didn’t have a clue; maybe it had been driven off one of the yachts.
Back up at street level I walked across to the shopping mall. The sun was just reaching over the tops of the buildings, and I put on my sunglasses to complement the hat for the short walk under the security cameras.
I pushed my way through the door of the mall with my shoulder, and my nostrils were immediately assaulted by the smell of money and polish. I took off my glasses. Small concession shops lined both sides of the marble corridor, selling champagne and caviar. First stop on the left was the glass entrance to the main post office, its interior as grand as a private bank. The hallway went on for about forty yards, then turned left and disappeared. Just before the corner there was a cluster of tables and chairs outside a cafe. Large decafs and the Wall Street Journal seemed to be the order of the day. Power-dressed people moved among them with a click of their heels.
Halfway down on the right was a Roman-style marble pillar and door. A sign announced it was the reception area for the offices that made up the five floors above.
I walked toward the cafe, glancing at a large Plexiglas display that gave details of who owned or rented the office space upstairs. One glance told me they all started with Monaco — the Monaco Financial Services Company, Monaco this, Monaco that. They were all spaced out, showing who was on what floor, but I was walking too fast and my mind was working too slowly to spot who occupied 617.
I continued on past the blur of brass plates. Double glass doors opened into the reception area. An immaculately dressed dark-haired woman operated the desk. A wall-mounted camera swiveled behind her as she spoke on the telephone.
I took a seat at a vacant table at the cafe looking back toward the reception area. A waiter immediately materialized and I ordered a creme. He wasn’t too impressed with my attempt at French. “Large or small?”
“Large one, and two croissants, please.”
He looked at me as if I’d ordered enough to explode, and disappeared back into the cafe.
I looked over to my right to see what was around the corner. A very upscale-looking cobbler’s shop sold shiny belts and other leather goods, and a dry-cleaner’s had a row of ballgowns on display. Opposite the cleaner’s was a china plate shop. This part of the hallway was only about fifteen yards long, and ended with another glass door. I could see sunlight reflecting off a car windshield outside.
My order arrived as well-dressed people at other tables finished off their coffee and pastries before work. The loudest voice I could hear, however, was English. A woman in her early forties with big hair was talking to an older companion. They wore enough makeup between them to fill a bomb crater. “Oh, darling, it’s just too awful…I can’t get salopettes long enough for my legs in London. The only place seems to be Sweden, these days. I mean, how ridiculous is that?”
Others talked quietly, almost covertly, into their cell phones, in French, Italian, English, American. All the English speakers used the same words during their conversations: deal, close, and contract. And no matter which nationality was talking, they all ended with “Ciao, ciao.”
Chapter 23
I finished my milky coffee as two suits stopped at the plastic-covered board and checked it out before pressing a buzzer. One bent his head toward the intercom, then they both disappeared through the doors immediately to the left inside the reception area.
I’d seen nearly everything in here I needed to. I picked up the napkin, cleaned my hands, and wiped the cup, even though I’d only touched the handle. Leaving an outrageous sixty-six francs and a tip, I went out the way I’d come in.
This time, my eyes hit the sixth-floor sign and ran along the row of small plates: 617 was apparently the home of the Monaco Training Consultancy, whoever they were. I walked on and exited the building.
The sun shone bright above the square now, so I put on my shades and pulled my brim down. Cars, motorbikes, and motor scooters were crammed like sardines into any available space around the square. Gardeners pruned the bushes and a couple of guys in Kevlar gear were just about to take a chainsaw to some branches of the large leafless trees. Sprinklers lightly sprayed the grass as women dressed in furs floated past, their dogs wearing matching fashion accessories. I took a right at Prada and went around the back of the building as the chainsaw started up behind me. I wanted to see where the exit by the dry-cleaner’s emerged.
The narrow road on this side of the building was about sixty yards long, with a few small stores developing photos or selling little paintings. I turned right again, along the back of de la Scala, and found myself in the building’s office area. Some shutters were up, some were down; behind them were private parking spaces and storage areas for the stores. Most of the space was taken up by the loading bay for the post office. It was very clean and orderly, and the postal workers wore neat, well-pressed blue uniforms and white socks. I felt as though I’d wandered into Legoland.
The dry-cleaner’s entrance was just past the loading bay. I glanced through the glass doors and could see all the way to the cafe, and the point where the hallway turned right toward the reception area.
Beyond the dry-cleaner’s, on the other corner of the Palais de la Scala and about twenty feet above the ground, was a camera. At the moment it wasn’t angled in this direction because it was too busy monitoring the intersection below it. I hoped that wasn’t going to change. I walked back to the Megane the way I’d come.
I squeezed away from the Acura and went and had a look at the train station before heading for Nice and Cap 3000. It was time to prepare for the brush contact with my new pal Thackery that I’d arranged yesterday in my e- mail to George.
I drove into the retail complex at just after ten-thirty. I put on my disposable gloves, retrieved the addresses from under my seat, then pulled the paper from its own protective wrapping. I ran through the addresses in my mind before unfolding it, testing myself; this was the last time I was going to see them. Then I folded it once more, and rolled it tightly enough to be able to squeeze it back into the thumb of the glove, ripped off the excess plastic, and shoved it into the pocket of my jeans.
I got out and locked my door as a jet touched down on the runway a couple of hundred yards away. For a moment it had looked as though it was going to land on the beach.
Most of the complex was dominated by the Lafayette retail company, with its huge department store and gourmet supermarket, and the spaces around it were filled with stores selling everything from smelly candles to cell phones.
As I walked through the automatic glass doors, a loudspeaker above me knocked out some bland Muzak. There weren’t many Santas about, but plenty of twinkling lights and Christmas novelty stalls. One sold a whole range of multicolored velvet headwear, from top hats to jesters’ caps with bells. Escalators carried hordes of shoppers, with gigantic plastic bags bulging at the seams, between the two levels. This was the only place that I’d used more than once. It was large, busy, and I considered it a reasonable risk. I had to get online, and a cafe was too intimate. So long as I never used a card or an ATM, this place should be okay.
Four shiny new Jaguars from the local dealership were parked in the atrium, windshields groaning with promotional material. To the left of them was the entrance to Galeries Lafayette, the two-story department store.
The rather bored-looking Jaguar salesman sat behind the cars, at a white plastic garden furniture set, complete with parasol. He was surrounded by piles of shiny catalogues, but had his nose stuck firmly in Nice Matin. Perhaps he realized that November isn’t the time to buy cars; it’s the time to buy socks and slippers and Christmas stuff for your mom.
First things first. I went to the sandwich shop and got myself a Brie baguette and a very large hot coffee, and took both with me to Le Cyberpoint. This wasn’t a store, but a collection of telephone-Internet stations, each with a conventional telephone, linked to a small touchscreen and metal keyboard, with a big steel ball for the mouse. There were eight of them, mostly being used by kids whose parents had dropped them off with a phone card to shut them up for an hour or so while they did the shopping.
I put my coffee on top of the machine, to relieve my burning fingers and allow me to shove some crusty baguette into my mouth before pushing the phone card into the slot and logging on. Muzak played in the background, too low to hear and too loud to ignore, as Hotmail hit me with enough ads in French and English to fill
