A Rather Charming Invitation (40 page)

R
ollo came up with the goods quite quickly, just as he’d promised. Nevertheless, we had a fairly nerve-wracking spell of waiting, because The Follower took a brief hiatus. It was like watching for a shark to return to take the bait. Finally, Felix sent us a signal.
Go!
It was time to put our plan into action.

I let Jeremy drive my blue Dragonetta, so I could concentrate on my little starring role in this caper. As we headed for Nice, Jeremy glanced up in the rearview mirror and announced, “Red alert. The Follower is now on our tail, travelling in a white Peugeot at six o’clock.”

“Why can’t you just say he’s right behind us?” I inquired.

“Less fun,” Jeremy answered. “Hah. There’s Felix, coupla cars behind at nine o’clock.”

Left lane, I surmised. But once we swung onto the main road beside the Promenade des Anglais, it was harder to keep track of who-was-where in all the dense summer traffic. Jeremy just concentrated on driving, which was dicey enough, even with the aid of white-gloved policemen who were sternly, vigorously directing traffic, to impose order over potential chaos. At one point, when all the cars slowed to a crawl and then came to a dead stop all around us, I thought I would go mad with suspense.

Finally we inched our way off the Promenade, onto a smaller street with a parking lot. Jeremy parked the car. The Follower parked his a few feet away to the left. And Monsieur Felix parked his a few feet away to the right. All the chess pieces were now in place.

“Okay, it’s showtime,” Jeremy muttered. He got out of the car and came around with a flourish of courtesy as he opened my door. I stepped out and looked about, with exaggerated caution, clutching my handbag as if it contained the Hope Diamond, with a smug little smile on my Sarah Bernhardt face. We headed toward a shopping area tucked behind the big hotels and apartment buildings. No traffic was allowed here. There was a wide pedestrian walkway, flanked on both sides by rows of shops and restaurants that are popular among summer visitors.

Jeremy and I slipped into a posh little jewelry store where we had to be buzzed in to gain entry. Once inside, we walked right up to a display case that contained women’s gold bracelets. The Follower got himself buzzed in a moment later, pretending to look at cuff links. Monsieur Felix waited outside, ever watchful.

“
Bonjour!
” sang out a saleswoman as she swooped down on us eagerly. She was dressed in a tightly fitted red suit that revealed just a bit of her cleavage.

“Here it is, darling,” I said to Jeremy, loudly enough for The Follower to hear every word I uttered. “These are solid gold charm bracelets. Aren’t they adorable?” The saleswoman took a bracelet out of the case, and spread it out on a black velvet mat so that we could admire it.

“See, honey?” I said to Jeremy. “The links open and close manually, so I can slip a charm anywhere I want, instead of having to get a jeweler to solder it on every time I get a new piece. It’s just
perfect
for these.” I opened my handbag and pulled out a black felt sack with a drawstring. The saleswoman watched as I opened the bag and carefully laid out five fake Lunaire coins on the mat.

“How pretty!” she exclaimed, turning them over to admire them. “They’re coins, aren’t they? Are they all the same? Yes, they are.”

“They’re antique coins,” I said with housewifely pride.

“How nice!” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like them before.”

“These are the only ones in the world,” Jeremy announced broadly, acting like a boastful hubbie. “Been in my fiancée’s family for years. There used to be more, a long time ago, but her ancestors melted the rest of ’em down for the gold. Yessir, these are the only ones in existence now.”

“They’re a wedding present,” I announced brightly. “We’re getting married soon.”

“Oh, congratulations!” the saleswoman cried. “Why don’t you try them on with the bracelet?” she said encouragingly. I attached all five. Then she helped me hook the bracelet on my wrist. With a great flourish, I held it up to the light, angling this way and that, so everyone could see the dangling, gleaming charms. I didn’t dare look directly at The Follower, but I could feel I’d gotten his attention.

“Perfect!” the saleswoman said encouragingly.

“I agree!” I proclaimed.

“We’ll take it,” Jeremy said, handing the saleswoman his credit card. She went off to ring up the sale. When she returned, she handed me a velvet box for the bracelet. I dropped the empty box in my purse, saying, “I’ll wear the bracelet. Thanks.”

We had chosen this shop not only for the bracelet, but because, right around the corner, there was a small, discreet, venerable old bank that Jeremy had already scoped out a few days ago. We quickly ducked inside, with me glancing around appraisingly, like a housewife who wants to make sure that she approves of the vault that her husband has picked out for them.

The Follower remained on the pavement, staring at us through the glass window. I got a better glimpse of him now—he was a man in his early thirties, thin, in a nondescript suit. There was something hard in his expression, something tough and distinctly at variance with his casual pose. When I glanced up, he quickly turned his face away, and lit a cigarette. Across the walkway, Monsieur Felix established himself on a park bench, pulling a sandwich out of his pocket, like any guy in the crowd.

It was cool and quiet in the bank, where a manager, who was expecting us, now greeted us. I guess The Follower assumed that we were properly distracted, so he slipped into the bank and quickly went over to the counter where the deposit slips and pens are, and he pretended to fill out a form.

“I don’t see why I can’t wear my nice bracelet now,” I said very audibly, with a fake little pout.

Jeremy replied with a rehearsed, scolding tone, “Now, darling, you promised to wait until the wedding to wear it. It will be much safer in here.”

Feigning reluctant acquiescence, I allowed Jeremy to unclasp the bracelet, with its charms attached, so that I could put it in the velvet box that the jewelry saleswoman had just given me. The bank manager, who’d momentarily stepped out to check on the vault, returned and escorted Jeremy and me into the room where all the private safe-deposit boxes are kept under double lock-and-key.

Now that we were out of sight, I took the bracelet out of the box, and slipped it in my purse; then Jeremy locked the empty jewelry box in our allotted slot, and locked it. When we returned to the lobby, The Follower was still there, waiting for us, now actually reduced to pretending to be tying his shoelace as he spied on us.

We left the bank and returned to our parked car, with the broad smiles of two people who’ve suddenly and unexpectedly fallen into clover. We even hugged and kissed, and practically dusted off our hands as if to say,
There! That’s a job well done
.

We drove away with the wind in our hair and The Follower on our tail. But, The Follower didn’t track us all the way back to the villa; he turned off in another direction. Apparently his boss was the sort of man who wanted to hear bad news right away. Our little performance seemed to have worked.

“Felix is gone, too,” Jeremy reported, eyeing the rearview mirror.

“The whole thing is too creepy for words,” I said.

“Now,” said Jeremy, “we wait for Drake to make the next move.”

 

 

Monsieur Felix contacted us a few days later. He pulled up in his battered black Renault, and came loping purposefully up to us. We all agreed that none of us had seen The Follower, and hopefully this meant that Drake had called him off the surveillance. But, since The Follower had vanished once before and then resurfaced, we couldn’t be sure.

“Meanwhile,” Monsieur Felix triumphantly announced, “I am happy to report that we caught a lucky break. I have found Madame Venetia’s wedding car.”

“You did! Where is it?” I squealed.

“Well, like many of the cars, it was taken out of rail service in the second World War and kept in a rail yard.
Évidemment
, it did a brief stint as a bordello in occupied Paris, until the Americans arrived and used it for a hospital.” He paused. “Overflow, you know, because of the war. Anyway, when the war ended, some of the cars were auctioned, and Madame Venetia’s was sold to a wealthy eccentric, who kept it in his backyard for many years,
until
. . .” Here Monsieur Felix’s voice became rich with pride, “A chef from Provence bought it, and turned it into a restaurant.”

“Does the restaurant still exist?” Jeremy asked hopefully.

“
Bien sûr!
Not only does it exist, it recently earned another gold star. It is in Vence. A village up in the hills above Nice.”

“I know where Vence is,” I cried. “It’s a pretty place where Matisse made his great stained-glass window for the church.” Monsieur Felix gave us the address and telephone number of the restaurant.

“Jeremy, we have to book a table there right now!” I said. “The only question is—will it still have the original border pattern?”

“Only one way to find out,” he said. “Provided that Monsieur Felix tells us the coast is clear.”

Monsieur Felix smiled. “I will continue to signal you via e- mail. As long as you’re not being followed, I will keep reporting that everything is
OK!
”

T
he old town of Vence sits amid the hills of Provence, looking down from its ramparts onto the other little villages below. The market square, with its beautiful fountain, was once a Roman forum. Our restaurant was farther into the countryside, considerably off the beaten path, down an old dirt road. Just when I was beginning to think we’d taken a wrong turn, we came upon a sign, painted and lettered like a vintage Orient Express poster.

We turned into the driveway, which led to a sudden clearing, where we saw what appeared to be a magical train, several cars long, that seemed as if it had somehow jumped off its coastal track, and miraculously, madly climbed up into the hills, then arrived at a dead halt. It looked exactly like its name,
Le Train du Temps Perdu
.

“A train from a lost time!” I marvelled.

We parked, as other diners had, in a small round parking lot encircled with white rocks. The entrance path to the restaurant was flanked by two sets of “ecologically correct” imitation railroad tracks, which ran through a front yard that was actually a wonderful herb garden. The herbs were whimsically allowed to grow between these wooden ties, as if they were weeds that had sprung up along an old, disused train track. Weeds, indeed! They were delightfully fragrant cooking herbs: thyme, basil, oregano, marjoram, borage, parsley, lavender, fennel . . . all the sunshine herbs of Provence and Liguria. There were also patches of bright-faced, edible flowers. The man who’d taken our reservation on the phone had told us that the entire menu was organic, even the wine.

The restaurant itself was composed of vintage railcars cobbled together from various old train lines and time periods, but somehow it all worked. The maitre d’, an attentive, smiling middle-aged man in a sleek dark suit, greeted us as we stepped into the first car. It was a cute old smoker with an instantly clubby atmosphere that immediately evoked the world pictured in a framed vintage black-and-white photograph near the door, featuring turn-of-the-twentieth-century men with jowly faces and curling moustaches, seated in leather chairs with their cigars and brandy glasses in hand. Nowadays, nobody was allowed to smoke here; nevertheless, it was still filled with convivial patrons drinking cognac while playing at the antique chess tables. I was struck by how narrow and low-ceilinged the cars were, making the atmosphere cozy and intimate, but definitely out of time.

Jeremy glanced at the chess tables and said longingly, “Wouldn’t mind playing a game.”

“Keep moving, buddy,” I murmured. “We’re on a mission.”

We were led through a Bar Car from an old train that once picked up travellers from transatlantic ocean liners docking in Cherbourg; and where, right now, a few nicely dressed young couples were happily clustered around an antique bar with a frosted glass mirror, decorated with needle-etched tulip designs. Next was the Kitchen Car, redone with black and red lacquer panels and abstract geometric artwork, where patrons dined on casual fare served to them at vintage kitchen tables. This was followed by a First Class Sleeper, decorated with tiger-lilies, whose bed had been replaced by one very long table for large dining parties like the family now seated there. We moved on to a big, fancy Pullman dining car, lined with forest-green leather banquettes, crimson curtains in the windows, and adorable Orient Express lamps; it was occupied by serious French diners, and a few English and American tourists who had clearly made a reverent pilgrimage here.

While we walked through all this, my historian’s nose quivered delightedly at the stunning decor and antiques, but I soon felt rising trepidation as I realized that these cars had all been overhauled, repainted and refurbished. Each bore a framed black-and-white photograph of what the original car had looked like. I held my breath as we reached the very last car on the “train”, afraid of what I might find.

The quiet, private Bridal Car had its door open, revealing that it overlooked a larger kitchen garden with rows of vegetables, salad greens and fruit trees. This car had only four tables, each seating just two people, so it was meant to be a romantic place for couples. I noticed two slender, elegant pairs of French diners in their forties and fifties, and a young couple, shyly absorbed in each other, probably honeymooners. All the napkins on theses tables had bridal white lace edging, and the plates were a soft rose color. White roses and velvety violets stood in silver vases.

Jeremy and I were seated at a nice booth tucked in a corner, with blue leather chairs and a white marble tabletop. Ordinarily, this would be a great table, so very private. It was not, however, an ideal spot for two decor-spies like us.