There's Something About St. Tropez (39 page)

Nate took a deep breath. Malcolm had somehow gotten to the essence of where he was at. He took a last swallow of the Vieux Télégraphe. He would remember that taste forever. “Let's go take a look,” he said.

 

53.

 

 

Sunny was on her way to Nice and the newspaper archives. She had left with Belinda and Sara, via the kitchen door, with Belinda disguised in long baggy linen pants and a pink gingham shirt with a matching bandanna tied over her short blond hair. With the de rigueur large dark glasses, she now looked like Bardot in the fifties.

“Cute,” Belinda decided, inspecting herself in the car mirror. “This may be my new look.”

“I like it more than the old one,” Sara said.

Sunny was driving the silver rental Peugeot with Sara beside her, holding Tesoro. Belinda was in the backseat and grumbling about it, saying her legs were too long.

“Suffer in silence,” Sunny warned. “At least I got you out of the hotel, or you'd be sitting in your room watching French television and wishing you'd never left San Remo.”

“Wishing I'd never left the husband? Hah! I don't think so.”

Belinda turned to look out the back window. Lev was right behind them. “That Lev sure knows what he's doing, I've never felt so safe in my life.”

“Is Lev there?” Sara craned her neck.

“Why? You interested in him?”

Sara blushed. “Of course not, he's just . . . well, nice, that's all.”

“And cute!” Belinda was laughing at her, but in a nice way.

“Anyhow, I think he likes you,” Sunny said, negotiating the roundabout and heading out on the road that led to the autoroute. “He always has that special smile for you.”

“You think so?” Sara's blushes were mixed with a smile now. “You know that song he's always kind of humming”—she hummed a few bars—“he said he doesn't know what it is but it's stuck in his head. Well,
I
know.”

“Is that right?” Belinda's eyes met Sunny's in the rearview mirror. “And what is it, Sara?”

Sara shook her head. “I'm going to tell Lev next time I see him.” Then she said, “Oooh,” with a frightened glance past Sunny, out of the driver's window. “Oooh, that's where it happened, that's where they almost got me—”

“Okay, okay, it's all right now, just don't let yourself dwell on it, don't go back there.” Belinda leaned forward and patted the back of Sara's head sympathetically. “Gosh, Sara,” she said, quickly changing the subject. “You know you have the most wonderful hair. You really should let me cut it for you, get rid of all that weight hanging around your face. We can hardly see you as it is.”

Sunny took a quick look at Sara. “She's right, y'know, you could do to show your pretty face more.”

“Hardly ‘pretty.' ”

“Are you mad, girl?” Belinda laughed. “You're downright gorgeous, or you could be if you'd let me get my scissors onto you.”

“I'll think about it.” Sara wasn't about to be parted from her face-sheltering hair so fast. It was like the arms she folded over her chest; it protected her.

“Anyway,” Sunny changed the subject. “This is the reason we're going to the newspaper archives.” She took the gold signet ring from her pocket and handed it to Sara, who inspected it closely.

“It's a checkerboard shield with an eagle and a fox and a monogram.” She tried it on. “It's too big.”

Belinda took it from her. “It had to have belonged to a man. It's kind of an upper thing, you know, aristocrats, they always wear them on the pinky. Prince Charles wears one.”

“So you think this belonged to an aristocrat?”

“I'd be willing to bet on it. You can check the heraldry, they can find out whose crest it is. But anyhow I don't think it's English.”

Sunny said, “I'll bet it must have belonged to Violette's German lover.”

“She had a lover?”

“She did, and half her age.”

“Lucky her,” Belinda said. “So that's what we're researching at the newspaper archive?”

“I want anything I can find on her, and him. But first we need to know his name.”

“Violette will tell you. If he's her lover she will have written to him and saved his letters to her,” Sara said. Sometimes she seemed wise beyond her years.

An hour later they were inspecting microfilm and dusty papers, deep beneath the streets of Nice. There were old playbills from the Casino announcing personal appearances by La Violette, with pictures of her gorgeously gowned by Schiaparelli and Lanvin, and always holding a bunch of violets to her face.

“Parma violets,” Sara said. “White ones. She always carried them or wore them pinned to her suit because of her name.”

“How do you know that?” They looked at her amazed.

“It says so right here.”

They hung over her shoulder and read the newspaper story.

“La Violette resembles her namesake flowers,” it said. “With her wide violet-color eyes and the scent that always surrounds her, made from the precious and most costly white violets from Parma, a scent that is made only for her. It precedes her into a room, soft and delicate as the woman is tall and beautiful, in her silvery dresses and fabulous jewels, gifts from her many admirers.”

Sunny shivered, remembering that elusive scent in Violette's room. “They mean lovers,” Belinda said. “Guys don't just give you jewels because they admire you.”

“They did in those days,” Sunny said. “Stage-door Johnnies, they called them. They showered stage stars with pricey gifts to show how much they admired them.”

“Fancied them, you mean,” Belinda said and they laughed.

“I know what her perfume smells like,” Sunny said. “I could smell it in her room.”

“Sometimes perfume can linger.” Sara sounded doubtful.

“All these years?” Sunny shook her head. “I don't think so. I believe Violette is still there.”

“You mean you think she
haunts
the place?” Belinda said, astonished. “Aw, come on, Sunny, that's crazy.”

But just then Sara gave an excited cry. “Look what I found,” she said. “The name of the lover. And there's a picture.”

They crowded round, looking at the blurred photograph of a blond young
man whose hard pale eyes stared intimidatingly into the camera. His name was Kurt Von Müller. And he was wearing a Nazi uniform.

“Oh, my, God,” Sunny said. “Then it's true. Violette was having an affair with a Nazi.”

Disturbed, she finally closed up the files. They straggled back out onto the street, surprised to find the sun still shining. Lev was there, casually glancing through newspapers, cigarette in hand, looking like every other passerby. They felt better knowing he was around.

They found a cute little brasserie on a backstreet and ordered omelets and salads and glasses of wine.

“Now all I have to do is check Herr Kurt von Müller in the
Almanach de Gotha
,” Sunny said.

“What's that?” Sara was eating her ham and cheese omelet while keeping a hopeful eye on Lev a few tables away.

“It's the
Who's Who
of Germany, tells your birthright and how far up the aristocracy ladder you go.” Belinda knew all about such things. “We'll find it on the Internet,” she added, ordering a second glass of the light pink wine that came from the hills just behind where they were sitting.

Sara leaned back in her chair, a contented look on her face. “You know, I like it here,” she said.

“That's good.”

“I have to leave next week.”

They looked up, concerned. “So soon?” Belinda said. “Sara, whatever will I do without you?”

“Oh, you'll manage. People can always manage without me.”

“
Sara!
” Belinda banged her fist on the table sending glasses rattling. Sara caught hers just before it fell. “When are you gonna stop this ‘poor me' stuff? What the fuck is wrong with you anyway?”

Sara frowned at the F-word. “But it's true,” she said.

“It's only true if you allow it to be. Look at me, Sara.” Belinda poked a finger into her own chest. “I am what I made myself. Right?” She appealed to Sunny for support and Sunny nodded in agreement.

“That's it,” Belinda announced. “I'm cutting the hair. If you have to go home then you're going a new woman. Right?” She held up her hand and Sara meekly high-fived her.

“If you say so,” she agreed and Belinda groaned again.

“Not if I say so.
If you want it
.
Get it
, Sara.” She was determined to stiffen Sara's backbone, she couldn't let her go back to Kansas to be walked on all over again by some opportunistic new guy.

She said to Sunny, “Can we go by the airport on the way home? I need to pick up some English magazines,
Tatler and Harper's and Queen
. I know it's en route.”

 

They were walking through the airport Departures Hall, which was where they sold magazines, when Sunny saw him. Her head swiveled. She took a second look.

His back was toward her and he was striding along, a tall rugged man in an impeccable beige linen suit. He was carrying a leather briefcase and his thick silvery hair was swept back like a lion's mane. And he had a small brindle greyhound on a lead.

Stunned, she said, “It can't be him.”

“Who?” they asked, turning to look.

She shook her head, still not believing. “
Joel Krendler
.
But where's the wheelchair?
”

Wild-eyed, Sunny spun round, searching for Lev. And then all hell broke loose.

 

54.

 

 

A paparazzo with a camera leapt at Belinda. Belinda screamed. Flashes went off. Lev leapt on the man, dragging him away by the scruff of his neck and throwing his camera to the ground.

He grabbed Belinda by the arm, yelled at the others to follow and hustled them out to the parking lot in less than a minute.

“But Lev,” Sunny cried, dragging Sara obediently after her as they ran for the cars. “Lev, it's him.
I saw Joel Krendler
. . .
Lev
. . .”

Lev shoved Belinda into the back of a compact Lancia, slammed the door, said something to the driver who took off immediately. Lev swung round, scanning the area. Sunny heard Sara's half gulp, half scream as she saw the gun in his hand.

“Oh my God, oh my God, like, like Lev's got
a gun
,” she said in a strangled voice. “And where's Belinda gone with that stranger?”

“Lev,
please
,” Sunny implored. Finally he turned to look at her. “Sorry,” he said, smiling his cool smile. “Just had to take care of business. All's clear now.”

Bug-eyed, Sara watched Lev slide the gun into the invisible holster under his arm. Her teeth were chattering with fear. Suddenly her handsome Lev with his warm smile was different from the man she'd thought he was. “
Oh my God
,
oh my God
,” she said again, panicking. “
That paparazzo might have been a killer
. . .”

Sunny knew it was too late to catch Krendler. If it had really been him, that is, which she was now beginning to doubt. Quickly, she told Lev her story.

“Krendler had an accident years ago, he's crippled, permanently in a
wheelchair. How could it be him? Striding through Nice airport like it was normal?”

“Let's find out,” Lev said, getting Mac on the phone.

First Lev told Mac the paparazzo story. He said, “I have a guy in there taking care of him. He might or might not have been legit. We'll soon find out, but I wasn't prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. A gun could go off just as easily as a camera flash. Meanwhile paparazzi are discouraged in this country, I'm not the first to smash a camera. I knew I'd get away with it and anyhow my concern was to get Belinda out of there.”

“And also not to have her picture in the papers,” Mac agreed.