It All Began in Monte Carlo (10 page)

Darling Ron Perrin, her husband, who was ready to drop anything and everything to make her happy, to take care of her, to love her. Ronnie was the only man who could make her feel like a girl again, that young girl he had met and helped up the ladder of fame more than twenty years ago. He was a bastard, but she loved him.

Tonight she had called Ronnie who, because his Cessna was undergoing repairs, had immediately chartered a small plane and had them flown directly to Nice. He said it wasn't worth getting the big plane out for such a short trip, though he would if she wanted. Allie hadn't wanted. All she wanted was to get to Sunny as soon as possible. And now here they were, earlier than Sunny expected.

She kept telling herself what had happened couldn't be true; that Sunny would never leave Mac. Mac and Sunny were a pair, a duo, true lovers in the best sense of the word. Sunny was ditzy and funny and clever; she rode a Harley, she had a business degree from Wharton, she ran her own successful PR company. And she loved Mac Reilly to death. Had done since the moment they met at a Malibu party, “eyes across the room,” that sort of thing. And Mac was a goner from that moment. He loved his Sunny, even more than he loved his dog Pirate, and that was saying something. Mac would have died for Sunny, but he would not give up “detecting” or whatever he called it, helping victims, finding killers, reuniting lost souls on his TV show . . . solving crimes that other people had given up on, including in many cases the police. For Mac, that came first, as it always had in his life.

“I think he's a man afraid of commitment,” Allie said to Pru, as they walked out to where several drivers stood holding cards aloft with clients' names written on them.

“Who is?” Pru asked, thankful to have stopped for a minute. She had put on so much weight in the last few months she no longer felt like herself. She was inhabiting somebody else's body. Even her hair did not seem like her own anymore. And her face resembled the full moon she could glimpse outside the glass doors, shining down over the Riviera.

What was she
doing
here in the Riviera? Land of bikinis and babes, hot women and even hotter men? Why hadn't she just told Allie she would stay home and not have to juggle her way through the chic town of Monte Carlo, with only a drab caftan to wear. Even
a nondrab caftan, perhaps soft and velvety, or thin and flowing in gauzy pink lawn or something, would still be a caftan. And she would still be the overweight lump of a friend of the glamorous movie star.

But that was why Pru had called Allie in the first place. She'd known instinctively Allie was the only one who might be able to help her. Allie had always been beautiful, even as a kid in high school she was a knockout. And how Allie had hated all those trashy small-town boys hitting on her, talking about her, saying bad things that Pru had known were lies. Allie was as “pure as the driven snow,” as the saying goes. And then she made a bad marriage to a rich older man, and later, humiliated and saddened, divorced and moved on. “Hopefully,” Pru had said, “to bigger and better.” In Allie's case, after more than a few adversities with her career and men, as well as with Ron, that had come true. Not so, though, for Pru.

“There he is.” Allie waved at the driver holding the card that said P
ERRIN
and the man hurried forward to take their bags. A small one for Allie, a larger one for Pru. Paparazzi flashbulbs went off in their faces and Allie grabbed Pru's hand again and made a run for it.

Pru climbed thankfully into the car, tucking her long skirt underneath her legs, which, oddly, were the only part of her that had remained thin. She still had good legs though now they were hidden, like the rest of her. She hated that red caftan; it was meant to be Christmassy and now it only reminded her of cranberry sauce. And it certainly did not go with her complexion, which had now somehow become too pink.

“Tomorrow, we are going to get you some new clothes,” Allie said, turning to look at her.

“Hah! A horse blanket would be about right I think.”

“At least it'll be a chic horse blanket.” Allie laughed and Pru, always verging on tears of self-pity, found that she was laughing along with her.

Pru rolled down the window and sniffed the air. “I could swear I smell jasmine.”

“You do,” Allie agreed.

Pru sniffed again. “But it's December.”

“And this is Nice, one of the great flower capitals of the world. Stuff grows here that you'd never find in the States at this time of year. Oh, Pru, this place, the Riviera, the Côte d'Azur, whatever name you want to give it, is special. It has a magic that can cure all ills. I swear it can, as they say in the Bible,
restore your soul.
Believe me, Pru, and believe in yourself, because you will leave here a new woman.”

Pru shook her head. She was cautious now. No more flights of fancy for her. Her man had cheated on her, he'd ditched her for another woman; and now she had no hope of finding anybody else to love her, because she was so overweight and unlovable. Oh God, she would never be loved again! Never sleep in a man's arms again, never know the intimacy of a hard body on hers.

“It won't happen,” she said flatly.

“Trust me.” Allie looked at her, without touching. She did not want Pru to burst into tears again. Not now when the car was pulling up in front of the hotel and young men in white uniforms were rushing to open their doors.

“Welcome to Monte Carlo,” the doorman said. “Welcome back, Miss Ray.”

“Madame Perrin.” Smiling, she corrected him. “And thank you.”

There was no need to check in. The manager himself in a black suit and bow tie, came personally to greet Allie.

“We have given you a penthouse suite, Madame Perrin. It's charming, I think you will like it.”

“Why, that's very kind of you.” Allie smiled her thanks. She was still treated as the movie star despite her “retirement” from Hollywood.

“I saw your last movie, the French one,
Les Étrangers sur la Plage.
It was very moving, your performance.”

Allie nodded her thanks again. “I'm so glad you enjoyed it.”

The lavish Sun King penthouse suite was, Pru said, looking around, stunned, magnificent.

“I should travel with you more often,” she said, walking onto the terrace that swept round the corner suite. The insistent sounds of police sirens and ambulances shattered the silence again. The manager apologized.

“Some trouble in Monte Carlo tonight, a robbery at a jewelry store. I'm so sorry, this never happens here.”

“I've been to New York,” Pru said, “I'm used to it.”

But Allie wasn't. Allie was a country girl now, the true country girl she had always wanted to be. She loved the absolute silence of a country night; a silence that, if you stood still and simply listened became full of noises: the rustlings in the grass; the coo of a dove; the wind in the tree, the flutter of leaves spiraling to earth. “The country,” it had turned out, was never truly silent.

Allie asked the manager for Sunny's room number. He gave it to her and he told her that he understood Madame Alvarez was in the bar. “With a companion.”

Allie wondered who the
companion
was? Had Mac beaten her to it? If so then Ron must have told him. Dammit, Ron should
not
have done that. She'd needed to talk to Sunny first; now her chances of finding out the truth would be ruined.

She turned and looked at Pru, still out on the terrace, still in that awful cranberry frock that in fact would have fit a woman twice her size. Pru had brought along a suitcase that Allie knew must contain similar enormous clothes, enough for a month.

She shrugged, she didn't have time to argue clothes right now. “Come on, Pru,” she called. “Powder your nose and comb your hair. And put this on.” She handed her a gossamer shawl, woven of cashmere so fine it must have been made from the combings of the tiniest baby goats, in a pale gray color that Allie hoped would tone down the cranberry caftan and Pru's pink complexion.

“Where are we going?” Pru stared doubtfully at the gray pashmina. She'd hoped for a shower and room service.

“No time to argue,” Allie said, throwing a black cardigan over her T-shirt and buttoning it to the neck. With her blond hair pulled back, black pants and ballerina flats, she looked all of eighteen.

“We're off to the bar.”

 

 

Back at her table in the bar, Maha glanced at her watch, then checked the entrance. A small frown creased her perfect brow. From where she sat she could see part of the foyer, plus the doors to the restaurant, and also keep an eye on Sunny sitting up at the bar with the very attractive man, who's name Maha had found out, was Eduardo Johanssen.

Maha read Sunny's body language perfectly as she leaned into him. Interested, but restrained. She wondered why so restrained, with a man that attractive. Perhaps Eduardo was married and this was a secret assignation, a winter rendezvous, in the South of France. She thought it interesting, but hopefully not interesting enough to ruin her plans for Sunny.

Her assistant, Sharon Barnes stalked into the bar. Sharon was Australian, over six feet in her heels with the striking looks of a model, which she had been at an earlier point in her life. Now, though she was hitting forty. She didn't look it but it was still too old for a model who had never really, or at least only for one season, been the hit of the runway. Since then Sharon had traveled around, working the Eastern European countries, organizing model searches, running her own small agency in Prague. It had not been very successful though, until she had met Maha three years ago.

You could never call Sharon beautiful, not with her strong features, her short buzz cut, and too-long skinny limbs, but she had beautiful eyes, dark green with winging brows.

Sharon cast a glance at Maha and without so much as a hello or a kiss, threw herself into a chair and signaled the waiter. “Scotch,” she barked. “On the rocks. And make it a double.”

Maha said nothing.

Sharon's hand tapped nervously on the chair arm.

Maha said nothing. “So?” Sharon asked finally, one brow raised.

The waiter brought the Scotch and poured more champagne. Champagne was Maha's only addiction. Besides money, of course.

“So. Everything is fine,” Maha said.

“God, I'm dying for a friggin' cigarette.” Sharon threw her head back, an anguished look on her face. Sharon's addictions were quite clear.

“You could always go outside and smoke.”

“You've gotta be kidding.” Sharon took a gulp of the Scotch. “Stand outside, like one of those Russian hookers with skirts up to their bums and no knickers, smoking and eyeing the blokes. I don't think so.”

Maha laughed at her description and her Aussie accent.

“You're always so fuckin' calm and happy,” Sharon grumbled.

Maha adjusted her blue sari over her olive-tan shoulder. “I see nothing to be unhappy about.”

Sharon shifted her handbag and the shopping bag that said
JOSEPH
on it, from her lap to the adjacent chair. “Look what I bought,” she said, fishing out a plain cashmere sweater. “Gray, like these chairs.”

“Interesting,” Maha said, not meaning it and Sharon grinned. Maha was a master of understatement.

“On sale,” she said. “Forty percent off.”

Maha nodded as she raised a welcoming hand to the two men from the previous night, accompanied by a short, brown-haired
woman, expensively dressed and toting an orange Hermès Birkin bag. The men carried her many shopping bags.

“I see that the sales won you over too.” Maha dropped a quick kiss on the woman's powdered cheek, catching the scent of her freshly applied perfume.

“Sales make a good diversion,” she said, embracing Sharon, while the two men shook Maha's hand. They did not kiss her, treating her with respect, as their employer.

“Where did you park?” Maha asked.

“At the Casino,” the tall man said.

Maha watched Sharon, who, giving in to her cigarette addiction, fished a pack and a lighter out of her bag and made for the door.

“I'm joining the hooker brigade,” she called over her shoulder, making Maha laugh and the others stare, astonished.

Then, like the other groups of businessmen in the bar, they leaned their heads together to talk, ironically, considering what was going on just down the street, about the jewelry business, though Maha's jewels were never sold in classic stores like La Fontaine.

Outside, where Sharon was smoking her cigarette, strolling nervously back and forth across the square, the sound of police sirens and ambulances still wailed into the night. After a while, she lit a second cigarette from the stub of the first, told herself she was gonna die of friggin' tobacco-induced lung cancer, added that she didn't give a shit, then shut her eyes and covered her ears to stop the screaming of the sirens in the night.

 

 

There was a police cordon round Nice airport when Mac arrived. Soldiers toting weapons inspected every passenger. Sirens wailed in the distance and helicopters hovered overhead. There was no doubt something was seriously up.

A bank robbery? Mac wondered. But this was one of the safest regions of the world. Surely nobody would attempt such a thing. He thought about it while waiting in line at immigration. It was Christmas, and everybody would have been off guard, celebrating, with the spirit of goodwill in their hearts. Except the bad guys. And bad guys always knew how to take advantage of a slack situation.

“It's a jewel robbery,” someone in front of him said. The rumor spread quickly down the line. “Monte Carlo. One of those expensive shops, like Cartier or Fontaine.”

Interesting, Mac thought, a jewel robbery at Christmas. Somebody was going to get a nice gift. But he was not going to get involved in any robbery, be it bank or jewelry store. He was only here to be with Sunny.