There's Something About St. Tropez (12 page)

Sunny wore white shorts and a red T-shirt, her long dark hair was tied back with a red silk scarf and there were large gold hoops in her ears.

“You belong in St. Tropez,” Mac said admiring her and nuzzling her cheek. She smelled of some old-fashioned perfume, Mitsouko he remembered, spicy and sweet at the same time, and her skin was velvet under his lips.

“You look pretty good yourself,” Sunny said, thinking that in fact Mac looked exactly like himself in his usual Malibu day attire of shorts, favorite old T-shirt—this one faded after many washings from black to gray—dark hair rumpled, blue eyes narrowed in appreciation. She twirled the pink diamond ring. “Don't forget you asked me to marry you.”

“And
why
would I forget? Hey, maybe we could ask a captain on one of these fancy yachts to do the honors? That's legal, isn't it?”

“Only if you're at sea.” Sunny knew all the facts about getting married.

She gazed at the yachts being scrubbed down solicitously by what she noticed were very able-bodied young crew members.

The white Bentley convertible screeched to a sudden halt in front of the café and Belinda leaned her blond head out. “Hi,” she yelled.

Heads lifted from newspapers and croissants stopped halfway to mouths as the customers took a look.

“Hope we're not late. I'll find somewhere to park this and we'll be right with you.”

With a casual wave of the hand, she made an illegal left turn, almost colliding with a car coming out of the narrow one-way street. She gave its driver the finger and Sunny caught a glimpse of Sara sitting bolt upright, eyes wide with terror as, with another nonchalant wave, Belinda swerved again, then sped off down the port, only this time, thank God, in the right direction.

The coffee arrived, steaming hot and darkly rich in thick white cups, along with a basket of croissants and a bowl of water for the dogs, just as the red Hummer sauntered slowly past with Billy still in his cowboy hat at the wheel, and Little Laureen, a blur of orange tulle beside him. After them came the yellow Ducati with Nate Masterson, stunning in skintight Tour de France yellow and black Lycra with a yellow-striped black helmet and large goggles.

“Exactly like a bumblebee,” Mac said with a grin.

It was ten more minutes before all the Misfits finally straggled into the café, grumbling about the lack of parking space in St. Tropez.

“What do you care?” Sunny exclaimed. “Take a look at where you are. Look at the view, take in those multimillion-dollar boats, the port, the clear blue sky. Feel the sun warming you, smell the aroma of good French coffee, just taste these croissants . . .”

Belinda pulled back a red chair and plumped into it. “You should have been a poet, girl,” she said to Sunny. Pulling off the small crusty bit at the end of croissant, she bit into it. “Mmmmm, heaven,” she sighed. “Why could I never get a croissant like this when I had a private chef and a houseboy to serve me breakfast? I think I'm learning how to live again.”

“That's not a bad idea.” Nate took off his helmet and goggles, then put on a pair of large sunglasses, the kind that changed intensity depending on the light.

A cautious guy, Mac thought, watching him; the kind of man who thinks out his moves before making them. Unlike Belinda, who was impetuous and probably foolhardy, and was very likely in deep trouble with the dangerous Russian husband.

Little Laureen had taken the seat next to Sunny. She leaned over to pat Tesoro. Her father sat down next to her and Sara took the final red chair next to him.

Waiting till last, Mac observed of Sara: never quite sure of herself, always worried that she might not be welcome. He wondered if she had anything to say for herself now that the boyfriend affair was over. Or was she as dull as she seemed?

They had yet to see Billy without his hat. Mac thought it might be a disguise, it shaded Billy's eyes and hid the way he really looked, as well as his thoughts.

Billy called the waiter over. “Decaf everyone?” he asked.

“Oh for God's sake,” Sunny said. “This is
France
. Have the real thing. Enjoy yourself.”

“Y'think so?” Billy looked doubtful. “I mean, it'll be all right?”

“You can go back on the decaf when you get home,” Belinda said. “Meanwhile, what's Little Laureen going to have?”

“Pancakes, please.” Little Laureen spoke up. “I mean,
Crépes, s'il vous plaît
,” she said to the waiter, who smiled at the odd little girl in her ballet frock and princess tiara and promised to see what he could do.

Laureen carried her wand today. She placed it carefully on the table, smoothing it with stubby fingers. Sunny noticed her bitten nails. She felt sorry for her.

The coffee came quickly: cappuccino for Sara; triple espresso for Belinda; café crème for Nate and regular black for Billy. “Tastes better than the local brew,” he admitted, drinking it down fast and signaling for a second cup. “Mind you, they're a bit short on quantity. I mean, why don't they give you a nice tall mug?”

“A Venti, like at Starbucks,” Sara agreed, sipping the cappuccino and getting a milky mustache that she seemed unaware of.

The noisy
blah blah
of police sirens cut through the quiet morning, and Sara gave a panicked little shriek as three police cars, lights flashing, zoomed along the port.

“Cops,” Billy said, seeming surprised to find them in St. Tropez.

“
Les flics,
” Little Laureen corrected him, smoothing her wand.

“Mais la petite est correct.”
The waiter smiled benignly at her.
“Les flics
—the cops.” He set the dish of crepes on the table.
“Eh bien, mademoiselle, vouz parlez bien français.”

“Merci, monsieur.”
Laureen stared doubtfully at the crepes. They were wafer thin and sprinkled with lemon juice and sugar. “Are these French pancakes?” she asked in English.

“Mais, bien sûr, ma petite. Tu ne les aime pas?”
The waiter looked troubled.

“I'll try,” Laureen conceded, though there was a worried crease between her brows. She missed the maple syrup.

“What's with the cops?” Belinda asked the waiter.

“Ah,
madame
, it's the robberies. Another took place night before last, the night of the big storm. It was not discovered until now, and this time there has been a murder.”

Sunny could almost see Mac's ears perk up. “Oh, no,” she groaned. “You promised!”

But Mac still couldn't resist asking the waiter where the crime had taken place and if he knew what had been stolen.

“It was in Ramatuelle,
monsieur
. And it's the same as before. Artworks. The expensive kind collectors like to spend their money on. There have been five robberies along the coast now, and all of them seem to have taken place when the owners were away.”

“But surely they had excellent security?”

“
Mais bien sûr
, of course, but somehow the alarms seemed to be turned off and the staff away for the night. It is very suspicious I think.”

“I think you're right,” Mac agreed, with a grin. “You might even call it ‘a pattern.' ”

“None of our business,” Sunny said firmly.

“
Les crêpes sont bonnes,”
Little Laureen said to the waiter.

Billy beamed proudly at her. “See, Little Laureen, after a month you'll be speaking like a native.”

“And maybe after a month Mac can get us our money back from Madame Lariot,” Belinda said, helping herself to a second croissant and thinking the hell with the diet. So what if she couldn't get into the new Chanel? She wasn't likely to be going anywhere fancy in the near future. She signaled the waiter for more coffee.

Mac leaned his elbows on the table, catching their eyes, letting them know this was business.

“Okay, so I went to see Madame Lariot yesterday. Of course she was no longer at that address.”

“She'd flown the coop,” Sunny butted in.

“As expected,” Mac agreed, going on to tell them about the Office for Rent sign and the information the rental agent had given him.

“My assistant tracked down the address of the bank in Cannes. The account had been closed.”

“Of course it had,” Nate said impatiently, as though events were not going fast enough for him.

“A question,” Mac said. “Are you all prepared to go to the police about this?”

“Are you out of your head?” Belinda dropped the croissant, shocked. “The Russian will find me in a minute if I go to the cops.”

“He's hardly likely to miss you sitting in the Sénéquier in St. Tropez and driving that bloody great Bentley,” Sunny said.

“True.” Belinda sank back into the narrow red chair, worried. “But, hell, I can't hide all my life, can I? I mean, I've got to get on with things . . .”

“But no police?” Mac asked.

She shook her short-cropped blond head. “Definitely no police.”

“What about you, Nate?”

Nate took off his refractive sunglasses. His eyes met Mac's. “I'd rather lose the money than go to the cops and deprive Mr. Private Investigator here of the chance to solve the crime.”

Mac shrugged. Nate was obviously challenging him, but he merely said, “Then I'll do my best,” noticing that Nate had turned to smile at Sunny. He guessed he had competition on his hands as well as a crime.

“And you, Billy?”

“I'm with the others. I'd rather lose the money than mess with French cops.
Les flics
,” he added, giving his daughter's shoulder a conspiratorial squeeze. He said, “See honey, I caught on to the lingo.”

Laureen blushed, her father embarrassed her. She had not finished her pancakes.

“So it's agreed we all go along with whatever Mac decides to do,” Nate said.

“I'm just grateful you found the Hôtel des Rêves,” Billy agreed.

“And maybe the hotel's name will turn out to be true.” Sara spoke up for
the first time, surprising them. Suddenly her eyes bugged even wider. “Oh, no!” she cried.

Sunny followed her gaze to the man already pushing his way through the tables. He was good-looking if you liked that sort of thing: the too-long black hair slicked back Euro-trash style; the extra-large sunglasses with the big D & G logo on the sides; the linen shirt half-unbuttoned to show his suntanned chest; the large gold watch; the white loafers; the faded jeans.

Belinda said, “I can tell the breed at thirty paces. The guy's a shit.”

He stalked up to Sara and put a hand heavily on her shoulder.

“Bitch,” he hissed. “I saw you, driving around in that white Bentley. Who the fuck d'you think you are? Humiliating me in front of everybody. Do you know I had to leave the ship, thrown off by the fuckin' captain . . . said he wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior on his ship? Well fuck him, and fuck you, Sara. You're not gonna get away so easily, trust me. I'll get you for this, you skinny little bitch. It's the last time you'll do this to me. Get it?
The last time, Sara
. Next time you see me you'll wish you never had.”

Mac got up. He removed the fiancé's hand from Sara's shoulder. “I heard that,” he said. “And so did the others. We are what's known as ‘witnesses,' my friend. And let me tell you the St. Tropez cops will not take kindly to men who threaten women.”

“Les flics,”
Little Laureen corrected him.

“Fuck off, all of you.” The fiancé had a snarl on his swarthy face that Sunny thought was decidedly not attractive.

“Time for you to leave,” Mac said. Billy got up, they each grabbed an elbow and marched the fiancé out of the café, watched delightedly by the waiters and the other customers.

Belinda saw the tears rolling down Sara's face. “Oh get over it, woman,” she said, exasperated. “Don't you see he's not worth it. None of 'em are,” she added, signaling the waiter for another triple espresso, her third this morning. She caught Sunny's amazed look and said, “How the hell else am I to get through the day?”

Sunny went and sat next to Sara. She offered her a Kleenex and said comfortingly, “Trust me, he's not worth a single tear.”

“But I'm so humiliated,” Sara wailed.

“How can you be?” Little Laureen said. “He curses. He's a nasty person.”

Belinda smiled. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she quoted, just as Mac and Billy returned.

“I doubt he'll be bothering you again, Sara,” Mac said.

“No siree,” Billy added with a smug grin.

Nate turned away, embarrassed by Sara's tears. “So? Is this meeting over?”

“Not quite,” Mac said. “I found the Paris address for Chez La Violette's owner. Since there's a chance he's involved with Madame Lariot, I thought I'd go there, find out what's going on.”

Sunny groaned, seeing her St. Tropez vacation disappearing, but then Mac said, “How'd you fancy a romantic night in Paris?” And this time she smiled.

“You're a trouper, dude,” Billy said. “I for one surely appreciate it.” He flashed Nate a meaningful glance.

Nate frowned but also said a grudging thanks.

“And you might as well use my plane,” Billy added. “It's sitting right there now, at Nice airport. All I have to do is call my captain and tell him to prepare for takeoff to Paris, and to look after my friend.”

Mac said, “Thanks, Billy. I really appreciate that.”

“And I certainly appreciate what you're doing, Mac,” Belinda added. She surveyed the table. “Meeting over?”

“Finis,”
Little Laureen, the French speaker, said.

“Then Sara and I have a little shopping to do,” Belinda decided. “After all, a woman can't go round looking the way you do, Sara, and hope to attract the right sort of man, now can she?”