The Hotel Riviera (8 page)

He found a quiet table under the sycamores at the always bustling Café des Arts, then helped Lola into a chair facing away from the other customers. He summoned a waiter, ordered
deux fines
and
deux cafés
, then added a couple of croissants in the belief that if drink didn't make her feel better, then maybe food would.

“So, okay,” Lola said, pulling herself together. “And thank you, Mr. Farrar.”

Jack leaned back in his chair. He took a good long look at Lola Laforêt. “That's okay,” he said. “And it's Jack.”

“Jack.” She managed a smile and he thanked God she wasn't going to cry.

Sensing his concern, she said, “You don't need to worry that I'm about to bawl my eyes out.”

“So what's wrong with crying? It's the normal thing to do when you're upset.”

“And how would you know?” she said.

He shrugged. “I've had my moments.”

“Hah,” she snorted. Jack grinned; she actually
snorted
. “I doubt that. And anyhow, I'm supposed to be the strong one.”

“Sure,” he said, though he wasn't sure about it at all.

“The strong woman, that's me,” Lola added. “I'm the one who always looks after everybody.”

Jack put the glass of brandy in front of her. She gazed doubtfully at it. “Aw, come on, Lola Laforêt,” he said, exasperated. “I'm not trying to get you drunk. I'd just like to get you back to the point where when my dog eats your cheese you don't fall to pieces.”

“It wasn't the
cheese
.”

“So it was the detective.
And
the Frenchman. The husband you might—or might not—have killed. You'll notice I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.”

“Thanks a lot.” She threw him another glare, then took a sip.
“Jack,”
she added, giving his name a sarcastic emphasis.

Jack piled sugar into his espresso, then drank it down in one long sweet gulp. “So now we're friends,
Lola,
why don't you tell me the whole story.”

“Why? So you can have a little spicy gossip to share with your girlfriend over dinner tonight? Well, let me tell you—
Jack
—I did
not
kill my husband. Patrick just disappeared…like smoke.”

She picked up the croissant and took a bite. God, she was
famished
!

“Okay, so tell me what happened,” Jack said.

She took another bite of the croissant as though wondering why she should be telling a stranger her story. Then she told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth. At least that's what she said.

“I went crazy trying to find Patrick,” she finished. “I tried everything, I hounded the local police, I even hired a private investigator but all he did was spend
his
time and
my
money hanging out in bars in Marseilles.”

She had already finished the first croissant and now she took a big bite out of the second; nothing like food in a crisis, he supposed.

“Of course, I questioned Patrick's friends,” she went on, “
and
his girlfriends,
and
the local bartenders. Nothing. It seems when a person wants to disappear, he just can.”

“Or else something happened to him.”

“But what? And why? Patrick wasn't a bad
man.
He was just a bad
husband
. Of course, I knew about the other women,” she said. “I confronted Patrick about his…philandering. He told me it wasn't his fault. He said they were just girls looking for a good time, they almost fell at his feet.

“Let me tell you something else, Jack Farrar,” she said, looking him in the eye. “If I were going to kill Patrick, it would have been there and then. But I didn't. And before you ask, yes, I wanted to leave him, but I couldn't leave the hotel. It's my home, my own little oasis, a safe, beautiful place in this big, wide, difficult world.”

“The police seem to think you might. What are you going to do about that?”

She heaved a sigh, dredged up all the way from her beribboned espadrilles. “It's simple, really,” she said. “All I have to do is find Patrick, then they'll know I'm innocent.” She thought for a minute then added, “There's another reason I need to find him, though. I want to ask him, face to face, what the hell he thought he was doing just going off like that, leaving me with all the worry, the problems, the suspicions.”

“So if you find Patrick, do you want him back?”

She shook her head. “No. I don't. And you know why? First, he's too handsome; second, he's too sexy; and third, he's too French.” She laughed. “Sounds like every girl's blueprint for the perfect man, right? Only trouble is, he shared those qualities around quite amiably with all and sundry. Hey”—she lifted a shoulder in a shrug—“let's face it, it
was
all displayed for him to choose from, right here on the beaches in the south of France. As tempting and available as ice cream on a hot summer day.”

“And it probably meant as little to him.”

“Well, isn't that the old alpha-male myth.” She snorted
again.
“Tell that to today's woman-scorned, Mr. Farrar, and you'll find yourself in double-standard trouble.”

“And what if you find him, only to bury him?” Jack Farrar said. She stared, horrified, at him, unable to answer. “I guess you must have really loved him,” he added gently.

“Oh, I loved Patrick all right,” she said. “In the beginning, I loved him. I believed everything about him, everything he told me. But you know what? Even now, six years later, I still don't know
who
Patrick really is. I guess I never
really knew
him.”

Lola

Mollie Nightingale headed purposefully toward us, straw hat slammed over her eyes, handbag clutched close to her chest in case of muggers.

She checked my bewildered face and threw Jack a stern glare. “This young woman has enough troubles without you adding to them,” she said.

“Ma'am, you've got it all wrong. I'm the rescuer.”

“It was the police that upset me,” I said quickly, letting him off the hook. “I was shopping, I dropped my stuff and Bad Dog ate my cheese, then Jack heard Detective Mercier say I'd better not leave town, so I told Jack the detective thinks I've killed Patrick, and he bought me coffee and brandy, and now I've eaten all the croissants and I've told him all about Patrick's disappearance or at least everything I know about it and…and well, now I don't know what to do. Except I have to find Patrick so they won't think I killed him.” It all came out in one long breath.

Miss N turned to the waiter. “Three espressos and make them strong,” she ordered. Then she said to us, “Of course, had we been in England I would have ordered a nice pot of tea. There's nothing like it for helping solve a problem.”

Jack looked bemused, but he offered her his hand. “My name is Jack Farrar,” he said.

“And mine is Mollie Nightingale. Ex-headmistress of Queen Wilhelmina's, the best girls' school in London.” She took a sip of her coffee and nudged me to do the same, glancing at Jack over the cup's rim. “And what do
you
do, Mr. Farrar?”

He grinned. “Isn't that considered bad form in England? Asking people what they do?”

“That may be, but you understand I need to know
who
and
what
you are.”

Jack got to his feet. “Truth of the matter is, Miss Nightingale, I have no personal interest in Patrick or in his disappearance, except that my dog ate his wife's cheese. And since my role in this affair is now complete, I'm happy to be on my way.”

“Not so fast.” Miss Nightingale waved him imperiously back into his seat. Jack probably hadn't felt like this since he was ten years old and had been called before the principal for carving his initials in his desk.

Miss N pushed her glasses farther up her nose, the better to look him up and down. She liked what she saw and she nodded, then took another sip of coffee and said, “Lola is in serious trouble and she needs all the help she can get. Mr. Farrar, I may look like a simple old lady, but I want you to know that I was married to a Scotland Yard detective.” She gave him a piercing glance over the rim of her coffee cup. “And that's no small change, as you Yanks would say. He was a powerful man, my Tom. A dangerous man too, because he had no thought for his own safety.

“Tom would often talk to me about the criminal mind and his theories on how it worked. He said it wasn't all that difficult. Criminal minds seem to think alike, and most of them are not all that clever, though there are a few exceptions, mostly in the corporate world. However, I helped Tom solve several of his cases, always behind the scene, of course, because no man wants to think his wife is cleverer than he is, do they?”

Her pale blue eyes behind those big glasses were so innocent that we both laughed.

“Anyhow,” Miss N said, “I'm pledging Lola my help and the benefit of my criminal experience. No matter what has happened to Patrick, we shall find out. And if he's run off with another woman, my best advice to you, Lola, is get rid of him. And if it's…
the worst
”—she phrased it delicately—“then our job is to find out who did it.”

It felt so
good
to have someone on my side, someone who believed in me, someone to help me. I leaned over and clasped Miss N's hand in mine. “Thank you. Again,” I said, and Miss N smiled and patted my hand soothingly. “There, there, child,” she said, as she must have a thousand or more times to distressed schoolgirls. “It'll be all right in the end, I promise you.”

Jack Farrar was looking at us, obviously wondering how he'd gotten himself into this and no doubt looking for a way out.

I still don't know what made him say it, but say it he did.

“Okay, so we have to find Patrick,” Jack Farrar said. “Count me in.”

Jack walked me back to my car. I didn't say much en route, I'd finally run out of steam. My rusty CV2 looked about to collapse under the strain of age and hard work. It hadn't been washed in weeks and was covered in a fine layer of dust. Bad Dog circled it then lifted a contemptuous leg on a rear tire.

I scowled, then turned to glare at Jack.

“Hmm.” He looked at the car again.

“It works for me,” I said, my stiff posture betraying my irritation.

“Looks as though that car's been working for you for a very long time.” He gave the hood a little thump with his fist. “Damn good little workhorse, always was, or so I heard. Never owned one personally.”

“You don't know what you're missing, but then people like you probably run around in silver BMW convertibles, or red Ferraris.”

“Just goes to show how little you know about ‘people like me.' Besides, don't you know it's bad to make generalizations?”

He opened the car door; it groaned and when I switched on the engine it trembled like a tired old mare.

I wound the window down. “So what
do
you drive?”

“Certainly not a BMW, or a Ferrari.”

“How about a red Corvette?”

He laughed. “Red's right. A Ford F350 quad-cab pickup. I'm a working man. Like you I need to haul stuff, only in my case it's boat stuff, not the marketing.”

I shoved my hair back with an impatient hand and pushed my sunglasses on top of my head. I doubted Jack Farrar thought there was a beauty lurking under all that hair. I was a mess. He slammed the car door. The catch was loose and, like everything else, it rattled.

“Are you sure this thing is safe?”

“It's been safe for more than six years, no reason it shouldn't be now.”

“Good feminine reasoning.”

“Good masculine answer.” My exasperated sigh made him laugh.

“You take dates out in that Ford pickup?” I asked.

“Depends. But my other car's a Porsche.”

“Hah!” I gave a triumphant snort. “I knew it.”

“An
old
Porsche, but it's built for speed and I guess I'm a speedster at heart.”

I put on the sunglasses and leaned out the window, looking up at him. “I don't know why you're doing what you're doing, Jack Farrar,” I said, suddenly humble, “but…thank you.”

“Truth be told, I don't exactly know why either.” He grinned at me. “There's just something about you, I guess.”

I backed the car out of the tight parking spot, made a quick U-turn and bounced off down the narrow street, and he lifted his arm in a goodbye wave.

Jack

“Hey, Jack,” Sugar said, “What're you up to with that miserable-looking babe?”

“Saving her from a fate worse than anything you could imagine.”

He linked his arm through Sugar's and they walked toward the Quai Jean-Jaurès followed by Bad Dog, still sniffing for fallen treasures among the market debris. Sugar's flesh was smooth and warm under his hand, cool and fresh as if she'd just emerged from the sea. Which he knew she had, not too long ago, because he'd swum with her off the boat early that morning.

“You jumping ship?” he asked, over an omelette fines herbes at Le Gorille. Helping women out of their troubles had whetted his appetite and he was suddenly starving, and besides, the damsel in distress had eaten all the croissants.

Sugar's blue eyes met his. She hitched up her red top and crossed her long brown legs. “Thinking of it,” she said casually.

“No time like the present, Sugar,” he said.

She flashed him a wide white smile. “Great,” she said. “Just want you to know we'll always be friends.”

He reached across the table for her hand. “Sure,” he said, “and it was great while it lasted.”

“Fun,” Sugar agreed. “It was fun.”

He finished his omelette and called the waiter for the bill. “Come on, I'll take you back to the boat. You'll get your stuff and I'll take you wherever you want to go.”

Sugar's eyes lit up but she was looking beyond him at the two bronzed young gods heading her way. “Thanks,” she said, “but no need. The guys will help me.”

Jack got up and wrapped himself around her in a bear hug, which made Bad Dog prance on his hind legs and bark jealously. “Take care, Sugar,” he said.

“See y'all around,” she called as she headed into the arms of both bronze gods.

He watched them go, Sugar in the middle, their muscular young arms wrapped around her waist. Have a good time, Sugar, he thought, you're only young once.

And that brought him back to the problem of Lola Laforêt, the Bambi-eyed waif with a missing husband and a possible murder rap hanging over her ginger head. Just what had he gotten himself into? And what was he going to do about it?

He looked at Bad Dog sitting faithfully at his feet, awaiting the next event. No use asking him, Jack thought, patting the dog's scruffy head. He'd just have to find out for himself.