A Cruise to Die For (An Alix London Mystery) (18 page)

“You sound almost envious,” Alix said.

“Alix, I almost am.”

“I know I am,” Izzy said. “And there’s no ‘almost’ about it. I kid you not.”

The two older women smiled wistfully at each other, and Gaby added, “Maybe someday.”

The exchange made Alix uncomfortable and she looked for something else to talk about. “Okay,” she said, “I’ve met Mirko, and you, of course, Izzy, and I’ve seen the man from Maine, Emil Varga, and then there’s the Belgian lady, or rather her nephew, who hasn’t shown yet. That’s four. Aren’t there five altogether? Who am I missing?”

To her surprise they both laughed. “His name’s Lorenzo Bolzano; he’s a collector from Florence.”

“And what’s he like?”

Izzy and Gaby looked at each other and laughed again.

“Well…” Gaby said and let it hang.

“Let me put it this way,” Izzy said. “Let’s just say he’s indescribable. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

“Now I’m really intrigued.”

“Oh, you’ll enjoy him,” Gaby said. “He’s good fun… as long as you don’t have to take too much of him at a time. Wait’ll you hear him talk. It’s amazing.”

“Yeah, but have you ever understood anything he said?” Izzy asked.

“Never; not a word.” And to Alix, who was looking puzzled, “Don’t worry, you’ll see.”

Durward showed up with Izzy’s visor and sunglasses. “Here you go, Miss C.”

Izzy stared incredulously at them, one in each hand. “You got me a
mauve
visor and
green
sunglasses?”

Durward looked stunned. “But you said I should—”

“Oh, hell, it doesn’t matter, forget it.”

He reached for them. “I’ll go and—”

Izzy pulled them back. “
Forget
it, Durward, I’ll deal with it.”

Durward left, his shoulders drooping, and Izzy said, “I hate to do that to him, I really do, but it has to be done occasionally so he doesn’t think he’s perfect. I’ll make it up to him later. Anyway, you know those inflatable punching-bag clowns—you knock ’em over and they bounce right back up? That’s Durward.”

The steward brought the coffee and pastries and poured cups for each of them.

“Alix,” Gaby said, adding cream to hers, “have you really never heard of Izzy? That is, of Pocahontas? She’s on TV all the time.”

“I thought I was impossible to escape,” Izzy agreed. “I don’t know how you managed to get away with it.”

Gaby laughed. “Pay no attention to her. She’s incredible. You’ve never seen anything like it. You’d think she didn’t have any
bones
. And that weird expression, like she’s a million miles away on some other planet—”

“That part’s easy,” Izzy said. “Comes naturally.”

“No, really,” Gaby persisted. “You can’t take your eyes off her. It’s as if she’s in some kind of trance, and then after a minute you’re in one too. Somehow, watching her is relaxing and stimulating at the same time, it’s—well, you really have to see for yourself, Alix. Look at one of her videos and you’ll see what I mean.” She’d been leaning enthusiastically forward, and now she sat back and picked up her coffee.

Izzy smiled faintly over the rim of her own cup. “Is that it?”

Gaby looked puzzled. “What do you mean? Did I miss something?”

Izzy arched one tweezed eyebrow. “I notice you made no reference to my vocal qualities.”

“Your vocal qualities!” Gaby shifted into a plummy English accent. “Oh, very nice, indeed, my dear, but personally, I prefer singing.”

She accompanied this with a deep-throated, melodious laugh straight out of her old Verdi repertoire, and that made all three of them laugh like old friends. Alix had warmed up to both of them more quickly than she usually did with strangers.

“Oh, just put me down as jealous,” Gaby said, sobering. “Izzy, you were so damn smart to stick with your career instead of… ah, what the hell, it’s too late now.”

“Well, it’s not like I had a lot of choice in the matter, Gaby. The guys chasing me weren’t exactly the cream of the potential-husband crop. There weren’t any fairy-tale gazillionaires who came to me on bended knee wanting to turn me into a princess.” She raised one eyebrow in thought. “Well, there was one, but he was too bizarre, even for me. Anyway, why would I want to get married? Durward provides everything I need from a husband, and he doesn’t bother me with all the sex crap. I’m happy.”

“Fairy tale,” Gaby said. “Yup, that’s my life in a nutshell. Princess first, and then a wrinkle or two turns up on your face, and poof, you’re a pumpkin.” She smiled. “Except that if Panos had gotten down on bended knee, he wouldn’t have been able to get up again.” She tossed her head and turned to Alix. “Ever been married, Alix?”

“Briefly,” she answered and then seized on the opportunity to change the subject that Takis’s arrival with their breakfasts offered. “Wow, that smells wonderful.”

As they ate, the conversation turned to the usual safe female topics—food, fashion, travel. The omelet she’d ordered really was worth talking about, wonderfully fluffy and quiche-like, cooked in olive oil and filled with melting goat cheese and chives. And after the subject of food was exhausted, she was able to hold her own in the fashion talk. Before hanging out for
those weekly happy hours with Chris at her wine bar, she’d have been at sea. Until then, what she’d known about fashion had been ten years out of date. There had indeed been a time when she’d worn outfits straight from the designer showrooms, but dear old Dad’s debacle had put an end to that. And afterward, in those years of dedicated art restoration study with Santullo, she’d totally lost interest in the subject and never regained it. A good thing, too, given her current economic status. But Chris had made the fashion reeducation of Alix one of her objectives, on the simple grounds that any fully formed woman of today should know such things. Alix didn’t quite agree, but she seemed to have absorbed a lot of information, mostly by osmosis.

Sitting there, Alix was struck by the fact that she was somewhere between the two women at the table, metaphorically as well as physically. Careers and marriage had become more complex in today’s world, and both were littered with land mines. Gaby had apparently walked into her minefield willingly, but Alix was in no position to feel superior. She herself, after all, had once been married to Paynton Whipple-Pruitt, of
the
Whipple-Pruitts (of Boston, Watch Hill, and Palm Beach), patrons of the arts, society-page regulars, and stalwarts of New England’s inbred, old-money elite. And first-class prigs, one and all.

How she’d gotten herself into that situation in the first place was something she was trying to forget and certainly had no desire to talk about. With anybody. Suffice it to say that it had happened at a bad time, the most susceptible and insecure time of her life. Geoff’s self-destruction had just occurred and with her college savings, along with the family money, gone, she suddenly had no family, no money, and no future. Bereft and adrift, she’d accepted Paynton’s noblesse-oblige-motivated proposal of marriage. It hadn’t taken her long to get a grip, though, and to comprehend the enormity of her mistake. On day number eleven of their wedded life, she had begun the process of filing for divorce—this despite the prenuptial agreement drawn up by the Whipple-Pruitt attorneys that allowed her nothing at all if the marriage lasted less than a year. That had been fine
with her; she’d had no interest in contesting it or negotiating something less draconian. She just wanted out.

That put her more in Izzy’s camp than in Gaby’s, she supposed, although her choice of a career—could you call art consulting a career?—had proved a pretty rocky road so far. But as she’d truthfully told Izzy a little while ago, she wasn’t complaining. She was where she wanted to be, things were looking up, and life could hardly have been more interesting.

The clatter of an approaching helicopter brought her from her thoughts, and suddenly everybody was rushing around. Stewards and stewardesses descended on them to usher them safely away from the landing pad and to clear away the table and chairs. The two-or three-passenger helicopter—white with Prussian-blue detailing (she was starting to think of it as Papadakis blue)—hovered directly overhead, a few hundred feet up, and the clatter grew deafening. It got even worse as the big machine descended, and Alix had to cover her ears, as did Gaby and Izzy.

Then came the terrific wind from the rotor blades. “Damn!” Izzy exclaimed as it tore the visor from her head and sent it sailing into the sea. “Well, at least it was the mauve one,” she muttered. Gaby and Alix managed to grab and hold onto their own visors. The copter’s landing skids touched down, the rotor slowed, and the wind fell away. From somewhere, Panos Papadakis approached as a one-man welcoming committee, and then Gaby went to stand beside him. Other guests, drawn by the helicopter’s arrival, also gathered nearby. Alix and Izzy remained on the edge of the crowd.

The passenger door of the pod swung open, and a dark-haired, youngish man with a sport coat slung over his shoulder hopped athletically out onto the deck, hand extended, already returning Panos’s smile.

Behind Alix’s sunglasses, her eyes widened.

You’ve got to be kidding,
she thought.

T
he good-looking man who had dropped so effortlessly to the deck was—unmistakably, indubitably, inarguably… and inexplicably—Special Agent Ted Ellesworth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s art squad. Alix was stunned not only into silence, but into total incomprehension. She had not the faintest clue to what was going on, so she simply stood quietly where she was and waited for him to call the shots.

“Well, now,” Izzy said in a low, appreciative voice, “not bad. Hey, if his mother’s a countess, does that make him a count?”

“It’s his aunt, not his mother,” said Alix, whose wits were beginning to reassemble, “and no, I don’t think it does.” She continued to watch as Panos, once again wreathed in oleaginous smiles, stepped forward. “Mr. de Beauvais, I welcome you greatly to my little boat. I am so glad you could come in place of your dear aunt, Countess Saskia. I hope she is not very hurt?”

“No, Aunt Saskia will be fine, but she didn’t think it was wise to travel yet. She’s grateful that you’ve allowed me to bid in her place.”

“Not only bid, my dear man, my dear fellow, but enjoy yourself in every way as a most honored guest. And here is my beautiful wife, Gabriela, formerly Gabriela Candelas, who I am sure you heard of.”

“Heard of and
heard
,” Ted said to Gaby. “I was privileged see you in
Parsifal
at the Shubert in Boston a few years ago, Ms. Candelas. You were superb.”

This had to be a tribute to Ted’s research skills, not his love for opera. When they were in New Mexico, they had driven past the Santa Fe Opera amphitheater on their way back from Taos, and she had asked him if he liked opera. He’d said that, while he enjoyed the occasional Verdi or
Puccini production, there was no way anyone could drag him to another one by Wagner, not after he’d been taken with his high school class to a performance of
Tristan and Isolde
. He’d made her laugh when he’d told her that it was the most boring, exhausting experience he’d ever had. “They started it at five o’clock because it was so long, and when it went on and on, and I just couldn’t stand it anymore I checked my watch to see how much more there could possibly be. And it was five twenty.”

But Gaby was predictably charmed, and they exchanged a few more words. Then Panos began leading him around the semicircle of observers, making introductions. With Izzy, Alix was at the far end, so she had a little more time to put her thoughts together before she was face to face with Ted.

“Roland de Beauvais,”’ was one of Ted’s undercover aliases, the one he’d been using when she’d first met him in New Mexico. Somehow (the mind boggled) the FBI had transformed him into the nephew of this countess-client of Panos’s and put him aboard in her place. Clearly, he was here to gather evidence on Panos’s fractional-shares scheme; in short, to do—and do better—what she was supposed to be here for. So why did he need Alix? And why would he spring this on her as a surprise? Why had he not let her know he would be coming?

Panos and Ted had reached them. “And this charming lady,” Panos was saying, “is our little art expert”—he made it sound like a private joke—“She—”

“Oh, Alix and I are old friends,” Ted said, smiling at her.

Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, that wasn’t it. Caught by surprise, with no idea what she was supposed to say, she smiled and adjusted her sunglasses.

“You do remember me, I hope, Alix—Rollie de Beauvais?”

“Yes. Sure. Of course. I’m happy to see you again, uh, Rollie. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
You crud, why didn’t you tell me you were coming?

“I didn’t know it either,” he said smoothly. “Not till yesterday. Well, I’m looking forward to getting to know you even better over the next few days, Alix.”

He gave her a flirty smile, which did nothing to unconfuse her. Was he doing that so that nobody would think it odd if they were seen alone talking? Or was he simply flirting? If she had to bet, she’d put her money on the former. From what she knew of him, he didn’t do too much that wasn’t carefully thought out ahead of time, and he wasn’t really the flirty type. Only, what
did
she know of him? All she had to go on were those four days in New Mexico, during which they’d spent a total of, what, maybe twelve hours in each other’s company? And half of that time, he was being Rollie de Beauvais, not Ted Ellesworth.