The Hotel Riviera(6)

“Sorry, old buddy,” he said, stooping to caress Bad Dog’s head, “but the other diners wouldn’t appreciate your finer qualities, especially when you attempt to steal the food from their plates.” He grinned. Bad Dog was a street hound, a scavenger of the highest order. Fancy joints with candlelight and good wine were definitely not for him.

He put food into Bad Dog’s bowl, made sure he had fresh water, gave him a new chew bone, then climbed into the dinghy, unhitched the line and started up the small outboard. Bad Dog hung his head over the side, gazing piteously down at him. He hated being left behind.

“Back soon, old buddy,” Jack called, as he slid over the smooth dark blue water toward the tiny wooden jetty sticking out into the Hotel Riviera’s cove. But what he was really thinking about was the look on Miss Taffy Hair’s face when she saw him again. In the flesh.





Chapter 6




Lola

Red and Jerry Shoup were next down for dinner. The showgirl and the diplomat, I called them, though in fact they were nothing of the sort, they just looked the roles. She had flaming red hair that I envied, and legs that went on forever, and he was silver-haired, sun-bronzed, and charming. They live in a beautiful country house in the Dordogne and were here taking a month’s intensive French course.

We greeted each other with kisses, and Red proclaimed she was brain-dead in French and was speaking only English tonight, even if it was against the school rules, and could they please have their usual Domaine Ott rosé before they passed out from sheer exhaustion.

I smiled and my spirits began to lift, as they always did when I was around my guests. Taking care of people, making them happy, was my chosen role in life.

Jean-Paul, my youth-of-all-work, appeared. He was pale as a lily because he never saw the sun, only the inside of the Saint-Tropez nightclubs, thin as a rail with a shaved head and six earrings. Wearing the Hotel Riviera white and gold tee, black pants and sneakers, he was pretending to be a waiter, bringing dishes of olives and tapenade, baskets of freshly baked breads, and crocks of pale sweet butter stamped with the image of a bewildered-looking cow.

I heard children’s voices and the even higher-pitched English voice of young Camilla Lampson, whose nickname for some odd reason was Budgie.

Budgie was nanny to the two small boys who’d been sent to lodge here while their mother, an American actress, spent the summer in a smart villa in Cannes with her much younger boyfriend. Budgie, who’s a terrible gossip, had told us indignantly that the actress believed having the boys around made her look older, but in fact they were cute normal kids, and in my opinion any woman who shut them out of her life needed her head examined. I watched them racing around the corner thinking I would give anything for a pair just like them, but acting sensibly for once, I decided not to allow myself to go there right now.

I said hello to the boys, made sure they were set up with Orangina, and commiserated with Budgie, who’d had to endure an entire afternoon of shopping in Monte Carlo with the movie star. I told Jean-Paul to bring her usual kir, a mix of white wine and crème de cassis, the delicious black currant liqueur made in the little town of Hyères, just along the coast—I thought she looked as though she needed it—then took everybody’s orders and dashed back to the kitchen.

By the time I emerged again my last guests had arrived, my English honeymoon couple, both so young and fuzzily blond they reminded me endearingly of Scramble as a little yellow chick. They were so dopey with love for each other it was enough to make even my newly hardened heart melt. They were to leave the following morning and looked so despondent that I sent them glasses of champagne compliments of the house. From their beaming faces you might have thought I’d given them the keys to my kingdom, so I sent Jean-Paul back with the rest of the bottle in an ice bucket, making them even happier, if possible.

So, there we were, the entire cast of the Hotel Riviera: my eight guests and my staff, just like one happy little family. And then I heard the bell ring in the front hall.

Now if you were wondering, as I was, whether it was the Naked Man, aka Jack Farrar, coming for dinner—and to compliment me on my cooking while I complimented him on his body—you were wrong.

This was somebody quite different.

I wiped my hands on my apron and hurried to answer it.





Chapter 7




The man standing by the old rosewood table that served as a reception desk was short, wide, and aggressively jut-jawed, with pumped-up biceps and a marine-cropped haircut, though I knew instantly he was no marine. He was too sleek in his expensively casual clothes and flashy diamond-studded watch, plus he was wearing sunglasses even though he was indoors. He’d parked his motorcycle, an impressive scarlet and chrome Harley right outside the front door, and parked his expensive Louis Vuitton travel bag on my chintz sofa. Now he was pacing the hall and smoking a cigar.

He turned as I came in, smiling my hostess smile of welcome. His eyes flicked over me, taking me in from the top of my ginger head to the toes of my white kitchen clogs, then back again. “You the desk clerk?” he said.

I stiffened. “I am Madame Laforêt, the patronne.”

He grunted an acknowledgment, flicking cigar ash onto the old but beautiful silk rug I’d bought at a Paris auction and which had cost more than I could afford and necessitated a loan from the bank. I pushed an ashtray across the table.