Last Call For Caviar (4 page)

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CHAPTER 5

T
HE
H
OOD

The day was glorious! Perfect late-spring weather enveloped me as I took a shortcut through the park a hundred meters from my home and descended along the shady paths that wound downwards towards the sea. I could see from the long grass, once clipped as smooth as a bowling green, and the tangles of jasmine and wisteria that overhung and nearly obscured parts of the path that the village landscaping crews hadn’t pruned the old growth or weeded here in many months. The torrents of rain that poured from the heavens like great falling sheets of water this past winter had nourished this neglected park, and the vegetation shot up into a jungle of riotous bloom and vine. Fallen branches and debris from the last of the winter storms still hadn’t been cleared and lay blocking the path.

The rich smell of earth overlaid by the perfume of lavender and thyme wafted on the breeze. Halfway down the path, another smell greeted me: the sour, stale odor of unwashed bodies, urine and human excrement, singed meat and campfire smoke mixed together, burned my nostrils and made me gag. In the undergrowth beneath a cluster of majestic palms, empty wine bottles, plastic sacks, and tin cans littered the ground. A plastic arm, wrenched from a doll, lay in the middle of the path. As I bent over to pick up the limb to toss it into a trash can, I noticed a face in the gloom under a thicket of overgrown rhododendrons. There crouched a little girl of five. Her hair was matted, and her silver-gray eyes peered from a face darkened with grime.

“Ca va ma petite? Tu est la toute seule?” I asked softly, not wanting to frighten her. She didn’t answer, but only watched me warily like a small creature caught in a snare. Then, she cast a glance over her shoulder.

I followed her gaze and saw, hidden in the tangle of overgrowth a hundred meters away, a circle of tattered, dull-green tents, blending into the vegetation and trees. The encampment was camouflaged by a thick mat of flowering vines. I could make out forms huddled on the ground under gray blankets and caught the scent of a campfire recently banked. The vegetation rustled like something was moving towards me unseen, through the thickets of greenery.

I quickly turned away and jogged down the path. Travelers, I thought, as I quickened my pace and sprinted the last couple hundred meters towards the sea. They were probably from some eastern European country like Romania. With nowhere to go and few possessions, they wandered the countryside, a lost tribe constantly on the move. Sometimes begging, sometimes stealing, using their wits and cunning, they would do whatever they could to survive. They would stay until the rash of break-ins and petty thievery caused a local outcry and the Gendarmes came along to force them on their way.

I wondered if the little girl were the bait set in a snare for some unwary and kind-hearted soul—maybe for someone like me! My feet were flying, but I kept my hand on the trigger inside my gun bag as I burst out of the tunnel of greenery into the sunlight and crossed the road to the sea.

I clattered down the rusting stairs, my sneakers beating out a staccato rhythm, and kept up my pace as I turned east along the path. On my left, the grounds of stately Belle Epoque villas lined the shore. Long streaks of mold ran down their sides; paint was peeling, and shutters hung askew. The path twisted and turned, following the contours of the coast, defined by small coves and beaches. The waves washed over the large boulders piled at points along the shore.

I dodged spumes of spray from the larger swells that surged almost to the top of the seawall and drenched the path. But I didn’t stop until I had put a safe distance between me and the slumbering camp, and saw the first signs of local fishermen balancing far out on the reefs as they cast their lines.

About a kilometer away, I made out, emerging through the early-morning haze, the skyline of Monaco. I decided to give the market in the village square a miss. I felt in my pocket to make sure I had my passport, Monaco Gun Club member’s card and my permit for the Smith and Wesson. There would be a police checkpoint at the frontier. I hitched up my empty backpack and headed towards the golden ghetto of Monte Carlo, gleaming up ahead along the shore.

The checkpoint, manned by both the French and Monaco police, was at the Port de Cap d’Ail, on the land reclaimed from the sea in Fontveille. It was a sensitive entry point, because on the other side of the row of luxury apartment towers that overlooked the yacht basin was the busy heliport. The police were bristling with weapons, protected by helmets and body armor.

As I waited in line to show my papers, a steady stream of police helicopters and the shuttle service run by MonacoHeli to the Nice Cote d’Azur Aeroport, took off and landed. Although the number of commercial flights taking off from the Nice airport was very limited and falling—the exorbitant price of fuel having priced the tickets out of the reach of ordinary people—there was still a fleet of private jets parked there, belonging to the super-rich.

There was still one flight a week on Delta to JFK, but the waiting list was months and months long. America seemed to be returning to its isolationist past, slamming the doors on the rest of the world and retreating behind its geographical walls.

There was, in theory, one daily flight listed to Paris, London, Frankfurt, and Rome, although often they were canceled. Interestingly, there were several a day to Moscow and Dubai. It wasn’t that surprising, when you thought about it, since the sheiks from the Emirates had more oil than water, and the Russian elites had pretty much bought up the Cote d’ Azur.

The police were even more thorough today, and I wondered if there had been another death threat against the Prince’s family.

I scanned the unsmiling faces of the police present, noticing they were all business and in a heightened state of alert. Today, there wouldn’t be any pleasantries or flirtations with pretty girls. I was thinking maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to cross into Monaco and wondering how I could discreetly step out of line and fade away, when I saw Thierry, a Monaco policeman I knew well from the shooting range. He’d given me pointers when I was first learning. Our eyes met at the same moment, and with a nod he motioned me to move forward to the white kiosk emblazoned with the seal of the Principality. It was too late to back away.

I handed over my documents, feeling the weight of the Smith, and wishing I’d hidden it in the crevice of a rock somewhere along the path. I knew I could say I was going to practice at the shooting range, and since my permit was in order, normally he would let me pass.

“Bonjour Thierry,” I said, sliding my papers through the slot in the window, just as three Mirage jet fighters came screaming over the Tete de Chien from the French military base behind Mont Agel. They were flying at such a low altitude that the sonic boom shook the kiosk and rattled the windows in the apartment blocks behind us. Flying low in an arrow formation, they banked west before disappearing out over the Med.

The police at the checkpoint were showing a lot of interest in an individual in the next line. I could only see him in profile, but something about the shape of his nose, the dark hooded eyes, the olive complexion marked him as most likely from the Maghreb—probably Moroccan or Algerian, while the sweat beading his hairline betrayed his nervousness. The border control was doing a bit of racial profiling. He didn’t carry himself with the same haughtiness—or the expense—as one of his brethren from Saudi Arabia or the Emirates. He was pulled from the line. Three heavily armed police flanked and herded him, protesting, towards a military van a few meters away to be interrogated.

“Bonjour, vous allez ou a Monaco? The shooting range?” Thierry seemed to be distracted as he scrutinized my documents. I was right; today, there wouldn’t be any pleasantries.

I opened my mouth to answer just as his phone rang. He held up his hand for me to wait. Long seconds passed as he listened intently, occasionally murmuring a reply. All the while, his glance swept the surrounding area, scanning the faces of people waiting to be processed, as though he were searching for someone in particular. I could feel the tension coming off him in waves. He hung up and passed the documents back through the window slot.

“Leave your gun at the club today, if you decide to go up in Monaco Ville or Place du Casino. They’ll hold it for you at the reception desk.” He was already looking past me to the next person in the queue, and with those words of warning, I was through the checkpoint into the heavily fortified Principality of Monaco.

Heeding Thierry’s warning, my first stop was the gun club in Fontveille. The reception desk was being manned by Jean Marc, whippet-thin, mid-forty, his close-cropped dark hair starting to show the first threads of gray at his temples. I explained Thierry’s warning about not venturing armed any further into town today, as I placed the Smith and Wesson and extra ammunition on the countertop.

“Thierry’s right; there seems to be something going down today. Everyone’s on edge, and security has been reinforced at the Palais and around the Place du Casino. They’re conducting random body searches, and there are metal detectors everywhere.” He confirmed Thierry’s warning while checking that my gun wasn’t loaded before placing it in the Club’s gun vault behind him.

“What have you heard? Another death threat or bomb scare?” I asked. Since so many police and military used the shooting range, I knew the personnel who worked here were usually plugged in to what was going down.

“There’s all kind of rumors flying around today. Take your pick. Though I heard last night there were more jumpers at the Mirableu. This time, a whole family—Russian, I’m told. Twelfth floor. Putain, young kids, too!” He shook his head in dismay, while giving me a receipt to sign and date for my gun.

Suicides were increasing every week. Because Monte Carlo, squeezed by the mountainous terrain of the Tete du Chien and the sea, had limited buildable acreage, the solution had been to build vertically. Many of the apartment towers rose twenty floors, so stepping off a sea-view terrace from an upper story got the job done.

The Principality would try to hush it up, of course, but this time it wouldn’t be easy. The Mirableu was prime real estate in the exclusive Carre d’Or neighborhood. Millions of spectators knew the building from the Formula 1 races, where it rose above one of the hairpin curves of the circuit during the Grand Prix. Anyone staying at the five-star Fairmont Hotel across the road, or returning home from one of the nightspots on Avenue Princess Grace, might have stumbled over the remains of this desperate family, a macabre tableau of tangled limbs and body parts on the posh streets of Monte Carlo.

Facing financial ruin from the recent financial market meltdown, many residents and visitors tried to rebuild their fortunes at the gaming tables of the Casino. Chasing Lady Luck usually turned out to be a bad play; the odds were stacked against them, and the House invariably won.

Most nights, the gaming tables were packed, as the only way to get off of the Rock was with money, lots of it. But hearing of families jumping to their deaths—parents with children in their arms, babies too—having lost everything on the turn of a card, made you sick. They must have thought there was no way out, no reasonable alternative or acceptable future for themselves or their children. This was a sunny place, as Somerset Maugham so famously said, but in the shadows such incomprehensible tragedies occurred all too regularly.

Fifteen minutes later, I stepped out of the elevator opening onto the landscaped terraces behind the Grand Casino. Stone balustrades overlooked the Port de Hercules. Across the harbor on Le Rocher, were Monaco Ville and the ramparts of the Palais, the official residence of the Prince and Princess, who was expected to give birth in the next months to the heir to the Principality.

About 400 meters off shore listed the rotting hulk of
The Seven Winds
, a cruise ship whose operating company had gone belly-up the summer before, and ceased all operations, stranding the vessel, crew, and all passengers at the quay during its port call at Monaco. No one claimed further ownership or responsibility for the state of the ship, so the government of Monaco towed it offshore and left it at anchor, to be battered by the winter storms and shifting tides.