The Hotel Riviera(33)

Evgenia did not bother even to nod. She took a seat in one of the club chairs immediately behind her husband, crossed her legs, lit a Gitane, and eyed us impatiently.

Laurent Solis picked me out immediately as the victim. He smiled as he took my hand in both of his. “Madame Laforêt, I’m charmed to make your acquaintance,” he said, and to my surprise, I could have sworn he meant it. “It’s just a pity the circumstances are so…unfortunate. Yes, most unfortunate.”

I found my voice and introduced Miss Nightingale. Solis bent his head reverentially over her hand, as though she were truly a queen. “And this is Mr. Farrar,” I said, touching Jack’s arm for comfort more than anything. “He’s a friend,” I added, quickly defining the relationship, just in case Solis was wondering.

Solis shook Jack’s hand, then indicated where we should sit, lining us up on a sofa like ducks in a row at the fair, with the light from the picture window dazzling our eyes. He took a seat immediately opposite. He now had the advantage of being able to see our faces—and our reactions—perfectly, while we remained dazzled and, so to speak, in the dark about his.

“First,” he said, “are you sure I can’t offer you some refreshment? It’s so hot today. Evgenia,” he said over his shoulder, “call Manolo, tell him to bring cold drinks for my guests, and some of that baklava.” He turned to us. “Unless you would prefer something else? Wine? Champagne? Bourbon?”

Behind him, Evgenia lifted a phone and relayed his order. Then she took another drag on her Gitane and crossed her legs the other way.

Solis looked at me, still behind his dark glasses. “I’m about to tell you my life story, Madame Laforêt,” he said, ignoring the others, “so you will understand why I am what I am. A businessman. If it were otherwise, I would not be here today. And neither, madame, would you.”

He smoothed back his thick silver hair, indicating to Manolo, who’d appeared so promptly I suspected he’d been waiting outside the door, to put the silver tray of drinks on the table next to him. Manolo did so, then stood with his white-gloved hands behind his back, awaiting further orders.

“Miss Nightingale?” Solis asked. She primly said, no, thank you. “Then perhaps a little of the baklava?” He looked greedily at the plate. “It’s my favorite, in fact you might say it’s my downfall.”

Manolo took the silver tongs, placed a square of sugary baklava on a starry blue fragile china plate and set it on a small table, alongside Miss Nightingale. He repeated the performance for myself, then Jack. He stepped back, hands folded behind his back again. I noticed he did not serve any to his master, and we did not touch ours.

“Ice water for everyone,” Solis told Manolo, looking as delighted as if he’d just given us the keys to the kingdom, or at least to his ship. “Let me tell you,” he said, “baklava was not the kind of delicacy I ate in my youth. Oh no. It was years before I could afford to put anything in my mouth other than the most basic of foods. Bread, couscous, rice.” He twinkled at us from behind the dark glasses. “I was, you might say, a third-world orphan before anyone had coined the phrase ‘third world.’ And I was alone in that world of poverty and no education.”

He took a sip of his iced water. “Not a good position to be in, you might say. And I would agree, it was not.”

Behind him, Evgenia closed her eyes, as if feeling her husband’s pain.

“Poverty is the same in any city in the world,” Solis went on. “Athens, Rio, Caracas…you sleep on the street, you eat whatever you can steal, you live by your wits—and if you have no ‘wits,’ then you die on the street. Life can be short and death sometimes merciful, for the poor.”

He paused for another long swallow of ice water. “But of course,” he said, and that smile appeared again, “my story, as you can see, has a happy ending. Though not without its travails. I’ll begin, as all stories should, at the beginning.”





Chapter 30




“I was just six years old when my mother was run down by a truck in the road and killed,” Solis said. “It was then I learned my first lesson of real poverty. Life is cheap. My mother counted for nothing. I don’t even know where she is buried, just somewhere by the side of that forgotten road.”

My face must have registered shock because he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely, looking into my eyes.

“We were living in Morocco,” he said, “but my father was Greek. He took me back to Athens to live. We were poor, as you know.” He paused, looking at us. “In fact you don’t know,” he added, “because only a person who has been as poor as I was, can know what true poverty is like.”

He opened his arms wide, embracing the sumptuous salon, the treasures it contained, his glossy young wife, the whole incredible ship that was his to command. “All you see is this,” he said, “and sadly for me, that’s all anyone sees of Laurent Solis. All anyone knows about, or cares about, is that I am rich.”

“And are you going to give us any other reason we should care, Monsieur Solis?” Miss Nightingale said sharply, obviously resistant to his charm.

He eyed her for a moment from behind the dark glasses, then gave a deep sigh that I thought came from the heart. I felt myself melting with sympathy. “I doubt that’s possible, in the short time I shall spend in your company, Miss Nightingale,” he said. “But I shall try my best.”