The St. Tropez Lonely Hearts Club (6 page)

And Maximus Gobbi felt he had found a new patron.

Buenos Aires, May 2015

After the death of her father, Flora had been begging her mother to send her to tennis camp in Connecticut in the summer and Carlotta had agreed. With the prospect of being unencumbered for two months, she decided to contact Maximus and tell him of her potential plans. ‘I was thinking of coming to Monaco again,’ she said tentatively. ‘It’s so beautiful and serene.’

‘Serene? Yes,
cara,
serene like a graveyard,’ Maximus cooed. ‘It’s really terribly boring for young people. You know what they say about it?’

‘No, what?’

‘A sunny place for shady people. No, no, my dear. Not Monaco for the summer season. It’s far too dull and far too many old people. You must come to Saint-Tropez. You will adore it. If you will allow, I shall find you a suitable house to rent, and maybe even a suitable replacement for Nicanor?’ He laughed a great rumbling bellow.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘I hadn’t really thought of that. It’s . . . it’s much too soon – I haven’t thought much about anything other than my Flora since her father died, but I would like to have some fun,’ she added wistfully.

‘Well, it is always a long, wonderful summer,’ purred Maximus. ‘And full of fun. Anything can happen in Saint-Tropez, and it usually does.’

‘Perhaps that is exactly the kind of summer that I need after this . . . this terrible time. I’ll think about it.’

‘Yes, of course, my dear, but don’t think too long. The best houses to rent are snapped up
très vite.
But do please come. I know you will love it. There is so much to do. Apart from a divine social life there are great beaches and restaurants, there is water skiing, paragliding and wonderful shopping.’

‘Oh, I love shopping.’

‘As far as shopping goes, the market every Tuesday and Saturday at the Place des Lices is a fabulous bustling bazaar. You can find everything there from antiques to artichokes and cheese to cheesecloths.’ He bellowed with laughter at his own wit.

‘That sounds amazing.’

‘Oh, it is – it is indescribable. In the morning you can spend time browsing at the market, then have a slow, delicious lunch at one of the glamorous beaches.’

Carlotta sighed, ‘That sounds wonderful.’

‘Then, my dear, we now have every top brand shop – Dolce, Chanel, Vuitton, Gucci, Dior – not to mention dozens of tiny little boutiques selling one-of-a-kind outfits. It is a ladies’ delight. I shall take you there, my dear. You will become addicted to Saint-Tropez, most people do.’

‘It sounds too good to be true.’

‘Oh, it is – it certainly is. My dear, it is unlike anywhere else in the world, so what do you think?’

‘I will certainly try to come. I’ll let you know as soon as possible.’

‘Good, good. Don’t wait too long or all the best houses will be gone,’ he repeated.

‘I’ll let you know next week. My daughter wants to go to tennis camp for the summer so I will be free.’

‘Wonderful, so I will make all the arrangements. I shall give a fabulous party for you to welcome you. I know everyone who matters in Saint-Tropez, and the rest of the Côte d’Azur too, for that matter.’

Indeed it was true. Maximus Gobbi knew everyone and everyone knew him. No matter that many would cross the road rather than acknowledge him, he was a party organiser
par excellence,
a mover and a shaker (in spite of his bulk), and he knew where many skeletons hid in the closets of the rich and famous.

After she hung up, Carlotta laughed for the first time in a month. Her hopes for a wonderful summer in Saint-Tropez and the possibility of finding true love, if such a thing actually existed, seemed to be coming true.

30 Boulevard Suchet, Paris, May 2015

Maximus Gobbi had always been used to thinking on his feet. The youngest of a brood of eight hunky boys, he had been forced to wheedle, manipulate and even fight to get what he felt he deserved. Whether that was a small bowl of soup or the last crust of bread he would have to grab from his brothers, life had never been easy for young Maximus.

His elder brothers teased him mercilessly as he was a change-of-life baby born to a woman already worn out by motherhood and the slavery of running a home for nine males. She gave short shrift to little Maximus, who early on learned to live by his wits.

The family lived outside Naples in a tiny crumbling tenement apartment, which still bore the scars of the war that had ended the year Maximus entered the world. His brothers all worked in the dockyards with his increasingly ailing father, hauling enormous crates from the ships that crammed the flourishing post-war harbours. The ships and what they contained were supposed to bring prosperity to Naples and to Italy, but if they did bring it they brought it only to the wealthy, and the Gobbi family saw little of it. The men made enough to feed, clothe and pay the overpriced apartment rent, but there was none left over for the most minimum of necessities.

Since Maximus was fourteen years younger than his nearest brother, his hand-me-downs were always ludicrously too big, so to dress him half-decently his mother had to rely on the kindness of neighbours. A quiet and furtive boy, Max kept his head down and his thoughts to himself. He knew no one in his family would be remotely interested in anything he had to say in any case.

The one thing he had in his favour, however, was stunning good looks. Penetrating deep blue eyes fringed with thick black lashes, a mass of curly jet-black hair and a slim elegant physique were the attributes that attracted Federico Braganza, the celebrated movie director, one fine spring day in 1961. He was in Naples, on location in a café on the waterfront. He noticed the young Maximus, who had wangled a job as an extra in the background.

After a short, probing conversation, Federico discovered that sixteen-year-old Max was a) a virgin, having never been with either boy or girl, and b) bored – bored stiff by his life; he hated his family and he had no idea what to do with himself.

Federico soon sorted out both these problems. With the minimum of fuss, Maximus bade goodbye to his brothers, who couldn’t have cared less about him, and to his parents, who were on their last legs in any case, and accompanied Braganza in his beautiful new Maserati to Rome – to the eternal city.

In 1962 La Dolce Vita was in full swing. The sidewalks and cafés of the Via Veneto thronged with the international new jet setters and movie stars from the 1940s and 1950s, who were trying to revive waning careers. Masses of gorgeous young men and women, many on the make or on the lookout for a producer who might cast them in one of the many epics being filmed, also spent the afternoons drinking in the cafés and hitting the glamorous clubs at night.

Max was in heaven. Federico moved him into his luxurious apartment on the Via Condotti above the chic bustling shopping street, gave him a generous allowance and instructed him thoroughly in the art of homosexual Kama Sutra. Max was a fast learner, and with Federico busy at Cinecittà Studios all day, he started to practise his new-found amatory skills on a variety of handsome young bucks, not to mention older gentlemen, who often paid for the privilege.

After a few years, when Federico predictably tired of him, Maximus had managed to save enough
lira
to buy a tiny apartment in the chic Trastevere district of Rome. There he started to really enjoy the good life and live it to the hilt. He realised he had a knack of putting people together – particularly older, richer people who wanted to connect with famous people, and particularly young and good-looking ones. With his entrée into the show-business life, Maximus’s address book was full of contacts – important, rich and influential people, dozens of hungry, handsome boys and gorgeous girls, and the occasional transexual for specialty tastes.

He soon saw the opportunity to have his business branch out across Europe, and took a small
pied-à-terre
in Paris, which doubled as an office. It suited his penchant for luxury to act like a jet setter.

Never having had enough to eat as a child, Maximus soon started to grow in girth at an alarming rate. His love of pasta, wine and rich desserts knew no bounds, and by the time he was forty, he tipped the scales at north of three hundred pounds.

Food and wine soon took the place of sex, and since his beauteous looks had long gone, he turned his talents to procuring young men for other men and women who would pay for the privilege. He collected a stable of hungry studs to suit every taste. But it was a perilous profession with no security and no state pension.

By the time he was pushing seventy, Max had become extremely worried about his financial future. Many of his young studs had found ways to circumvent him and go direct to the consumer; money was therefore extremely tight.

Maximus glared at his bank statement in a fury. ‘
Merde!
No-no-no-
nooooo! Non è posso!
Marie Christine!!
Viene qui!
’ he yelled for his secretary, hoping she would come up with something – anything – to get him out of yet another ghastly financial situation. It seemed as soon as he solved one money problem, another one popped up.

‘She’s out to lunch.’ Fabrizio Bricconni strolled in the door, shirt open to his navel, cigarette drooping à la Bogart from Cupid-bow lips. ‘
Ciao, caro, che è successo?
Why are you in such a state?’

Shit, thought Maximus, why is he here now? No matter, every encounter presents a possible solution.

‘My dear boy,’ he said unctuously, ‘such a pleasure!’ Maximus rearranged his features in order to beam at his prize protégé – definitely the most lucrative of his stable but a slippery piece of work. ‘Fabrizio,
caro
, so good to see you. What are you doing in Paris?’

‘I’m here meeting some producers from Kazakhstan. They’re making an
X Factor
there and they’re considering using me,’ Fabrizio announced proudly.

‘Really?’ Maximus lowered his glasses and focused fully on Fabrizio, rapidly making calculations of possible financial outcomes. ‘But, my dear boy, whoever told you you could sing?’

‘I can sing, bitch,’ Fabrizio replied sulkily. ‘I’ve been taking lessons here in Paris . . . with Lara’s blessing,’ he added.

‘Ahhh, so how
is
Madame Lara?’ Max asked with bonhomie, then sharply spat, ‘Did you make the deal yet?’

Maximus had been conspiring to make Fabrizio marry Lara Meyer since last summer. They both knew she had formed an inordinate obsession with Fabrizio (which even she admitted started and ended below the waist). But there was no denying her possessive adoration and Maximus mercilessly exploited that weakness. Maximus’s objective was financial: Fabrizio’s marriage to Lara Meyer would mean an increased monthly stipend, of which he would collect 20 per cent, plus an additional 20 per cent ownership of all of Lara’s assets, which Fabrizio would share as soon as Lara convinced her controlling ex-husband to drop the intricate pre-nup his New York lawyers insisted on which stopped her from getting anything if she remarried.