Last Call For Caviar

by Melissa Roen

  Today was Tuesday, market day in Cap d’Ail. I needed to restock my fresh supplies, even though following Leah’s lead, I had stores of dried and non-perishable foods and bottled water that would last me six months.

  I prayed the square would be filled with the local purveyors of fruit and vegetables. But recently, the stands were fewer, and fresh food and produce were becoming harder to find.

  I saw it was still early, not even 9 a.m. I decided to take the footpath that wound along the southern shore of the peninsula and savor the day, before shopping.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE HOOD

  The day was glorious! Perfect late-spring weather enveloped me as I took a shortcut through the park a hundred meters from my home and descended along the shady paths that wound downwards towards the sea. I could see from the long grass, once clipped as smooth as a bowling green, and the tangles of jasmine and wisteria that overhung and nearly obscured parts of the path that the village landscaping crews hadn’t pruned the old growth or weeded here in many months. The torrents of rain that poured from the heavens like great falling sheets of water this past winter had nourished this neglected park, and the vegetation shot up into a jungle of riotous bloom and vine. Fallen branches and debris from the last of the winter storms still hadn’t been cleared and lay blocking the path.

  The rich smell of earth overlaid by the perfume of lavender and thyme wafted on the breeze. Halfway down the path, another smell greeted me: the sour, stale odor of unwashed bodies, urine and human excrement, singed meat and campfire smoke mixed together, burned my nostrils and made me gag. In the undergrowth beneath a cluster of majestic palms, empty wine bottles, plastic sacks, and tin cans littered the ground. A plastic arm, wrenched from a doll, lay in the middle of the path. As I bent over to pick up the limb to toss it into a trash can, I noticed a face in the gloom under a thicket of overgrown rhododendrons. There crouched a little girl of five. Her hair was matted, and her silver-gray eyes peered from a face darkened with grime.

  “Ca va ma petite? Tu est la toute seule?” I asked softly, not wanting to frighten her. She didn’t answer, but only watched me warily like a small creature caught in a snare. Then, she cast a glance over her shoulder.

  I followed her gaze and saw, hidden in the tangle of overgrowth a hundred meters away, a circle of tattered, dull-green tents, blending into the vegetation and trees. The encampment was camouflaged by a thick mat of flowering vines. I could make out forms huddled on the ground under gray blankets and caught the scent of a campfire recently banked. The vegetation rustled like something was moving towards me unseen, through the thickets of greenery.

  I quickly turned away and jogged down the path. Travelers, I thought, as I quickened my pace and sprinted the last couple hundred meters towards the sea. They were probably from some eastern European country like Romania. With nowhere to go and few possessions, they wandered the countryside, a lost tribe constantly on the move. Sometimes begging, sometimes stealing, using their wits and cunning, they would do whatever they could to survive. They would stay until the rash of break-ins and petty thievery caused a local outcry and the Gendarmes came along to force them on their way.

  I wondered if the little girl were the bait set in a snare for some unwary and kind-hearted soul—maybe for someone like me! My feet were flying, but I kept my hand on the trigger inside my gun bag as I burst out of the tunnel of greenery into the sunlight and crossed the road to the sea.

  I clattered down the rusting stairs, my sneakers beating out a staccato rhythm, and kept up my pace as I turned east along the path. On my left, the grounds of stately Belle Epoque villas lined the shore. Long streaks of mold ran down their sides; paint was peeling, and shutters hung askew. The path twisted and turned, following the contours of the coast, defined by small coves and beaches. The waves washed over the large boulders piled at points along the shore.

  I dodged spumes of spray from the larger swells that surged almost to the top of the seawall and drenched the path. But I didn’t stop until I had put a safe distance between me and the slumbering camp, and saw the first signs of local fishermen balancing far out on the reefs as they cast their lines.

  About a kilometer away, I made out, emerging through the early-morning haze, the skyline of Monaco. I decided to give the market in the village square a miss. I felt in my pocket to make sure I had my passport, Monaco Gun Club member’s card and my permit for the Smith and Wesson. There would be a police checkpoint at the frontier. I hitched up my empty backpack and headed towards the golden ghetto of Monte Carlo, gleaming up ahead along the shore.

  The checkpoint, manned by both the French and Monaco police, was at the Port de Cap d’Ail, on the land reclaimed from the sea in Fontveille. It was a sensitive entry point, because on the other side of the row of luxury apartment towers that overlooked the yacht basin was the busy heliport. The police were bristling with weapons, protected by helmets and body armor.

  As I waited in line to show my papers, a steady stream of police helicopters and the shuttle service run by MonacoHeli to the Nice Cote d’Azur Aeroport, took off and landed. Although the number of commercial flights taking off from the Nice airport was very limited and falling—the exorbitant price of fuel having priced the tickets out of the reach of ordinary people—there was still a fleet of private jets parked there, belonging to the super-rich.

  There was still one flight a week on Delta to JFK, but the waiting list was months and months long. America seemed to be returning to its isolationist past, slamming the doors on the rest of the world and retreating behind its geographical walls.

  There was, in theory, one daily flight listed to Paris, London, Frankfurt, and Rome, although often they were canceled. Interestingly, there were several a day to Moscow and Dubai. It wasn’t that surprising, when you thought about it, since the sheiks from the Emirates had more oil than water, and the Russian elites had pretty much bought up the Cote d’ Azur.

  The police were even more thorough today, and I wondered if there had been another death threat against the Prince’s family.

  I scanned the unsmiling faces of the police present, noticing they were all business and in a heightened state of alert. Today, there wouldn’t be any pleasantries or flirtations with pretty girls. I was thinking maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to cross into Monaco and wondering how I could discreetly step out of line and fade away, when I saw Thierry, a Monaco policeman I knew well from the shooting range. He’d given me pointers when I was first learning. Our eyes met at the same moment, and with a nod he motioned me to move forward to the white kiosk emblazoned with the seal of the Principality. It was too late to back away.

  I handed over my documents, feeling the weight of the Smith, and wishing I’d hidden it in the crevice of a rock somewhere along the path. I knew I could say I was going to practice at the shooting range, and since my permit was in order, normally he would let me pass.

  “Bonjour Thierry,” I said, sliding my papers through the slot in the window, just as three Mirage jet fighters came screaming over the Tete de Chien from the French military base behind Mont Agel. They were flying at such a low altitude that the sonic boom shook the kiosk and rattled the windows in the apartment blocks behind us. Flying low in an arrow formation, they banked west before disappearing out over the Med.

  The police at the checkpoint were showing a lot of interest in an individual in the next line. I could only see him in profile, but something about the shape of his nose, the dark hooded eyes, the olive complexion marked him as most likely from the Maghreb—probably Moroccan or Algerian, while the sweat beading his hairline betrayed his nervousness. The border control was doing a bit of racial profiling. He didn’t carry himself with the same haughtiness—or the expense—as one of his brethren from Saudi Arabia or the Emirates. He was pulled from the line. Three heavily armed police flanked and herded him, protesting, towards a military van a few meters away to be interrogated.

  “Bonjour, vous allez ou a Monaco? The shooting
range?” Thierry seemed to be distracted as he scrutinized my documents. I was right; today, there wouldn’t be any pleasantries.

  I opened my mouth to answer just as his phone rang. He held up his hand for me to wait. Long seconds passed as he listened intently, occasionally murmuring a reply. All the while, his glance swept the surrounding area, scanning the faces of people waiting to be processed, as though he were searching for someone in particular. I could feel the tension coming off him in waves. He hung up and passed the documents back through the window slot.

  “Leave your gun at the club today, if you decide to go up in Monaco Ville or Place du Casino. They’ll hold it for you at the reception desk.” He was already looking past me to the next person in the queue, and with those words of warning, I was through the checkpoint into the heavily fortified Principality of Monaco.

  Heeding Thierry’s warning, my first stop was the gun club in Fontveille. The reception desk was being manned by Jean Marc, whippet-thin, mid-forty, his close-cropped dark hair starting to show the first threads of gray at his temples. I explained Thierry’s warning about not venturing armed any further into town today, as I placed the Smith and Wesson and extra ammunition on the countertop.

  “Thierry’s right; there seems to be something going down today. Everyone’s on edge, and security has been reinforced at the Palais and around the Place du Casino. They’re conducting random body searches, and there are metal detectors everywhere.” He confirmed Thierry’s warning while checking that my gun wasn’t loaded before placing it in the Club’s gun vault behind him.

  “What have you heard? Another death threat or bomb scare?” I asked. Since so many police and military used the shooting range, I knew the personnel who worked here were usually plugged in to what was going down.

  “There’s all kind of rumors flying around today. Take your pick. Though I heard last night there were more jumpers at the Mirableu. This time, a whole family—Russian, I’m told. Twelfth floor. Putain, young kids, too!” He shook his head in dismay, while giving me a receipt to sign and date for my gun.

  Suicides were increasing every week. Because Monte Carlo, squeezed by the mountainous terrain of the Tete du Chien and the sea, had limited buildable acreage, the solution had been to build vertically. Many of the apartment towers rose twenty floors, so stepping off a sea-view terrace from an upper story got the job done.

  The Principality would try to hush it up, of course, but this time it wouldn’t be easy. The Mirableu was prime real estate in the exclusive Carre d’Or neighborhood. Millions of spectators knew the building from the Formula 1 races, where it rose above one of the hairpin curves of the circuit during the Grand Prix. Anyone staying at the five-star Fairmont Hotel across the road, or returning home from one of the nightspots on Avenue Princess Grace, might have stumbled over the remains of this desperate family, a macabre tableau of tangled limbs and body parts on the posh streets of Monte Carlo.

  Facing financial ruin from the recent financial market meltdown, many residents and visitors tried to rebuild their fortunes at the gaming tables of the Casino. Chasing Lady Luck usually turned out to be a bad play; the odds were stacked against them, and the House invariably won.

  Most nights, the gaming tables were packed, as the only way to get off of the Rock was with money, lots of it. But hearing of families jumping to their deaths—parents with children in their arms, babies too—having lost everything on the turn of a card, made you sick. They must have thought there was no way out, no reasonable alternative or acceptable future for themselves or their children. This was a sunny place, as Somerset Maugham so famously said, but in the shadows such incomprehensible tragedies occurred all too regularly.

  Fifteen minutes later, I stepped out of the elevator opening onto the landscaped terraces behind the Grand Casino. Stone balustrades overlooked the Port de Hercules. Across the harbor on Le Rocher, were Monaco Ville and the ramparts of the Palais, the official residence of the Prince and Princess, who was expected to give birth in the next months to the heir to the Principality.

  About 400 meters off shore listed the rotting hulk of The Seven Winds, a cruise ship whose operating company had gone belly-up the summer before, and ceased all operations, stranding the vessel, crew, and all passengers at the quay during its port call at Monaco. No one claimed further ownership or responsibility for the state of the ship, so the government of Monaco towed it offshore and left it at anchor, to be battered by the winter storms and shifting tides.

  The seawalls at the entrance to the harbor, and the hulls of the other vessels berthed here were stained a greasy black from the fuel that leaked from its tanks; the water in the harbor was oil-slick; grayed scum collected at the shoreline. Slowly, the elements and the sea were reclaiming the ghost ship for their own.

  CHAPTER 6

  JOESEXY

  I took out my iPhone and sent a text. “Ciao Amore… I decided to come in 2 MC. It’s been forever since I last saw you. Café de Paris in 30?”

  Less than a minute later, Giovanni answered. “Si arrivo.”

  In every town, there’s someone who is plugged in to the latest gossip that’s making the rounds about those with power and influence. In every town, there’s a go-to-guy who knows where and how to source anything imaginable, or who has just the connections you need. I’d been out of circulation lately, and meeting up with Giovanni—or Joe, as his nearest called him—would be like one-stop shopping.

  I arrived early and snagged a table that was perfectly situated to watch the comings and goings around the Place du Casino. It was too early for the Casino to be open for business, and thus, the valets hadn’t started their shift; the Bentleys, Ferraris or Aston Martins weren’t idling at the bottom of the marble stairs, and crowds weren’t mounting the steps that led to its ornate doors.

  Directly across the square sits the Hotel de Paris, a grande dame in all her Belle Epoque finery: carved cornices, sweeping staircases of marble and French doors letting onto wrought-iron balconies that reflected the late-morning sunlight. Though the grass in the central island had been mown, weeds showed their ragged heads and flourished along the base of the Botero statue: a massive bronze bull pawing and dominating the center. The bright slashes of color from the fallow flower beds were missing, and though it was the end of May, the ground looked scarred and barren of any bloom.

  I’d just told the waiter for the second time that I would wait to order, when Joe arrived twenty minutes late. I watched him work the terrace: a kiss on the hand like a courtier of old for a woman in her mid-sixties, very Bon Chic Bon Genre, her Hermes foulard knotted about her throat, and her helmet of blunt-cut blonde hair not daring to move a centimeter in the breeze; a backslap and abrazo for two sleek and well-fed ministry officials; lingering kisses on each cheek and a discreet fondling of a well-rounded derriere for a thousand-Euro-an-evening working girl, all legs and skyscraper heels, a swing of honey-blonde hair that swirled about her as she turned to join a table of her sisters-of-the-night for le petit dejuner.

  Joe made his way to my corner table. A shade under six foot, late-thirties and elegant without effort, he moved with an easy, loose-hipped stride. Faded jeans clung low on his hips, his light brown hair brushed the sky blue sweater tossed casually around his shoulders, and white teeth flashed bright against tanned skin as he threw his head back in laughter at a comment from a waiter who crossed his path.

  It wasn’t hard to see how he’d gotten his nickname, “Joesexy.” He radiated a sort of magnetism; both men and woman seemed to be attracted to him in equal measure. This was a man who enjoyed life, almost as a gourmand savors a fine meal, and could make the most risqué conduct seem like good old-fashioned fun. I once heard someone say that Giovanni was so persuasive, he could corrupt the Pope.

  The youngest son of a wealthy, well-connected Italian family, he’d studied law at Padua University. I trusted him completely and knew if I finally decided to cut and run, Giovanni could help me with connections to get out of town. Or if I d
ecided to stay here in the south of France, he’d be an invaluable resource.

  “Hello, Handsome, I see you haven’t lost your touch.” My spirits were already lifting, now that I was up close and personal to all that warmth and male charm.

  “Anche te, you look like you’re doing better. I was worried about you, cara.” His gaze searched my face to confirm his first impression, before looking deeply into my eyes. Although Giovanni cultivated an air of a bon vivant, and naughtiness always simmered close to the surface, he was a man of great depths and sensitivity; very little got by him.

  “What would you like to drink, Maya? I need a stiff Bloody Mary.”

  “Uh-oh…Someone have a late night? Must have been a good party. Perche no? I’ll have one, too. I always feel like I’m on holiday with you,” I laughed. But looking closer, I noticed a slight puffiness under his hazel eyes, and he seemed a shade paler under his golden tan.

  As he turned to signal the waiter to take our order, I noticed a line of worry furrowing his brow, and I realized under the cheerful repartee he was coiled tight. Like the police at the checkpoint, he too seemed to be scanning the faces of the pre-lunch crowd on the terrace, as though searching for someone in particular.

  Something definitely seemed to be off this morning, and glancing around I saw there were an unusual number of hard young men, some in pairs, well-dressed as though for a business meeting, seated at tables scattered throughout the café, or more casually attired, discreetly loitering in various parts of the square. There was a certain alertness in the way they held themselves; an awareness in their cold stare that took in everything going on about them betrayed their professional training. Most likely, undercover operatives of the Surete Publique.