“Do what now?”
“Take a shower, of course.”
“A real shower?”
“Yes.”
“But we haven’t really made love.”
“Of course we have. Two times, in fact. I wanted to do it a third time, but it was getting late. Get in the shower, Elena. Wet your hair a little. Smudge your makeup. Scrub your face hard so you look like you’ve been kissed. And use soap. It’s important you go home smelling of strange soap.”
Mikhail opened the taps and slipped silently out of the room. Elena removed her clothing and stepped naked into the water.
47 SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
It was the part of the day that Jean-Luc liked best: the truce between lunch and dinner, when he treated himself to a pastis and calmly prepared the battle plan for the evening. Running his eye down the reservation sheet, he could see it was going to be an arduous night: an American rapper with an entourage of ten, a disgraced French politician and his new child bride, an oil sheikh from one of the emirates- Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Jean-Luc could never remember-and a shady Italian businessman who had gone to ground in Saint-Tropez because he was under indictment in Milan. For the moment, though, the dining room of Grand Joseph was a tranquil sea of linen, crystal, and silver, undisturbed, except for the pair of Spanish waifs drinking quietly at the far end of the bar. And the red Audi convertible parked directly outside the entrance, in violation of a long-standing city ordinance, not to mention countless edicts handed down by Joseph himself.
Jean-Luc drank from his glass of pastis and took a closer look at the two occupants of the car. The man behind the wheel was in his early thirties and was wearing an obligatory pair of Italian sunglasses. He was attractive in a vaguely Slavic way and appeared quite pleased with himself. Next to him was a woman, several years older but no less attractive. Her dark hair was done up in a haphazard bun. Her dress looked slept in. Lovers, concluded Jean-Luc. No doubt about it. What’s more, he was certain he’d seen them in the restaurant quite recently. The names would come to him eventually. They always did. Jean-Luc had that kind of memory.
The couple talked for a moment longer before finally giving each other a kiss that put to rest any lingering doubt over how they had spent their afternoon. It was the final kiss, apparently, for a moment later the woman was standing alone on the sunlit cobbles of the square and the Audi was speeding off like a getaway car leaving the scene of a crime. The woman watched it disappear around the corner, then turned and headed toward Joseph’s entrance. It was then Jean-Luc realized that she was none other than Elena Kharkov, wife of Ivan Kharkov, Russian oligarch and party boy. But where were her bodyguards? And why was her hair mussed and her dress wrinkled? And why in God’s name was she kissing another man in a red Audi in the middle of the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville?
She entered a moment later, her hips swinging a little more jauntily than usual, her handbag dangling from her left shoulder. “Bonsoir, Jean-Luc, ” she sang, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary, and Jean-Luc sang “Bonsoir” in return, as though he hadn’t seen her giving mouth-to-mouth to blondie boy not thirty seconds earlier. She set the bag on the bar and yanked open the zipper, then withdrew her mobile and reluctantly dialed a number. After murmuring a few words in Russian, she closed the phone with an angry snap.
“Can I get you anything, Elena?” Jean-Luc asked.
“A bit of Sancerre would be nice. And a cigarette if you have one.”
“I can do the Sancerre but not the cigarette. It’s the new law. No more smoking in France.”
“What’s the world coming to, Jean-Luc?”
“Hard to say.” He scrutinized her over his pastis. “You all right, Elena?”
“Never better. But I could really use that wine.”
Jean-Luc spilled a generous measure of Sancerre into a glass, twice the usual pour, and placed it on the bar in front of her. She was raising it to her lips when two black Mercedes sedans screeched to a stop in the square. She glanced over her shoulder, frowned, and dropped a twenty on the bar.
“Thanks anyway, Jean-Luc.”
“It’s on the house, Elena.”
She rose to her feet and swung her bag over her shoulder, then blew him a kiss and headed defiantly toward the door, like a freedom fighter mounting a guillotine. As she stepped outside into the sunlight, the rear door of the first car was flung open by some immense force within and a thick arm pulled her roughly inside. The cars then lurched forward in unison and vanished in a black blur. Jean-Luc watched them go, then looked down at the bar and saw that Elena had neglected to take the money. He slipped it into his pocket and raised his glass in a silent toast to her bravery. To the women, he thought. Russia ’s last hope.
The prolonged and unexplained absence of the guest known as Michael Danilov had caused the most acute crisis the Château de la Messardière had seen all summer. Search parties had been sent forth, bushes had been rustled, authorities had been notified. Yet as he drove into the forecourt of the hotel that evening, it was clear by his expression he had no clue of the distress he had caused. He handed his keys to the valet and strode into the marble lobby, where his lover, the much-distressed Sarah Crawford, waited anxiously. Those who witnessedthe blow would later attest to the purity of its sound. It was delivered by her right hand and connected squarely with his left cheek. Because it was rendered without warning or verbal preamble, it caught the recipient and witnesses by complete surprise-all but the two Russian security men, employees of one Ivan Kharkov, who were drinking vodka in the far corner of the lobby bar.
The blond man made no effort at apology or reconciliation. Instead, he climbed back into the red Audi and headed at great speed to his favorite outdoor bar in the Old Port, where he contemplated the tangled state of his affairs over several frigid bottles of Kronenbourg. He never saw the Russians coming; even if he had, he was by then in no condition to do much about it. Their assault, like Sarah’s, commenced without warning or preamble, though the damage it inflicted was far more severe. When it was over, a waiter helped him to his feet and made an ice pack for his wounds. A gendarme strolled over to see what the fuss was about; he took a statement and wondered if the victim wanted to press charges. “What can you do to them?” the blond man responded. “They’re Russians.”
He spent another hour at the bar, drinking quite well on the house, then climbed back into the red Audi and returned to the hotel. Entering his room, he found his clothing flung across the floor and a lipstick epithet scrawled across the bathroom mirror. He remained at the hotel for one more day, licking his numerous wounds, then climbed into his car at midnight and sped off to a destination unknown. Management was quite pleased to see him leave.
