18mm Blues (37 page)

“Now,” William said, “what's your problem?”

Grady related, with as little breath as he was being allowed, the run-in he'd had on the river, how it had caused him to lose the rubies. He didn't repeat the accusation that William had been behind it because, now, as the account of it came out, that reasoning deserted him. He tried to convey that with his eyes, and when, after a deciding moment, William smiled a little, Grady knew he was going to be let off without having to apologize outright. William released him and he got up. They walked over to the Porsche and leaned against the driver's side.

“What made you think I had something to do with it?” William asked.

“I ran down the possibilities and you came to the top.”

“That's insulting. I should have broken your arm.”

“Someone set me up, someone at your factory maybe, one of your cutters.”

William doubted that. “Finished goods leave my place practically every day, so why hasn't it happened before?”

Grady thought it probably had, said so.

“It would have gotten back to me,” William contended. “Sure, people sometimes get harrassed on the river, but not hijacked. In my opinion what you were up against was a couple of free-lance bullies,
farang
assholes out for the pleasure of scaring.”

“Scaring shit, they killed the water taxi guy, point-blank killed him. And they took at least fifty shots at Julia and me.”

“They might have been on drugs.”

“The universal excuse.”

“What makes you so sure those guys even knew you had the rubies? Did they say or do anything to indicate that?”

“Not really.”

“The fact is they didn't jump aboard the taxi or even try.”

“No.”

“And, bottom line, they didn't steal the stones,
you
lost them.”

That was true, that bottom line, Grady admitted to himself. He'd been in need of someone to blame other than himself. His inward-aimed anger had turned and burst out and in its place now was regret and embarrassment. “Christ, you threw me ten feet like I was a featherweight. I should know better than to mess with a puny Oriental.”

“Half Oriental, or I could have thrown you twenty. I'm sorry about your suit.”

Grady took stock of it. The cream linen was badly grass stained at the knees and elbows. “How'll I explain? Think they'll believe I tripped over a sprinkler?”

“Looks more like you've tripped between some hot Thai girl's legs.”

“Does, doesn't it?” Grady smirked.

“I phoned your hotel and was told you'd checked out. I thought you'd left for San Francisco. Is Julia here with you?”

“We're houseguests. Do you know Kumura?”

“By reputation, of course. What business he and I have done in the past has been through one of his middlemen. This time he was in too much of a rush to be bothered with that sort of arrangement, so I volunteered personally to make delivery. In return he insisted I stay over, at the very least for dinner.”

“Oh, so you're the sixth I've been wondering about. Great! C'mon, help me find an aloe vera.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The table was brought out and placed in the inner courtyard, and because of the antique pavers there, the unevenness of them, the servants had to place wedges beneath the legs to make it steady.

That was always a problem when Lesage decided the inner courtyard was where he wanted dinner served. It took two servants over an hour to get the table so it didn't wobble, and while they were at it they risked mumbling how unreasonable it was that Lesage hadn't chosen elsewhere for dinner, such as the smooth-surfaced loggia or the balcony outside his second-floor study, two places he more occasionally favored.

It wasn't that Lesage didn't have a proper dining room and a fine mahogany table that could seat fourteen roomily and eighteen with only cozy squeezing. In fact, the dining room was where he'd usually eaten with or without guests—before Paulette came upon his scene to suggest he be not so conforming in that regard and, as well, in numerous other ways. “Give in to whim,” Paulette advised, “you'll be surprised what you can get away with and the
puissance
you'll feel.”

This night was a good example of how much to heart Lesage had taken Paulette's advice. He couldn't have been more vague about what time dinner would be, simply because he wasn't of a mind to be precise. “Possibly around nine or perhaps later” was what he'd told his majordomo. He'd also expressed his preference of which silver service he wanted used, then changed his mind from the Christofle to the Puiforcat to the Buccellati, and the crystal from the Baccarat
Harcourt
to the Saint Louis to the Waterford, merely to give his prerogative a little exercise.

Now it was ten-thirty. The table was set and the three Thai servants who would do the immediate attending had been standing by, practically stock still, since eight. Their lower legs were burning and they were close to giving in to a relieving few minutes of sitting on the edge of the courtyard fountain. They'd tried chants and meditations and appeals to various good-natured spirits. They'd even tried willing desensitization of their bodies from the hips down by disregarding all else but the music that was emanating from the house—alternate five-minute, transition-free segments of Debussy and Reba McEntire.

One reason for the late dinner was that Lesage had had a substantial cheese and charcuterie snack around six o'clock, and his appetite was only now approaching the outskirts of hunger. Also, he was getting more enjoyment than usual out of showing what he owned.

The evening had started at nine in the salon with a decreed choice of cocktails. Scotches and sodas and vodkas on the rocks and such were disallowed. More
divertissant
to begin with sidecars, daiquiris, Lesage said, and recommended the martinis, which he personally concocted, calling attention to the dribble of cognac that went first into the glass and was swirled therein vigorously so it coated the inside before the pouring. He insisted Grady and Julia sip a taste, awaited their approval. Grady, out of spite, nearly scrunched his face and declared it tasted god-awful. But it didn't and he didn't and Lesage martinis (as Lesage called them) were what he and Julia chose to have.

As for Lesage's house, Julia's blasé response earlier on when Grady had asked about it had been way off. The house was every square foot prime Mizner, exquisitely detailed with difficult graceful arches, groin-vaulted ceilings and other features. It was a good third again the size of Kumura's house and more intensely decorated. Not with a mere introduction of elegance here and there, rather a crowding of it throughout, many things competing for admiration. Who, for instance, could decide that Regency console over there was less deserving than the pair of Meissen yellowground chinoiserie vases placed on its
brèche d'alep
marble top, or more to be appreciated than the Louis Quinze ormolu two-light
bras de lumière
that were flanking a George II giltwood mirror? Were not that pair of Gaillard tabourets worthy of four hundred dollar a yard silk? And in the same seating area, the two matching
fauteuils à la reine
miraculously rescued with petit point upholstery intact from the ravages of the revolution.

“Those
fauteuils
are signed Jean Avisse, 1745,” Lesage mentioned, just mentioned as though it might, just might be of some interest. Years ago, before Paulette, he'd crowed those same words.

Kumura lingered in the salon while Lesage nonchalantly guided Grady, Julia and William through the ground floor areas. Lesage was particularly
dégagé
when they were in the gallery. With the merest lift of his well-bred chin or with a single slight flourish of his peasantlike hands he presented the paintings he was most proud of, making remarks he'd practiced and had down pat by now. “That's a fair enough Degas” and “Tissot always painted women seated, didn't he?” and “I'm a bit taken by Boldini, as you can gather” and then a contemplative gaze at a Fantin-Latour still life of nasturtiums before remarking as though alone, “I'm not altogether sure of this one now that I've had it hanging for three months. I might replace it with a fine Bouguereau or a Draper. I'm becoming partial to fin de siècle. Are you familiar with Herbert Draper?”

Grady deferred to Julia who deferred to William so no one replied. What shit, Grady thought and believed Julia was probably reading his mind and agreeing from the way she sneaked him a wink.

Lesage proceeded down the long gallery, passing a couple of lovely Boldinis and a Matisse without so much as a glance. He didn't pause or suggest that everyone go out and be seated at the dinner table, just continued at his meandering pace out the french doors that gave to the courtyard, assuming they'd all follow.

Which they did and were made to stand around a long moment while Lesage decided on the seating arrangement. He chose to have Julia on his right next to William next to Kumura next to Paulette next to Grady, thus putting the latter on his left. As they were about to be seated Paulette asked William if he'd mind exchanging places with her. William did mind, preferred being next to Julia but he could hardly refuse. Paulette offered no reason for wanting the exchange and Lesage suddenly let it be known he couldn't care less where anyone sat.
“Commencez.”
he impatiently ordered the overseeing majordomo.

The table was round so it had no head, but there was no doubt, however, who was presiding. Throughout the hors d'oeuvre (a
fois gras en terrine
) it was Lesage who began and terminated the topics of conversation.

At one point a contribution by Julia happened to contain the word
cathedral
.

Paulette jumped right on that, submitted that she and Lesage had first met at a cathedral in Senlis. Everyone, of course, was familiar with the town of Senlis, in Oise, thirty miles north of Paris.

“Oh, that Senlis,” Grady remarked wryly.

Paulette went right on like a
Guide Michelin
informing that at one time besides the cathedral there were three other churches in Senlis, so many because of the abundance of good hard stone available nearby. But now the three other churches, despite their religious structure, were a market, a cinema and a garage. Their crypts had become furniture shops. Come to think of it, Paulette said, it hadn't been in the cathedral that she'd first met Daniel, rather in the church now a market. He, so outstanding, too distinguished-looking for the place, buying four bunches of white breakfast radishes because, as he told her later when they were seated in his Rolls chomping and chatting, he'd suddenly had a craving for fresh radishes on his drive back to Paris from Deauville. She'd suggested then that the craving had been divinely instigated. She still thought so, she said.

Where, Julia thought, would be the next place they supposedly met? This Senlis version was the fourth she'd heard from Paulette. Initially there'd been the one at 165 miles per hour. Then, divulged in spectacular detail, it had been in the warm conducive mud of Montecatini. Followed by the hot, chance encounter during the Royal Club Gold Tournament at Evian-les-Bains. And now radishes. Was the marquise a diagnosable dingbat? Julia wondered. Or was it only that she found it amusing to create contradictions and quandary? Considering it through the lace of three martinis on an empty stomach, Julia gave Paulette the benefit of the doubt, decided the obvious fibs were intentionally obvious, indicative of Paulette's vagarious spirit, one of her ways of combating ennui. Choose what you prefer to believe, not everything I tell you, was Paulette's caution. Not bad.

Julia stole a glance at her. Got caught, but exonerated herself with a neutral smile. Paulette retaliated with a conspiratorial one. Julia took notice again of Paulette's left hand. A ring on each finger and, as well, the thumb. “Poor is not being able to afford an affectation,” Paulette had said that afternoon. The stones of the rings were all precious and large. Adjuncts to the claws, Julia thought, like the spurs of a rooster.

Throughout the first course (a cold, creamy potage crécy stylishly served to each place in an individual Limoges tureen) the conversation lagged and raced, hopped and limped along. The factions had no mutual acquaintances to discuss, so for ammunition they resorted to famous persons, motion picture stars, politicians and the like. Those were good for a quarter hour. Then it was on with a stumble to the greenhouse effect, life on other planets, the population explosion, fur coats versus live animals, Lesage's account of a perilous Viet Nam war experience (embellished greatly since it was first told, and by now, for Paulette and more so for Kumura, a stale story they both tried to interrupt and sidetrack).

William's participation in the table talk was sparse. He didn't initiate any subject, limited himself to concurring phrases.

Kumura provided fuel every so often but didn't pour it on.

Grady, who'd also had three martinis and was two goblets into the wine, thought of a lot of comments he wanted to slip in, but kept most of them, especially those that were too sharp or acidic, to himself. He couldn't hold back, however, when Lesage boasted how one of his gardeners had clipped a yew into the likeness of a dog.

“What kind of dog?” Grady asked.

“Just a dog.”

“A regular dog is easy. Have him do a breed.”

“Yeah, a Shar Pei,” Julia put in.

Lesage thought he should laugh, so he did. He cut the laugh abruptly, as though a portcullis in his throat had just dropped, and went back to sliding small bits of his portion of the
gigot farci
. He ate overproperly, held his knife as if it were a delicate tool, cut with just the tip of it and never stabbed with his fork, used the back of its tines for transport.

“I understand you're an artist,” he said to Julia, not bringing his eyes to her until the statement was out.