It All Began in Monte Carlo (41 page)

Sharon was sitting behind her desk with the light behind her. Blue smoke from her Gauloise swirled around her elegantly cropped head. She glanced up as Mac Reilly walked into her office without so much as a knock. He took a seat and she stared at him across the table. Her face was expressionless.

Mac thought she was a cool customer. He didn't quite know how he was going to pull this off because he still did not have any direct evidence that tied her to the murders. He was betting though, that there was a Kahr Black Rose pistol in that big old iron safe. Along with some of Maha's blood money.

“It's over, Sharon,” he said. “Maha has gone.”

She shrugged. “It's not important to me.”

“Of course, now it's not. You got what you wanted.”

She gave him that mocking little half laugh. “If you will excuse me, I have clients coming. I must ask you to leave.”

Mac's phone rang. He flipped it open. “Yes?” he said. A woman answered. “Mac Reilly, this is Danielle Soris. Do you remember me?”

“How could I ever forget,” Mac said. He heard her laugh.

“I have something to tell you. Something I remembered, about the woman . . .” she hesitated again, obviously upset, then continued. “The woman who damaged my face.”

There was a long pause while Mac thought she seemed to be trying to gather her emotions. He waited.

Then she said, “The robber was looking at me from behind that mask . . . I could only see her eyes. They were very beautiful, an unusual color. Dark green. She stared at me for that long moment, that
long
,
long
moment, before . . . before it happened.”

Mac said, “Danielle, you have no idea how wonderful you are. I'll call you back later.”

He sat back in his chair and looked into Sharon Barnes's dark green eyes. Very unusual. Very beautiful. He had his witness.

“Sharon,” he said, “I think I'm going to have the police arrest you for the murder of Yvonne Elman and Valeria Vinskaya.”

Sharon twisted her cigarette viciously in the porcelain ashtray. She gave a derisive snort “Of course you're not. I'm not involved with those women. I don't even know them.”

“But one of them, the one you didn't manage to kill, knows you. She will identify you.”

Shocked, Sharon pushed back her chair. It hit the window with a thunk that rattled the glass. “This is ridiculous. I'm calling my lawyer. All I can tell you is that I worked for Maha Mondragon, arranging models to show her work.”

“You worked for Maha procuring women from the Balkans to act as rich fur-coated robbers in jewelry heists organized by Maha. How much did she pay you, Sharon, to act as her first lieutenant? Enough, I'm guessing, for you to retire from the procuring business, like right now.”

He caught the sudden fear in her eyes, those big beautiful green eyes. He had his witness now. He was home free.

Sharon said, “Get out of my office. I'm going to see my attorney.” She flounced to the door. Mac followed.

They stared hard at each other. She looked away first, turning to lock the office door, shrugging on her heavy coat. Not a fur but a good Hermès hooded cashmere, loose and flowing. Her boots came over her knees and had very high heels.

She clomped down the stairs, ignoring the elevator. Mac knew she was afraid to be trapped in there with him, waiting for the police to come.

Outside, he walked two paces behind her, speaking on the phone first to the Inspector in Monte Carlo telling him the Paris woman could identify Sharon, and that he was following Sharon now. The Inspector said he would contact the Prague police immediately.

Sharon strode down the cobbled street, stumbling every now and again in her heels. She knew Mac was right behind her. When she heard the wail of police sirens she began to run, clumsy in the high boots.

She made for the bridge, saw it was crowded, veered down a side street. Running, running . . . Chunks of ice bobbed in the river, heading toward the bridge in the opposite direction from her. She was heading away from it, away from them, out into the suburban wilds where she might be able to get lost, and where her money was stashed in a safe deposit box in a small bank, along with the diamonds she had stolen from Maha.

The path by the river became narrower. She could hear Mac running steadily behind her, the sirens coming closer. Desperate, she swung round to confront him.

Mac had been wrong. The Black Rose was not in the safe. It was in Sharon's hand and it was pointing at him.

“It's too late, Sharon,” he called. “Besides, you're too far away to get me.”

She knew he was right; the small pistol had a good range but he was a moving target and now he was moving away from her. She heard the police sirens wail to a stop, the slamming of car doors, the sound of running feet. She swung round again, slipped, lost her footing in the treacherous heels.

Mac saw her skid off the path and down the bank into the river. It was half-frozen and there was hardly a splash. He ran toward where she had disappeared. There was no sign of her.

The cops were there now, guns drawn. They stood, staring down into the black water. Suddenly her head popped up near the bridge. And then she was swept into the ice crushers that kept the arches holding up the ancient bridge safe. But not Sharon.

 

 

Lev Orenstein was more used to high-level security detail than playing the detective, but when he heard who the intended blackmail victim was, he agreed to do it. Rich powerful men like Eddie Johanssen, with families to protect, were exactly the type of client he was used to. Not that he had met Eddie, he had no need to. Mac had filled him in on the story and Lev had in his possession the manila envelope with Kitty Ratte's sex photos and the original blackmail note.

Tall, whippet-thin with the shoulders of a halfback and a full six-pack of abs, bald as a coot, black aviators propped on his chiseled nose, and wearing a Tommy Bahama flowered shirt, Lev was not easily overlooked. Trained in the Israeli army intelligence, he was the best at his job, as his clients would have testified had they not been required to keep their identities secret.

Now though, he had donned a disguise; a waiter's uniform; black pants, white jacket, white shirt, black bow tie. Lev had been following Kitty Ratte for a couple of days while Mac was in India. He had got her routine down pat. She would emerge from the small garden apartment around four in the afternoon, drive to her usual café in a Cannes backstreet where the food was cheap, take her time over the burger she seemed to always favor, clenching it in two
hands the way the slobs in those TV ads did. Except this was a woman pretending to be a lady and she should have known better. Lev had come to the conclusion that whenever Kitty thought herself unobserved, she reverted to who she really was.

And who she was had not been that difficult to find out. Lev knew all about her past, and the identity of her “lover,” though knowing their scene, Lev doubted Jimmy Franklyn was really her “lover.” Jimmy was a voyeur; he got off on watching Kitty making out on the floor of swingers' clubs with other guys. Or other women. Kitty wasn't fussy.

Lev, however, had not enjoyed the brief glimpse he'd had of these activities, with men in leather masks with slits for eyes and mouths; with handcuffs and whips and dildos. Kitty and Jimmy belonged to that base world, each enjoying it in their own way, and though distasteful to Lev, it was not illegal. However, Kitty's other activities were.

He'd observed Kitty hanging out at bars along the coast, hitting the grander hotels where rich folk stayed, but with the young, attractive Russian hookers thronging the resort, she did not have much luck. Mostly, her clients came from the ads in the local newspaper . . .
Sexy Russian redhead ready to do your bidding
. . . That sort of thing.

Lev had followed her to various hotels, the big anonymous kind where middle-class businessmen on the loose at conventions stayed. Twice at one hotel on the same afternoon with different partners, and three times at another.

Kitty obviously did not realize that she was caught on camera every time she entered the lobby of one of those hotels carrying her little overnight bag. She did not realize that the camera caught her entering the elevator, nor did she know she was caught walking down the corridor, checking room numbers, stopping and knocking on a door, then entering. A hour or two later, she was caught again, coming out of the room, getting back into the elevator, with
her little overnight bag, walking through the lobby and out to the car park. Kitty Ratte was caught on the hotels' cameras, but Lev needed more than that. He wanted evidence on his own camera. He already had room-service bills and waiters who reported seeing her shoes tossed next to the bed while she waited in the bathroom. Room-service waiters had quick eyes, they knew the scene, remembered things.

Tonight Lev had bribed the floor waiter and dressed in his white jacket, he waited for the usual summons for room service. He was in luck. The call came for a pastrami sandwich on rye, a Heineken and a Red Bull.

Ten minutes later, Lev was knocking on the door. The man who opened it was wearing shorts and a turquoise polo shirt. He was older, and Lev thought he looked tired.

“Put it down here,” the man said, moving Kitty's open overnight bag from the coffee table. Inside it, Lev caught a glimpse of leopard-print underwear, a blue vibrator, bottles of oils and lubricants.

He put down the tray and offered the man his bill, then standing behind him he took out his tiny camera and clicked silently: the overnight bag, and its contents; the messed-up bed; the pair of Louboutins next to it where she had flung them off. He could hear her lurking in the bathroom, not wanting to be seen, and while the man tried to make sense of the deliberately wrong bill, Lev slid silently over there, and through the crack in the half-open door, caught her clearly as she changed back into her street clothes, looking at herself in the mirror. The picture would be a good one.

Lev was back before the guy even knew what had happened. “Sorry about the bill, sir,” he said. “I will get it taken care of at once.”

He closed the door behind him, pleased. Okay, it was a small thing, but now he had evidence that Kitty Ratte was also a prostitute. Lev wanted all the ammunition he could get in case it ever came up in court, in the blackmail cases. Not the one involving Eddie Johanssen. Lev had taken care of that, and the video cam and
its photos. Eddie's name would never come into it. But more importantly, what he had traced were two other unfortunate men involved with Kitty.

Back on the floor, Lev thanked the waiter, handed over some money and made his way down the back stairs, avoiding the security cameras. He had all he needed. This would be an open-and-shut case.

 

 

Monte Carlo was pleasant in the late evening sunlight, trees dappling the sidewalks, lights beginning to go on in the cafés and boutiques, a pesky little wind ruffling hair and skirts, as Mac and Sunny walked hand in hand (as if, Sunny thought with a pang, she would ever let go of Mac's hand ever again) along the harbor, admiring the big yachts and the even bigger yachts moored out past the harbor and the cruise ships beyond them.

“Boats into infinity,” she said, matching her stride to his long one.

“A city built on boats,” he agreed. “A would-be Venice.”

“I like it,” Sunny said.

“Me too.”

The wind whipped up and they turned and made their way back to the hotel where they had arranged to meet Ron in the bar. And Lev. And Allie and Pru and Eddie, who would arrive any minute now. Sunny was impatient to see them. And her Chihuahua.

“I miss Pirate too,” she said.

Mac groaned. “Don't even talk about it.” He loved that dog. His long-time assistant Roddy was dog-sitting at the Malibu house and Pirate was in safe hands.

The doorman knew them now and he smiled and saluted as they walked into the lobby and on into the bar.

Sunny remembered that first night, Christmas Day night, when she had been alone and had met Maha, and Kitty Ratte. She had been brought up to date on Kitty's activities and the blackmail plot, and her disgust and anger choked her as she thought about it. Poor sweet Eddie would never have met the woman if it had not been for her, and now look what a fix he was in. Maha had seen through Kitty immediately though; she had looked at Kitty and seen corruption, seen evil in her bland smiling face.

Ron was already there, sitting at a table, crutches propped against a chair. “Just checking out the competition,” he said with a grin, indicating his glass of red wine. “And anyhow where the hell is my wife?”

“Flying commercial.” Mac grinned back. “That's what happens, Ron. Flying commercial you're always late. You've just forgotten, that's all.”

“Hah!” Ron knew it was true but he couldn't wait to get his arms around his woman. “There's Lev Orenstein,” he said, as the unmistakable tall figure in a Hawaiian-print Tommy Bahama shirt and narrow jeans loped to the bar and took a seat. Ron glanced at Mac. “Aren't we speaking to him?”

“Let's wait and see.” Mac sat down and ordered a Cosmo for Sunny, not too sweet, Grey Goose vodka and very cold. He also ordered a bottle of rosé, her favorite wine from last summer in St. Tropez. Their eyes were on Lev, who was propping up the bar, one elbow on the counter, the fingers of his right hand linked casually through his belt, one foot crossed over the other. Calm, cool.

“Here come our drinks,” Mac said, moving Sunny's little faux-snakeskin handbag out of the way so the waiter could set the drinks down on the table.

“Well,” Ron said, eyeing the two; so serene, so goddamn happy. “Well,” he said again, “I have to confess there were moments when I thought I would never be lucky enough to see this again. The two of you together. First when you ran away, Sunny, and then when you nearly got yourself murdered.”