Just Follow the Money

by Jinx Schwartz

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nicole separated Cholo and me at the dining table, probably in hopes one of her nosy friends would sniff out what kind of relationship we had. Unfortunately, she seated my perceived boy toy next to a Spanish duke, which made it imperative that Cholo stick to English, lest El Duque figure out by his accent that he was a Mexican. It turned out not to be a problem, as everyone at the table was speaking English.

  For my part, I was given the dubious seat of honor on Nicole’s right. To my right was a woman with hair so scarlet it made mine look downright washed out. She was draped with peacock feathers, yards of velvet redder than her teased-up hair, and diamonds galore. To her right was her escort, a dapper younger man who fawned over her.

  If Nicole had arranged this placement as a dig at me—as though putting the older women together—she failed miserably, for the woman and I hit it right off and spent the entire meal chatting with each other. Actually, she did most of the talking, which would normally annoy me, but her stories were good, and I was fascinated with this French version of Auntie Mame. She was introduced to me as the Baronensse de Montesquieu, but was quick to tell me to call her Monique, and that she married the title, which her dearly departed husband bought using the last of his inheritance. After blowing his money buying into la noblesse, he quickly married her for her money before his expensive wardrobe became threadbare.

  I want to be her when I grow up.

  It was during the dessert course that I hit pay dirt. Monique not only lived in one of the hotels I’d investigated as a possible hidey-hole for la dueña, she owned the hotel.

  “What a life you lead. Gee, I wonder if you could help me find a friend. I know she’s here in Cannes, but I forgot which hotel she’s staying in. Maybe it’s yours? I haven’t heard from her in over a week and am getting worried. Of course, the front desk wouldn’t give me any information. Your security is tight.”

  “Well, my dear, our guest list is, shall we say, top drawer. At least in their own minds. We must protect them or we’ll lose our reputation. If you give me your friend’s name, I will make a discreet inquiry.”

  “That’s part of the problem. My friend told me she’s using an alias at the request of her employer, and didn’t share her assumed sobriquet with me.”

  Monique’s frown made it clear I was treading on thin ice. This woman didn’t know me from Adam, and I was trying to glean information held sacred by her establishment. I gave it one last shot. “She is chaperoning a young woman of some social standing in her own country, and all I know is my friend and the girl have a suite with a view of the harbor. My friend was supposed to meet me at the yacht, but we’ve been here three days and so far she has failed to do so. It is concerning.”

  “Well, uh, you must realize…”

  “Hetta! How delightful to see you again so soon,” a voice that once upon a time literally charmed the pants off me boomed throughout the dining room, putting a halt to all the chit chat.

  Nicole jumped to her feet. “Jean Luc. I didn’t know you were in town!”

  Like hell she didn’t. The bitch just couldn’t wait to throw me and Cholo into what she hoped was an embarrassing situation.

  At the speed of sound, a servant materialized with a chair, which he was in the process of scooting to Nicole’s other side when intercepted in mid-scoot by Jean Luc, who shoved it between me and my hostess.

  Nicole, who looked for a moment as though she’d bitten into a lemon, quickly regained her sangfroid as she turned toward her cousin and asked, “Would you like something to eat, Coco?”

  Coco looked pained at the use of his cousin’s endearing term for him, and countered. “Just wine, thank you. I dined en route when I feared you were actually cooking.”

  That got a laugh from the guests, and our hostess’s face reddened, but she air-kissed him just the same. “You are such a bad boy. Perhaps that is why the women all love you.”

  “Of course we do,” Monique said, leaning across me to pinch Jean Luc’s handsome cheek. “He is my favorite nephew.”

  “Tante Monique!” Jean Luc jumped to his feet again and passed behind me, trailing his hand across my bare shoulder as he did so. “Had I known you would be here, I would have arrived early enough for dinner. Nicole wouldn’t dare attempt to cook for a woman with such refined taste.”

  “Refined enough to know a scoundrel when I see one in action.”

  “You wound me,” Jean Luc crooned, then picked up my hand and kissed it. “Hetta, I am so pleased to see you are wearing the bracelet I gave you.”

  Nicole looked like she was about to blow a gasket.

  Monique only raised an eyebrow, when Jean Luc added, “And, Tante, I see you’ve met the only other woman I ever truly loved.”

  “Certainly a well-kept secret on your part,” Monique quipped, reaching over to pinch his cheek again. “One I shall cherish and guard until I need a favor.”

  Jean Luc laughed. “Blackmail? From a woman of your refinement? Sorry, my dear, it will not work. Until very recently I hadn’t seen Hetta for over twenty years. Before I married.”

  That was a stretch. Five whole days before he got married.

  Jean Luc returned to his seat on my left, and a cadre of waiters setting an array of crystal glasses and dessert dishes in front of him caused a distraction, which I used to get back on mission. His untimely arrival threatened to derail my success with his aunt. When I swiveled to face her, I was met with an under-the-eyebrow, amused look.

  “So, where were we?” I asked, a little lamely.

  “I was on the verge of telling you to get lost. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that story of your misplaced friend sounds?”

  “Yes.”

  And the evening went downhill from there.

  It seemed my quest to learn the whereabouts of the mystery chaperone was a bust until, upon parting, Monique whispered in my ear, “Please, join me for coffee tomorrow morning. Say ten o’clock? My driver will collect you at your yacht.”

  I didn’t bother asking how she knew which yacht.

  Back at the boat, Jan was waiting for us in the sky lounge. “So, how did you do? Tell all, I’m dying to know.”

  Cholo just shook his head and went to the bar. I followed, Jan right on my heels.

  As Cholo poured himself a tequila, and a wine for me, he held the bottle toward Jan. She raised her glass for a top-off. “Judging by your need of a tequila, Cholo, might I surmise your evening wasn’t all that great?”

  “Oh, to the contrary. I think I’m engaged.”

  “Huh?”

  “You hadda be there,” I said.

  “Would have loved to be a fly on the wall.” She went back to the settee and patted it. “Sit and tell all.”

  Just then Po Thang bounded into the room, Rhonda hot on his heels. “I knew you were home,” Rhonda said, slightly out of breath. “Po Thang went nuts, so I let him out of my room and followed him.”

  I hugged my dog, he sniffed around my mouth and nosed my hand, looking for some of whatever lingered on my breath. “Sorry, Dude Dawg, the French don’t do doggy bags.”

  Miffed, he curled up and promptly fell asleep.

  Jan, whose patience had run out, demanded, “Well?”

  “I’m beat,” I said, cutting my eyes toward the bulkhead I knew separated Fabio’s captain’s quarters from the sky lounge. “Let’s take our drinks to my cabin and I’ll fill you in while I get into jammies and wipe all this crap off my face.”

  As we bid Cholo goodnight, he just nodded and sat down in a big comfy chair, tequila in hand. This gigolo business was starting to grate on him, especially when that Spanish count considered him fair game for a little tryst.

  After we all washed our faces, brushed our teeth and slopped on the stuff that’s supposed to keep us younger looking despite our lifestyles, we gathered for my debriefing. I summarized the evening while giving Po Thang a beauty brushing of his own, and told them I was having coffee with Jean Luc’s aunt in hopes of
getting more info on the elusive chaperone.

  “How do you know you even have the right hotel?” Jan asked. “The chaperone could be in any of those overpriced palaces.”

  “I don’t, but this old lady has a right smart finger on the pulse of Cannes, and now that she knows I’m friends with her favorite nephew, I think she’ll help us out. Meanwhile, however, Agent Rhonda needs to be on kitchen duty tomorrow, very early in the morning. We need a name, or at least the hotel’s name, preferably before my coffee meeting.”

  Rhonda gave me a salute and a smile. “Aye! Aye! Ma’am, I’ll do my best.”

  “And you, Miz Jan, might consider a move on Cholo. I’m still not sure he’s on Team Hetta, even though he seems to be leaning in my direction. He was hired by Nacho, but I sense there is no love lost there. We need to find out what he knows, and I can’t think of anyone more qualified to pick his pockets, so to speak.”

  “How deep into those pockets?”

  “Use your discretion.”

  Rhonda’s mouth was hanging open. “You don’t mean…I mean…oh, never mind.” We caught a glimpse of crimson ears under her black hairdo as she whirled and left the room.

  Jan and I shared a high five. “Lord, give us strength,” I said, taking a big slug of Evian.

  “She’ll get used to us one of these days. I’ll borrow Cholo in the morning and ask him to accompany me while I walk Po Thang. I’ll make up some story about why I want him along.”

  “Of course you will.”

  It was after midnight when I finally hit the feathers. Okay, it wasn’t really a feather bed—which, by the way, would have been extremely unpractical in a saltwater environment—but some very expensive foam. Anyhow, my head just hit the pillow when Nacho called to announce a six a.m. meeting in the War Room, which was his new name for the Sky Lounge. This was my seventh day in a row without a decent night’s sleep, and to say I was less than civilized when he called so late and announced such an early meeting would be putting it politely.

  Let it suffice to say he felt my wrath.

  So, still in our jammies and sweat shirts, Jan and I dragged in at six to find Chef Roberto already had coffee made and croissants at the ready, evidently with the help of Rhonda. She commented she’d been on the job since before dawn, and the dark circles under her eyes were proof.

  Even Po Thang, usually chipper at the promise of any kind of food, dragged in behind us, gave the entire entourage a dirty look and curled up to get his self-allotted beauty rest.

  Once we all had a hit of caffeine, a grim-faced Nacho announced, “We have received a ransom demand.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Taking in his less-than-elated demeanor when Nacho told us there was a ransom demand, I asked, “Isn’t that a good thing? I mean, the old man has the money, we deliver it to whoever wants it, and we get the girl. Case closed.”

  “It would seem so. I suppose, in a way, you are correct,” he said with an uncharacteristic cadence. I gave his new eye bags a closer look; I wasn’t the only one losing sleep. “El Jefe is willing to pay anything to get his granddaughter back, and now he is pushing us to meet any demands as soon as possible.”

  “Why is that a problem?” Jan wanted to know.

  Finally revived by my second cup of French roast, I now noticed the others on Team Nacho were all as exhausted-looking as I felt, including Chef Roberto, who was as pasty-looking as his daily dough. Nacho had called me at midnight; had their team been up all night? There was an edginess in the room that spoke of more tension than losing a few hours of sleep warranted.

  I stood and faced off with Nacho. “What Jan said. Why am I getting the distinct feeling there is more? Obviously, we are not in the loop and dammit we need to be.”

  To my surprise, Nacho agreed and pulled a couple of pieces of folded paper from his pocket and handed them over. Jan and Rhonda rushed over to peer over my shoulder as I unfolded them. The color prints, obviously produced on a better printer than my little portable, left nothing to the imagination.

  The photo was of a large gold hoop earring placed on a white china plate. The fastener was encrusted in what looked like dried blood. My stomach did a looper. “Oh, no.”

  With great trepidation, I unfolded the other printout, and it took a second for my brain to tell my eyes I was looking at a close-up of a torn and bloody earlobe, surrounded by matted blonde hair and what looked to be a bruised and bloody cheek.

  Jan sucked in her breath. “Merde.”

  Rhonda bolted for the bathroom.

  All the photos were date stamped two days before.

  Roberto, who was even paler than he’d been earlier, said, “My grandfather gave those earrings to Juanita as a special early birthday present. They were very expensive, and if you look closely at this one, you can see her name is inscribed on it.”

  I pulled glasses from my pocket and moved the photo closer to my face. “Juanita” was written in ornate cursive on the huge hoop.

  “Why,” Roberto asked, “would someone do such a thing? Surely, they know the ransom will be paid. It is only three million dollars, after all.”

  “My thoughts, exactly,” Nacho said. “I made some calls to experts in this field, not divulging any information about our case, of course, and learned that this type of thing indicates a more sinister motive along with the money. Perhaps revenge? As we know, El Jefe has many enemies.”

  “We do?” This was the first I’d heard that juicy tidbit. We weren’t even certain the grandfather we thought we had identified as El Jefe were one and the same, but now we at least knew our boss had foes.

  Nacho frowned. “I told you from the beginning, you are here for window dressing. You,” he looked pointedly at both me and Jan, “are on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Yeah, well,” Jan said, as she subconsciously rubbed an earlobe of her own, “dontcha just think we need to know more, since you’re dangling us out there as bait for these dirty rat bastards? And without a safety line?”

  “You are told what you need to know,” Nacho said, somewhat sanctimoniously.

  I stood up, yelled, “That’s it. We quit!” and marched out of the room, Jan and Po Thang loyally following behind. Rhonda, back from tossing her croissants, stayed put at Roberto’s side.

  As soon as it was safe to talk, Jan said, “Did you notice their slip-up?”

  “How could I not? Three million dollars? That’s chickenfeed.”

  “And, it seems our Rhonda isn’t willing to take one for the team. Might I ask what that ’we quit’ thing was all about? I just followed your lead. Why, I’ll never know.”

  I shrugged. “I dunno myself, it just sounded good. Let them figure it out. I liberated us to do what we want to do, which is our own thing.”

  “What about Rhonda?”

  “Who cares? Let’s wait and see where she stands. Maybe she’s showing false loyalty for Team Nacho to get more info. I hope so, at least.” I yawned. “I, for one, need a quick nap before I have to get dressed for my coffee date with Tante Monique.”

  “You still want me to go after Cholo?”

  “Absolutely. More important now than ever. Work your magic. He’s a man, and you know how to manipulate them.”

  “Let’s just say I sure as hell have more luck using my wiles than you do with gunpowder. Shooting at them rarely works, ya know.”

  “I never shot…oh, never mind. Let’s concentrate on getting Juanita back before these bozos get her killed.”

  My snooze never happened, because just as I was dozing off, I remembered those papers in my pocket and went looking for Jan.

  She was, as I expected, on her computer. “I thought you had to rest up before a tough day at a coffee klatch.”

  “I wanted to give you these photos to enhance. Maybe pick up a clue or two. And, we need to have a look at that ransom note.”

  “You think you’re playing with amateurs here?” She hit PRINT and there it was, fresh off Nacho’s computer.

  This is Juanita’
s earring. If we don't get three million in non-sequential twenty-dollar bills within forty-eight hours, then the rest of the ear will arrive. In other words, she will arrive in little bits.

  “Sadistic bastards! No wonder Roberto looked like he was about to pass out. This is scary.”

  “Yes,” Jan said, “and familiar.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember that book we read a few years back, about John Paul Getty III’s kidnapping? They cut off the kid’s ear? Take a look at this.”

  She clicked on a bookmark and brought up an article about that famous kidnapping and scrolled down. The first ransom note read: This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits.

  “Almost word for word,” I said. “Jeez, that was 1973 and they asked for seventeen million dollars, what’s with this paltry three million? Haven’t the kidnappers heard of inflation?”

  She hooted. “Good point. However, if grandpa is the tomato king we think he is, whoever grabbed his granddaughter made a smart move if you ask me. The old man probably considers three mil chump change, and keeps more than that in his safe. El Jefe will pony up faster than a speeding chihuahua, and we’ll be home for Christmas.”

  “I hope so. Jan, I think you might want to hold off on the Cholo thing and stand by the computer in case something changes. I gotta go have coffee with Jean Luc’s Aunt Monique.”

  “Can’t you cancel? I mean, why do we care who the chaperone is now?”

  “We don’t really. I just like the old broad and besides, you never know when we might be back in Cannes and need a friend. Or a great place to hide.”

  “Excellent point. I’ll be here.”

  “And,” I growled in my best Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back.’’

  I was ready to roll when the limo arrived at ten; evidently la Baronnesse de Montesquieu didn’t think me capable of walking four blocks to her hotel. I was delivered, via private elevator, to the penthouse she calls home and, as expected, was blown away at the sumptuous décor and spectacular views. I could see Odyssey clearly from her balcony.