A Rather Charming Invitation (43 page)

There was a brief, communal gasp among the Wives-and-Girlfriends. Having just hung out with them, I knew that jewelry was like insurance, for “walking away” money. Besides, it was such a pretty necklace, of golden seashells interspersed with luminous pearls.

However, that wasn’t nearly as disturbing as the look on Tina’s face. Her expression was not simply that of a woman who doesn’t want to part with her favorite trinket or her insurance. Hers was a shocked, suddenly naked, wounded look, indicating that this necklace had far greater sentimental value because, perhaps, it symbolized something good that had once been between them. I saw quite plainly that Drake could have asked her to pitch in anything else—a ring, an earring—but he’d chosen the necklace. Why? Because it was so visibly stunning? Or was it to prove something more? It made his offhanded, imperious,
I-don’t-care-I’m-so-rich
gesture seem particularly vicious to me, and I, too, felt a surge of indignation.

But Tina quickly recovered, and assumed a defiant,
Then-I-don’t-give-a-damn-either
look as she reached up and unclasped the necklace from her suntanned throat; and then, out of habit, she clasped it closed again, as if in consideration for anyone who won it. She handed it over to Drake with a look that—well, if it could kill, he’d be more than dead. He’d be bled, dead and retread.

Jeremy glanced at the necklace, glittering atop the pot of chips. Then he said to Drake, “Ah, well, I don’t quite know how to match that, I’m afraid.”

Drake said, “Oh, I think you can.”

Jeremy pretended to be baffled. Drake, looking impatient, said, “What about your girl’s bracelet?”

All eyes were on me. Acting startled, I held up my arm and looked at the golden charms myself. A convenient little murmur of expectation and awe ran through the crowd, allowing Jeremy to act like a man who’s got his—ego—on the line now. He nodded to me, and I unhooked the bracelet with a regretful sigh. I saw Drake’s gaze locked on the fake Lunaire coins as I handed them to Jeremy, who held the bracelet a moment, then put it reverently atop the heap, along with the rest of his chips.

The crowd allowed itself to gasp. But I was not prepared for Drake’s next move. He turned to his wife and ordered, “Check it out.”

Obediently, Tina opened her purse and took out something wrapped in a bundle of black velvet. She laid it on the table, and peeled back the velvet from the object. I saw that it was one of those magnifiers that jewelers use.

“I never shop in Monte Carlo without this!” she told the crowd, who laughed nervously.

Drake looked from me to Jeremy, and smiled his reptilian smile. “My wife, like her brothers, is a coin expert,” he said.

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t find it necessary to verify your wife’s jewelry,” he pointed out, stalling for time. The crowd laughed, as if Tina’s jewelry collection was so well-known that only an outsider would question it.

Drake shrugged and said, in that challenging-but-affable way of his, “Humor me, okay?”

My heart was pounding like a train now. Jeremy had warned me that Drake might wish to scrutinize the coins, but since they were real gold and a first-rate job, we were willing to risk it. Rare antiques are not always easy to authenticate, even for experts, who have been known to argue for centuries over whether a particular painting is a genuine Michelangelo or a Rembrandt. And since no contemporary expert had actually seen a Lunaire coin, I figured we had some leeway. But I hadn’t banked on Drake’s “trophy wife” being an actual coin expert, just like her brothers.

Tina’s hand was poised over the bracelet, but before picking it up, she asked Jeremy, “May I?”

Jeremy acted as if he couldn’t refuse such a pretty request. “Certainly,” he said confidently. Tina took the bracelet, laid it out on the velvet, and began to peer at each coin, one by one.

I held my breath as she peered through her magnifier to examine the first coin. She turned it over, scrutinizing both sides, then moved on. By the time Tina got to the second coin, I wanted to scream. When she continued on to the third, I thought I’d faint dead away. As she reached the fourth, I’d already decided that it was a shame I’d never written out a last will and testament. And at the fifth, I was ready to leap over the railing and take my chances of swimming to shore.

Finally, at long last, Tina looked up at her husband.

“Well?” Drake demanded.

“Yes,” Tina said, without hesitation. “They’re the real thing.”

Parker Drake’s eyes absolutely glittered, but he recovered and moved quickly, as if he wanted to act fast, before Jeremy or I had a change of heart. “My apologies,” he said with a conciliatory grin. “The bet is accepted. Assuming you accept mine?”

Jeremy nodded with his best upper-crust attitude, as if he considered it all too beneath him to argue further.

Now all eyes were on the cards. Piquet, I knew from Rollo’s tutelage, is a subtle game of strategy. The skill in the play comes not only from building the strongest possible hand, given the cards you’ve been dealt, but also from closely observing the cards your opponent has chosen to throw away . . . and those he chooses to play. In piquet, even a relatively weak hand can be a winner, if the cards are played just right.

Drake, of course, was a master piquet player. He was watching Jeremy closely now, with an air of supreme confidence. But then Jeremy did something that seemed to rattle Drake—he led with the Nine of Clubs. Drake checked his hand again, then took a nervous look at his discards. Staring intently at Jeremy, Drake threw down the only card he could . . . the Ace of Clubs.

Even with my limited knowledge of the game, I knew what this meant. Drake may have won the “trick”, but he was now clearly out of clubs, or he would never have thrown down such a high card to beat out a lowly Nine. It also meant that Jeremy was probably “holding Clubs”—a risky maneuver that Drake hadn’t counted on. If Drake was to lose the next trick, Jeremy could take control, and sweep the rest of the tricks by leading with his Clubs, thereby scoring enough points to win the entire pot.

My head was spinning as I recalled Rollo’s admonition, now ringing in my mind.
Smarts, skill . . . and luck.

Drake hesitated. He glanced up at the sky, then, in a quick single motion, he slapped down the Queen of Diamonds. It was the wrong choice. Jeremy had the King of Diamonds.

Now Jeremy took the remaining series of tricks with a succession of clubs that Drake could not beat. All the cards had been played. It was over.

At first, nobody moved. Nobody even breathed. So I wasn’t even sure I could believe my own eyes. But then, Drake’s P.R. man quickly signalled the steward, who expertly and rapidly scooped the entire pot of winnings into a black bag with a drawstring cord, as if to get them out of Drake’s sight before he decided to eat them or something.

Drake’s face was dark as a thundercloud, his eyes like angry slits, his seething breath pushing his tanned, yacht-racing chest up and down in fast waves, as if it was about to blow his head right off his neck. But, with forced control, he turned to his wife and said in a low voice, “See to it that our guests dine at the club tonight.”

“Dinner in Monte Carlo tonight, folks!” Tina announced quickly, taking her cue. “In the V.I.P. room. All ashore that’s going ashore.”

Her guests, eager to be considered V.I.P.’s, and glad to be released from the tension of the game, now broke into happy, relieved chatter as they dispersed, gathering their belongings, and clambering into the speedboats that would take them back to shore. Apparently they were so accustomed to Drake throwing money around that they didn’t think the loss would resonate with him, since in these circles it’s important to look as if your disposable income is, well, disposable. I could see that this game would be forgotten by his male guests tomorrow. The women, however, might hesitate to ever again wear good jewelry to a card game.

As Tina moved to accompany her guests on the speedboats heading back to shore, Drake barked at her to stay aboard. “But darling, our guests,” she reproached mildly.

“You can catch up with them later,” he said tersely. “We’re having Penny and Jeremy for dinner tonight.”

Honestly, that’s just the way he said it, as if we were the entrée, you know, roast leg of Penny-and-Jeremy. Fricasséed friends.

Tina looked at us and said, “You heard him. The master ‘asks’ that you stay aboard.”

I felt a stab of alarm, watching the vanishing speedboats bearing everybody else away to safety. For, underneath all this was the implicit threat that Jeremy and I were not ever going to get off this boat until Drake bloody well said so. I wondered if he was going to conk us on the head, steal the charms, and feed us to the sharks. Oddly enough, such headlines in this rarefied stratosphere didn’t seem that far-fetched. I’d seen typical stories as,
Swiss banker found dead in his Monte Carlo apartment after being seen in clubs with airline hostess. British bigwig caught on tape in S&M tryst with hooker. French broker found in apparent suicide on eve of his approaching testimony to investigative committee.
We’d fit right in.
Heiress and fiancé vanish in the Mediterranean; last seen at private card game aboard yacht of zillionaire coin collector
.

Drake’s P.R. man was saying, “Your winnings, Mr. Laidley. We cashed the chips for you. It’s all here.” He handed Jeremy a leather pouch with a zipper, which to my mind looked like a man’s shaving kit. Jeremy glanced inside, examined it briefly, and seemed satisfied. He extracted the charm bracelet, and handed it back to me. As I hooked it on my wrist, I saw Drake watching this little move.

“Well, then, we’re squared,” Drake said, a bit too heartily. He put one of his leathery hands on Jeremy’s shoulder, and Tina led us into the big dining salon, whose glass walls were really sliding doors that could be opened partially or completely, to allow an unobstructed view of the sea, and the sun’s long, glittering trail across it, like a highway line leading right up to the sky. The sparkling water seemed to be teasing Drake with silver and gold reflections that made rippling light patterns on the ceiling, and bounced off the dangling charms on my bracelet.

“Fascinating,” he said, gazing at the coins, as if mesmerized. “I’d like to hear more about them. I’m an avid coin collector myself.” Tina was watching us all silently.

“Not much to tell, really,” Jeremy said carelessly as we paused for drinks at a black-and-white bar. “Penny’s family has a tradition of passing them down to the new bride as a wedding gift.”

“Got any more of those coins, do they?” Drake asked.

Jeremy shook his head. “Oh, no. These are the very last of their kind.”

“Indeed.” I was surprised by how badly Drake was controlling his expression of utter desire. This was a man who made mega-deals before breakfast. And I’d seen him play cards, so I knew he was perfectly capable of self-discipline. Except not now. He wanted it that badly.

“Have you heard of the Lunaire gold? There’s actually a very interesting story behind them,” Jeremy said maddeningly, and launched into a brief history of the famed birthday-party card game, which Drake obviously knew about, but was now being forced to endure while he pretended to be hearing it for the first time. He kept nodding his head mechanically, but was still quite fidgety. By the time Jeremy finished, Drake was practically panting for them.

“How much do you want for them?” he asked with a toothy grin, as if half in jest.

“I really had no business betting them in the first place,” Jeremy said. “Got swept up in the heat of the moment, I suppose.” He shook his head ruefully.

Undaunted, Drake persisted. “Come now. Let’s play for them. Just tell me what you think they’re worth,” he said challengingly, “and I’ll match the bet.”

To my utter admiration, Jeremy went for broke, looking him straight in the eye and saying, “The fact is, Penny’s family is so distracted by the recent theft of their tapestry that we can’t even think of risking the loss of a single coin. Surely at least not before the tapestry is recovered and restored to them,” he declared.

Tina made a little gasp, and Drake raised his head sharply. Until now I’d been watching Drake closely, thinking to myself,
Does-he-or-doesn’t-he have it
? Now I was thinking,
You rat, you’ve got it!

But Drake only said smoothly, “Oh? Yes, I think I read something about that in the newspapers. Well, perhaps I can help. I have excellent contacts who are experts at—recovering things.” He smiled his crocodile smile. “What’s the tapestry worth?”

Jeremy said calmly, “Quite frankly, since it’s now on Interpol’s list of stolen goods, it won’t fetch a farthing for the guy who actually has it.”

Well, of course, now everybody knew what everybody was talking about, even though Drake had not once admitted outright that he was the sticky- fingers behind the theft. But it was clear that we were looking Beelzebub right in the face, and he was about to name his price.

“If my man can locate it for you, then how about it? The tapestry for those coins,” Drake said.

“One coin,” Jeremy said swiftly.

Drake laughed as if he’d been insulted. “Four,” he said in a retaliatory way.

Jeremy shook his head. “Two.”

“Three,” Drake said with a smirk, as if this was where he’d expected it to land.

Jeremy and I looked at each other and pretended to hesitate. Jeremy was so convincing, he made it easy for me to follow his lead; so, acting like I was being a big, brave girl, I nodded.

“At least,” I said, “we’d still have a couple of coins in the family, for future generations.”

Jeremy pretended to be slightly pissed off as he turned to Drake and said, “Show me the tapestry. Then it will be done.”

Drake didn’t wait another instant. He rose and went out on deck, walking far enough away so we couldn’t hear him. I saw that he’d pulled out his mobile phone. He seemed to say very little, then paused briefly. Soon he put his phone away and returned, looking much more relaxed now.