”

“Convoluted,” Mac said doubtfully.

“Pillow talk. Nothing beats that after-sex moment for getting to the truth.”

“I hope you're right. Meanwhile I feel I'm chasing someone who's risen from the dead.”

“Or at least from his couch.”

“A ghost,” Mac said, thinking of Violette and Sunny. “Too many ghosts here in the South of France,” he added and heard Perrin laugh.

“Why don't you just drop the whole thing, get your ass up here to the Dordogne? Nothing but peace and quiet round here.”

“I seem to remember differently.” Mac had memories of the mayhem a couple of years ago when Perrin's movie-star wife had been in danger of losing her life.

“Yeah, well, that's all over with. And remember you and your gorgeous sidekick are always welcome.”

“Thanks, but Sunny wouldn't appreciate being called a sidekick.”

Perrin chuckled. “I'll get onto the Krendler thing,” he said. “Wish you could taste these figs. Be back to you soon.”

Mac waited in the parking lot behind the hotel looking out for the Lancia. When it drove in, fast, he opened the door, helped Belinda out, said a quick thanks to the driver and hurried her in through the kitchen.

“Shit,” Belinda said. “I was having such a good time. All I wanted was my Brit magazines from the airport newsstand.”

“Foolish,” Mac said, tight-lipped. “Don't you get it, Belinda? Jasper Lord is circling St. Tropez in his helicopter, he has thugs everywhere, maybe even in the airport.”

“You think so?” Belinda was scared now, as Mac took her up the back stairs to her room. “What am I going to do?” Her blue eyes beseeched and Mac got over his anger at her recklessness, part of which Sunny was responsible for anyway, for agreeing to take her to the airport.

“We'll figure something out,” he promised, remembering Ron Perrin in the Dordogne.

He put Belinda in her room, told her to stay there, Sara would keep her company when she got back and they could order room service.

“Shit,” Belinda said gloomily again.

“Serves you right. I told you to stick around here and lay low, but you're like a cork in water, always popping to the surface. Please, just stay put until I work something out.”

There was a defeated look in her eyes. “It's all my fault. I should have stayed with the husband, taken my punishment like a good girl.”

“You didn't trade in your self-respect when you married him,” Mac reminded her.

“Right now I'm not so sure.”

Mac watched uncertainly by the door as Belinda flung off her shoes then threw herself onto the bed, the one nearest the window she'd claimed first
dibs on from Sara. He felt sorry for her, a woman who had had everything—and nothing.

“Tell you what, I'll get you a martini. Cheer you up, steady the nerves . . .”

“You turning me into a lush?”

The mischievous twinkle was suddenly back in Belinda's eyes. Mac thought you couldn't keep her down for long. Not unless it was in a coffin you couldn't.

He was laughing as he closed the door. “Back in a minute,” he said.

 

Half an hour later he was sitting with Sunny in the hotel bar. They were drinking ice-cold beers, Kronenbourg, sharp and clean-tasting and a thirst quencher. He listened in silence as Sunny told her story again.

He said, “You know, whatever Krendler's up to, and I don't yet know what it might be, if this really was him at the airport, then he's a very clever man. He's chosen the perfect disguise. A wheelchair. No one would ever think to look for Joel Krendler walking. He's disabled, he's always in that chair, always needing help, even to ring for the butler, or to just sit in the darn thing.”

“Except me. I'd look,” Sunny said. “I saw him, Mac.”

“Okay. Then we'll find out the truth.”

Sunny was watching Laureen and Bertrand walk through the hall. “Look, how cute,” she said.

They disappeared together up the stairs and Mac turned back to look at his woman. “What are we doing for dinner?” he asked.

“Sara's a wreck,” she said.

“I wasn't thinking of asking Sara to dinner.”

“Belinda too. She was really scared.”

“Nor Belinda.”

“So what were you thinking of?”

“You and me. How about room service?”

Sunny thought it was the best idea Mac had had since the Hôtel de Paris.

On their way to their room they passed Bertrand heading downstairs again.

“Oh, hi, Bertrand,” Sunny called. “If you want you could take Pirate for a walk.”

He stopped and actually looked at her, moon-eyed in his glasses instead of skulking past. “I could?”

“Sure.”

Just then Little Laureen came whizzing down. She was holding a pack of
cards in her hand. “Oooh,” she said, when she saw them. “I'm going to teach Bertrand to play poker. Texas Hold 'Em.”

“Make sure she doesn't take you for every cent you've got,” Mac warned as they went on their way.

“Maybe later with the dog, then, Bertrand,” Sunny called. “Or tomorrow's just as good.” She turned for a last glimpse. “Y'know what,” she said to Mac. “I'll bet she knows all Bertrand's secrets by now. Little Laureen's unraveling that boy.”

“I only hope she knows what she's got when he's finally unraveled,” Mac replied.

 

56.

 

 

Laureen and Bertrand went and sat at one of the tables near the bookshelves where all the chess sets and the jigsaw puzzles and the games and DVDs were stored. It was cocktail hour and the bar was buzzing but their end of the big room was quiet.

“I can't stay long.” Laureen hitched herself onto a chair and adjusted her tulle skirt, the raspberry calf-length one, like those worn by the ghostly Wilis in the ballet
Giselle
, now looking distinctly worse for wear but anyhow she still liked it. “Daddy wants to have an early dinner.”

Bertrand nodded but made no comment. Laureen wished she had not said that about having dinner with her father because Bertrand had no one to have dinner with and she felt bad for him. She couldn't ask him to join them though, because she wanted to keep Bertrand separate, to keep him all to herself.

“Bertrand?” she said.

He looked at her, sitting opposite him at the card table. He had never heard his name spoken so many times in his entire life. Little Laureen prefaced everything she said to him with “Bertrand?”

“Yes?”

She shuffled the cards like an expert. He watched, fascinated as they slid silkily through her fingers.

“Do you really think we saw a ghost?”

“Of course not.” Even though he believed they had, he would never admit to such a childish thing. “Everybody knows there's no such thing as ghosts.”

Laureen dealt the cards, cut the rest of the pack and put it between them. She studied her cards, then peeked over at Bertrand's. “You have to go first,” she explained. “Tell me how many cards you want.”

“I don't know. All right, I'll guess. Four.”

“Bertrand?”

“What?”

“If you were the art robbers where would be the best place of all to store the paintings?”

“I don't know.”

“Why not Chez La Violette?”

He looked at her, surprised, and she said, “It's better than a sea cave. No damp and no octopusers.”

“Octopusi,” he said, then thought doubtfully that couldn't be right. “Anyhow, there are no paintings in Chez La Violette.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, last time I was there, there weren't any. But that was before the robbery. Or anyhow on the night the robbery took place.”

Laureen flung her cards triumphantly on the table. “You have to concentrate on this game. It's really easy if you do.”

“How can I concentrate when you keep on talking?”

“I'm only talking about the art robbery. And about our reward,” she added with a hint of longing in her high voice that got to him.

“I
wish
,” he said, throwing his cards on the table.

Laureen stared at them. “Wait a minute. You won.” She beamed, delighted. “Bertrand! You silly thing, you won! I had two fives and two queens. You had three twos.”

Bertrand didn't understand the game and how he'd done it, but he beamed back at her. For a minute they looked like a couple of regular kids enjoying themselves.

Then Laureen said, “I have to go now. I'm having an early dinner with Daddy. I think he'd rather be having dinner with Belinda but she's confined to her room.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know, her husband wants to find her.” She shrugged. “They say he's a bad guy and she has to stay hidden. That's why Daddy stays as close to her as he can.” She eyed Bertrand. “At least that's what he says.” Laureen was only eight years old but she would be a woman someday and was quickly learning the tricks of the trade.

“Okay.” Bertrand knew she would not ask him to join them. Laureen kept her life compartmentalized, as did he. She and he were a separate entity. Together they were one. Apart, they were different people. Still, he was sad to see her go, leaving him at a loose end.

 

57.