"That is how they work. They do not seek French women but prey on foreigners. "Mais..." she looked embarrassed.
"But what?" I asked.
"You must forgive me, but if your friend is near your age, that would be...unusual."
"Why is that?"
"We noticed he, the blonde, seemed to prefer very much the...young ones."
"As in younger and maybe stupider?"
They nodded, so I asked, "But why would a gigolo, if that is what he is, go after someone, uh, less seasoned, but who probably has no money?"
They shrugged. "We do not know. That one," she sniffed in the direction of the man we scared off, "he is a local who simply picks up free meals and gifts for his company. As a gigolo, he is not very good at it. The other, the one your friend is involved with, he is new to Cannes and I think," she sneered, "Algerian."
Boy, were we ever getting an education in French bias; evidently it's more desirable to be a French gigolo than an Algerian in France.
"Really? With that blonde hair?" Jan asked, fishing for more info.
"You are blonde, Chérie, that man's skin is quite dark."
"Dang, I just thought he had a tan."
We finished our lunch, said so long to the ladies, and doubled back to the beach. Our admirer was at the café where we first saw him, striking up a conversation with an older lady with a poodle in her lap. Obviously he was not pining for our sweet selves. Love can be so fleeting, and fickle.
Back at our pool house, we discussed our next move.
"So, Jenks says we should leave Cannes, but not by train or plane. How we gonna get back to Castelnaudary? Or Negra to pick up our car?"
We were sitting by the pool, watching the sunset, and lights blinking on in town.
"Not sure. Let's stay here for at least another night. We'll figure something out. These terrorists are starting to really piss me off."
"Hetta, you have the most amazing knack for the understatement."
I had to laugh at what I just said. "You know what I mean. I'm starting to take it personally."
"Don't do it. That's what they want."
"Yeah, I guess. So, what do we do about Rousel now that we know he's a gigolo?"
"We absolutely have to reach Rhonda. Anything back from Rhea yet?"
"Nope. It's chilly out here, so we might as well go back in and dig some more. I'll call René and see if they've got anything on Rousel yet."
"Don't tell him we're not gonna take a train or plane. He'll insist on coming to get us."
After calling Nicole, the elegant property manager, and telling her we'd probably be leaving in two days, I touched base with René.
"Hetta! Po Thang was just about to call you! He has news."
"Ha. Put him on, then."
After Po Thang went through his entire vocabulary of woofs and whines, René told me his news: Rousel le Roué actually did work for his family business.
I hung up the phone, thoroughly confused.
"So," Jan said after I told her this turn of events, "Rousel is not a gigolo?"
"Sounds more like he's a playboy, if what those women said today is true. He stalks young women for fun and games, while his friend zeroes in on older gals for profit."
"Now that pisses me off. I'm not even forty," Jan huffed. "Unlike you."
"Thanks for that pleasant reminder. The question is why did Rousel go after Rhonda?"
Jan shrugged. "Maybe he wants American citizenship? Seems like he'd get a much better reception back home. It's hard not to pick up on the disdain René and that woman today have for French-Algerians, second generation or not."
"Still, something stinks like a Parisian pissoir in July here."
"Try that phone you gave Rhonda again. Leave a message that'll make her call. Tell her I'm dying or something."
"Which won't be a stretch if you age-shame me again."
"Sorry. I feel so helpless. Does Jean Luc know where Rousel is right now?"
"René didn't say."
"Okay, Hetta, the time has come to swallow your pride. Get Jean Luc's phone number and call him."
"No way, Jose. I ain't doing it. Besides, what happened to us just emasculating him?"
"I do believe one would have to be in close proximity to the victim to do that, huh? Can't exactly remove someone's nuts by remote control."
"Dang."
"Miz Hetta, we gotta find Rhonda, and right now. And for that, we're gonna need Jean Luc's help, simple as that."
I sighed. "I guess you're right. She said they were flying out day after tomorrow, so maybe DooRah's contacts in Paris can check for them on passenger lists. Seems like Jean Luc is indeed connected."
"Ain't no way are the airlines giving out that kind of info, even if we knew which airline they, or rather, Rousel, booked them on."
I sat up straight. "Air France! Rhonda said Air France"
"Then, get on the horn, now."
After downing ten milligrams of courage from my secret stash, I dialed the number René gave me for Jean Luc DooRah. My heart thudded with each ring, until I was forwarded to voicemail.
I hate modern technology.
Chapter Twenty-four
I listened, heart still a-thump, as Jean Luc's sexy voice asked me to leave a message.
Hanging up without doing so, I glared at the phone. "If this damned thing wasn't so expensive I'd throw it in the pool right now."
"Calm down. He'll see your number and probably call back. After all, he's the one who wants to see you, remember?"
"Maybe I should send Jenks an email and tell him what we're doing, and why. I'm taking a nasty guilt trip here."
"Oh, for cryin' out loud, it ain't like you're jumping in the sack with Jean Luc. We're just trying to protect a friend here, not rekindle an old affair. Get real."
"I still feel bad. Jenks is so good to me, and here, once again, I've embroiled myself in another freakin' mess."
"Uh, please allow me to rephrase that. As in, you've embroiled us in another freakin' mess."
"Sorry."
"Sorry? Hell, I love it. We're in France and on the trail of some bad guy who deserves to get his comeuppance. If we hadn't been here, goodness knows what would have happened to Rhonda."
"Goodness only knows what still might. We're spinning our wheels."
"Let's sleep on it. We can't do anything more tonight."
"You're right," I yawned, "and I'm beat."
"Want a glass of wine?"
"Nah, I'd better—"
"I knew it! You've taken a Valium, haven't you? That is the only reason on God's green earth you won't drink."
Dang.
Beat or not, even my drug of choice didn't put me to sleep.
I read for a time, then got up and did more Internet searches, including another look at the Teachers Who Travel site to see exactly when Rhea had posted that clandestine reverse-selfie of Rousel and his gigolo friend. It was before she left Europe.
Hmmm. Wouldn't you think she'd have loaded up the site with tons of photos after she returned to the US? We all post pics of ourselves after vacations in glorious spots, so why hadn't she?
Next, I Googled Rhonda's name, putting in keywords, addresses, even names from her mother's obituary, anything that might give me someone to contact. Anyone at all.
By three, I figured the Valium had cleared out of my liver and a wee dram of white might help me sleep. I took a heavy throw from the foot of my bed, stuck a pillow under my arm, and went outside to a lounge chair by the pool. It was cool, but I was in my sweats and heavy socks and there was no wind. Settling in, I tucked the blankie around me and immediately regretted not bringing the bottle with me. Snug as a bug, I gazed down at the well-lit marina and all those yachts, and I suffered a wave of homesickness for my own boat.
My eyes grew heavy and were on the verge of closing when a blink caught my peripheral vision. Turning my head, I spotted an upstairs light on in the main house that hadn't been lit earlier. I was trying to ignore it when it
went off, and a couple of minutes later, another came on.
No one was supposed to be there, because the property manager told me so just a few hours before. Not wanting to disturb Nicole with a false alarm at this hour, I reluctantly uncurled from my cozy nest and went back inside. Slipping on a jacket and sneakers, I stuffed my old friend, Taury, in one pocket, and a mini-flashlight and my phone in the other.
Sneaking down a path leading to the front of the house, I peeked around a corner but didn't see a car in the drive, and the solid garage doors didn't have windows. Rats.
As I stood there looking up and trying to decide my next move, a shadow passed by a curtained window. I was backing up, out of sight of that window, intent on getting out of hearing range and calling the property manager tout de suit, when I collided with Jan.
"Ouch. What in the hell are you doing out here?" she asked.
"Shhh. Someone's in the main house skulking around. I was going to call Nicole when I got back to our house. I was afraid whoever is in there would hear me if I called from out here."
As we rushed back to the pool area, Jan whispered, "Did you actually see anyone?"
"No, just a light came on, and a shadow. Like someone is sneaking around up there, going from room to room."
"Kinda like you are down here?" she hissed.
"We're supposed to be here. You don't think that gigolo dude followed us home today, do you?"
"Why would he?"
"Maybe he moonlights as a cat burglar?" I speculated. "I guess we'd better call Nicole."
"Or, we can just go find out who's here, and why."
"How are we gonna get inside?"
"For once we don't have to break and enter. Follow moi." She spun and took off for the back of the main house and led me to a large heavy door with a smaller one built into it. "Here we have it, the service entrance."
"Aha! How'd you know about this?"
"René showed me. And gave me the combo." She hit numbers on a lighted keypad, opened the door and waved me inside. "Age before beauty."
Refraining from bopping her one for impertinence, I stepped into a very dark entryway, thankful when a dim motion light flicked on.
"Creepy, just like in the movies. Where's it go?"
"Basement, and a surprise."
About ten feet down the hall, another door, this one built of heavy, ancient-looking wood, screaked open with enough noise to wake the dead when Jan tugged on the handle. "Jeez, they could use some WD-40. I'll just betcha this was an original entryway," I whispered.
"I think you're right." She flipped a switch and those crappy energy-saving lights I hate barely illuminated yet another corridor leading to a narrow staircase.
I started forward, but Jan held me back. "Hold on, you gotta see something." She flashed her beam onto yet another door along the corridor. This was metal and looked like it belonged in a mediaeval prison. She ran her hand over the frame and came back with a key the size of my cell phone.
She swung the key in front of my face and her teeth gleamed in the dim light.
"Oh, joy, I've never been in a crypt," I quipped.
"Oh, ye of little faith." She unlocked the door, and pushed it. Once again, the screeching of metal against metal resounded off stone walls, making me cringe.
Jan went through the door and turned on a light, this one bright.
"Holy crap. I think I've died and gone to Heaven. Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"Are you kidding? You and a wine cellar like this? I was saving you from yourself."
"If we lived here we'd never leave the house."
"Maybe we should just grab a bottle and go back to the pool and mind our own bidness for a change?"
I thought about that. "Tempting as that sounds, we either need to see who's here or call Nicole."
"Fooey. Okay then, from now on, you lead, I'll follow."
"Why do I have to lead?"
"Because you have the gun?"
"How do you know I have a gun?"
"Because, Hetta, you always do. Besides, I found it in your purse, right next to the Valium."
"Snoop."
"You've taught me everything I know. We need a rope."
"Stand by."
I returned to the pool area, untied the line from a life ring hanging on a wall, grabbed one of the flashlights placed around the house in case of a power failure, and returned to find Jan opening a dusty bottle of wine.
"Jan! I'm shocked. What on earth is wrong with you? That's a sweet white!"
She blew dust from the label. "Crap. Oh, well, any port in a storm." She turned it up and took a glug. "Wow, not bad. Try it"
After a sizable gulp, I smacked my lips. "Very good, but requires chocolate. I'd love to stay and drink, but we have an intruder to intrude upon."
The theme from the Pink Panther came to mind as we skulked through a huge professional-style kitchen suitable to an upscale restaurant, and into another kitchen, this one decked out for domestic use. In the owner's kitchen, a large round table with a seating capacity for at least twelve evoked a homey feeling, whereas the next room, obviously the main dining area, was downright grandiose. It was evident the family did some large-scale entertaining, but also a lot of their own cooking.
A thirty-foot table that probably started life in a monastery was lined with ornate silver candelabras larger than my rental car, and was flanked by leaded glass sideboards, a soaring rock fireplace I could've walked into, and hand-carved boiserie, those wooden panels the French love so much. Accusatory ancestral eyes followed our progress from grand-luxe gold picture frames. "Okay, this is a lot creepy," Jan whispered, quickly shining her light away from the paintings.
"Probably pretty over the top with the lights on. Okay, let's find the main staircase. I'm a little turned around right now, but I'm sure if we go left at the top floor, we'll find the room where I saw the last light come on."
From the second dining room we entered an enormous foyer we'd been in before when René stayed there. I'd marveled at the opulence at the time, and decided immediately that Po Thang, lest he do something doggy, would be staying in the pool house with us that night.
Jan shined the flashlight on the staircase that Po Thang, new to stairs on this scale, had raced up and down a few times before being called to task by Charles. Évidemment, French dogs do not roughhouse in the manse.
"Here we go, Chica. Last chance to chicken out and call Nicole." I sort of hoped Jan would vote for chickening out.
"Nah, we got this. Take off your shoes."
We tiptoed in stocking feet up the wide, and thankfully, solid wooden stairs; there was no carpet, or even a runner, to muffle our steps. Years of use left indentations in the wood, and Po Thang had probably added scratches that were sure to be buffed out soon by a dedicated staff. If we were to be welcome in most homes in France, he was going to have to get some manners. Or socks.
At the top landing, I tapped Jan on the shoulder and pointed to faint light leaking from under what I surmised was a bedroom door. All was quiet except for my shallow panting. "Jeez, Hetta, you sound like Po Thang. Take a deep breath."
I gulped and tried practicing breathing in a method my yoga instructor called Pranayama.
We waited, hugging the wall on either side of the door and listening. "Music," Jan whispered.
"Somehow I can't quite picture a second-story guy hanging out in a bedroom listening to Edith Piaf," I whispered back.
"Maybe it's where the safe is. What should we do?"
"Knock?"
"What if he's armed?'
"We're armed."
"Oh, yeah. Okay, you open the door. I'll draw a bead on him."
Jan looped her rope into a lariat, held it in her right hand, and turned the huge brass knob with her left. The door creaked open, banged against the wall, and Jan ran inside. She was supposed to leave me a clean line of sight but forgot that part.
"Merde!" someone yelled.
"Got 'im. Get in here fast, turn on the lights
, and keep a sharp eye on him while I wrap this up, so to speak."
I found a light switch and saw Jan was in the middle of a huge Louis XV-style bed, astride a man she'd evidently flipped over. She was binding his crossed wrists behind him. Her knees were digging into her victim's bare calves, pretty much rendering him helpless. That Jan really knows her ropin' and ridin'.
Jumping off the bed, she threw her arms in the air as though she'd just beat a competitor's time at a 4-H Club Fourth of July rodeo. I could, for just a moment, picture her back in Texas in a dusty corral, vying for a blue ribbon.
"So, who we got here?"
"Dunno, but he sure smells good for a thief."
The man was yelling into a feather pillow and squirming against his restraints but like I said, Jan knows her stuff.
"Turn him over before he suffocates."
Jan grabbed one end of the rope and rolled the guy over easily. He evidently had a mouthful of pillow, because it rolled with him. Unfortunately, the sheet didn't. "Ooops," she said as she threw the duvet over the naked man.
She wasn't fast enough for me not to get an eyeful.
There are some things a gal just never forgets.
"Oh, hell, Jan. That's Jean Luc DooRah."
Chapter Twenty-five
"Ya don't say," Jan drawled when I identified the man we just attacked and hog-tied as Jean Luc DooRah. "Funny that after all these years you'd recognize him with his head and nuthin' else covered." She reached over and pulled the pillow off the victim's face. "Hey, there, Jean Luc. I've heard way too much about you, you low-down dirty skunk."
Jean Luc spit out a couple of feathers and sputtered a string of curses and threats, then stopped when he saw me standing at the foot of the bed, my laser beam painting a red dot between his eyes. He tried to throw his arms up, then realized his hands were tied behind his back. "Hetta! Don't shoot! Please. I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Give me a chance to explain."
I did lower the gun, but a little on the slow side. Jean Luc's eyes traced the beam as it moved down his body and rested, for just a few heartbeats on his manly parts, before I put the pistol away.
Jean Luc smiled and said in that knicker-melting accent of his, "Alors, ma petite vachère, is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"
Just Pardon My French (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 8) Page 16