Leonie (72 page)

The granite grew icily cold as before. Léonie pulled her hand back and rose from her knees. If she had come here to purge herself of the burden of the past she hadn’t succeeded, but she had reconciled herself to accept her future, whatever it might bring.

Backing away from the statue, she reached the doorway and, with a last look over her shoulder, emerged into the warm evening air. She glanced at her hand. It was swollen and the fingers were bruised.

“Madame, are you all right?” Habib was looking at her anxiously.

“Yes, yes, I’m all right.”

He looked relieved. “There are strange stories about that statue and I was getting worried about you, you were such a long time.”

“Strange stories?”

“Sekhmet was a powerful goddess and her influence is still felt—there have been attacks on the statue by people who thought that she was evil. There are even those who swore that the statue reached out her arms and touched them and who felt faint in her presence.” Habib’s spectacles gleamed in the last thread of sunlight, hiding his eyes. “Who knows,” he said, “whether it is for good or for evil, but whichever way Sekhmet affects lives, she is powerful.”

Léonie was silent, drained by her experience. Habib looked down at her sitting on the stone. “Sekhmet was the perfect mistress,” he added softly. “She allowed each man to see in her what he himself sought.”

“You should have let me go with you,” said Jim for the tenth time.

“I
had
to go alone, Jim. Don’t ask me why, but I knew I had to.”

“And now you come back with this crazy story.”

Léonie looked at her hand. Purplish bruises ringed the outer edges. Was she mistaken? Could it just be that she had fainted and put out a hand to save herself as she fell? Jim was convinced of it.

“I’m taking you back there,” he said determinedly. “We’ll go together and then we’ll see what Sekhmet does!”

Léonie stared out of the window. It was eight o’clock in the morning and the sun was shining brightly. It would be another hot day. Suddenly she was filled with an overwhelming longing for the familiar landscape of the inn at Cap Ferrat. She wanted no more of this harsh, sun-baked, desert world and its ancient dreams.

“No, no more.” She sighed. “Take me home, Jim. Please.”

He searched her face for a clue to her true feelings. She seemed calm, clear-headed, even content.

“Right, Mrs. Jamieson,” he said, relieved. “Pack your jewels and let’s go home.”

–
• 64 •

The hotel on the rue Delambres was seedy and Diego looked around the greasy hallway angrily. What the hell was he doing in a place like this? The unsmiling old woman behind the grubby desk passed him a key and he handed over the few francs it cost for a single night. He hated Paris—and the French! The patterned carpet on the stairs was worn by the continual traffic of many feet, its once cheerful reds ground down to a thin rusty brown. A woman in a flowered dress hurried past him, her cigarette leaving a trail of pungent blue smoke in the air. Diego’s eyes followed her as she sauntered through the open door and into the street, turning her head to look first right and then left before strolling off down the hill. He knew what sort of hotel this was. His gaze tracked the woman’s progress—perhaps there was a way to make a little money here? Goddamn it, those pimps he’d seen in the bars would kill him! Anyway, there wasn’t enough money in it. He wanted
real
money, the sort that bought you dinner at the Ritz not drinks in a cheap bar.

The flimsy lock slid open easily and Diego surveyed his room: a battered chest held a pink-flowered washbasin, a jug, and a small once-white towel. A single chair stood beneath the grimy window, whose thin curtains concealed the depressing view of the back of another building. Diego turned on the light and the sudden glare from the unshaded bulb swinging from the ceiling illuminated the bed. The brown wooden headboard was scratched and scarred and its pink chenille spread held ominous-looking stains. Diego flung his fine leather suitcase onto the chair and pushed aside the bedspread. He was exhausted—how many nights was it since he had slept? He lay down on the bed wearily; he should have known better than to go on gambling when he was tired, he must have had four or five hours’ sleep over the past three days. The bed
sagged in the middle, worn from countless ten-minute passions, and Diego wriggled uncomfortably. The naked bulb swung directly in his line of vision and he turned his head irritably. On the white cotton pillow next to him lay a single long black hair.

“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed, leaping from the bed. “What the fuck are you doing here, Diego Benavente?”

Hands in pockets he surveyed the tired room. “Okay, Diego,” he said to himself, a grin lighting his attractive face, “there’s no future here. You know your old policy: when in trouble start again—at the top!” Picking up the suitcase, he strode purposefully from the room, leaving the door ajar and the light still on.

He ran lightly down the stairs and went directly to the desk, placing his case carefully on the floor beside him. “The room is not suitable,” he told the old woman. “I want my money back.”

Her red-rimmed eyes peered from the gloom. “We don’t give money back,” she said, adjusting her black shawl. “You wanted a room and you paid for it.”

Diego leaned across the counter. “Give me the money,” he said quietly. His face was close to hers and his low voice held a threat. The old woman swallowed nervously, there was no one around, not even on the street.

Diego’s hand reached out and gripped her shawl, tightening it around her neck. “I said … give it to me.…”

“Here, here you are—take it.” She pulled open the drawer and handed him the few francs.

Diego looked into the drawer. There were a few other bills there—not much, but then every little bit would help. He picked them up and stuffed them in his pocket without letting go of the old woman. Leaning forward again, he smiled at her, a charming gentle smile, but his voice, though soft, was menacing.

“If you tell anyone about this, I shall kill you,” he said, still smiling. “Remember that.”

Diego picked up his suitcase and walked to the door and the old woman stared after him. She smoothed down her shawl with trembling hands. He was crazy, he might have killed her. As he stepped through the door and out into the street her gutter-bred courage returned, it wasn’t the first time she’d been threatened. “Don’t come back here,” she screamed at his departing back. “Try the Ritz—see how they like your sort there!”

Diego threw back his head and laughed. He’d walk as far as the
Opéra and take a cab for the last couple of blocks, that way he could arrive in style. The Ritz was exactly the right place to begin.

Diego shrugged on his freshly-pressed dinner jacket and examined his reflection in the ornate gilded mirror, adjusting his black silk bow tie so that it lay perfectly against the crisp white shirt collar. He smiled at his attractive reflection with satisfaction as he lit a cigarette—it was a pity he had to hock Edouard’s gold cigarette case, as well as the Cartier lighter and the emerald cuff links from Colombia. Diego shrugged; he’d have to do without them for the time being. No doubt he’d be able to recover them from the friendly pawnbroker in Montparnasse in a day or two.

The long velvet-curtained windows showed a rapidly darkening evening sky and the lights of the place Vendôme glimmered through the summer rain. A faint sound of traffic filtered through the glass as Paris geared itself for another evening’s entertainment, and Diego smiled in anticipation as he took in the pretty room with its rose-shaded lamps and soft carpets. The walnut bed was solid and discreet and the heavy-ribbed silk bedspread immaculate. Later that night it would be folded carefully by some courteous little chambermaid and the crisp white sheets would be turned back invitingly, ready for its tired occupant.

Diego picked up the soft burgundy leather wallet with the gold corners and counted the meager stained notes. It should have been filled with clean crisp bills of large denominations but, he thought philosophically as he stowed it in his pocket, beggars can’t be choosers. On the desk near the window lay his only other asset: the return half of a first-class round-trip ticket to Rio de Janeiro. He picked it up and looked at it. There was always Roberto, of course. It had been two years, after all, wasn’t it about time to make contact again? One thing was certain, knowing Roberto, after two years he must surely be bored with Amélie!

The bar at the Ritz had a very strange rule: no women were allowed unescorted and Amanda St. Clair found that very annoying. After all, how was a girl to meet a man if she couldn’t go where the men were? It wasn’t like this in New York. If a girl were attractive and well-dressed she could go anywhere—or almost anywhere. Amanda didn’t count those society balls and things, she meant the cafés and restaurants and bars more usually frequented by members of the theatrical profession, the playwrights,
the producers, the entrepreneurs, the stage door dandies—and the members of the chorus, like herself.

Amanda dithered at the entrance to the bar. When the show had closed suddenly in London it had seemed like a good idea to use all her accumulated savings to take in Paris for a few days before returning home, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“Is anything the matter?”

The question was phrased in English and she looked around in surprise. The man was young and very attractive, thin and dark—he looked sort of foreign.

“But how did you know?”

“That something was the matter?”

“No, that I was American?”

Diego laughed. “French women don’t look like you,” he told her. “American girls are so much more attractive.”

Amanda smiled back at him, pleased. “They wouldn’t let me into the bar,” she pouted, “even though I told them it was unfair.”

Diego bowed to her. “Would you permit me to escort you Miss …?”

Amanda beamed at him. “St. Clair,” she said. “Amanda St. Clair from Morristown, Pennsylvania—although now, of course, I live in New York.”

Diego held out an arm and she slid her smooth-skinned white one through his, still talking. “I’m in show business,” she said as they walked into the bar. “I’m a dancer, you know—of course, I sing, too. In fact, I sing very well. Mr. Van Gelen the big producer says I definitely deserve a featured solo part in his next show.”

“Really? I’m very impressed, Miss St. Clair. I know so little about the theater and it always sounds so fascinating to an outsider like myself.” Diego assessed her rapidly as he spoke: in her early twenties; smartly dressed, but he’d bet she spent every penny she had on her clothes; ambitious and possibly on the way up; with some money in her purse for her first trip to Paris. Was she worth a bottle of champagne? His glance flickered over her eager face, the pale blue eyes were wide and naive. And she was alone in Paris.

“Waiter,” he called. “Champagne, please.”

Amanda smiled happily. Champagne! Well, hadn’t she gotten lucky? And he was attractive, too. “I don’t even know your name,” she realized suddenly.

“Diego Benavente.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “And I’m a stranger in Paris, too. It’s very lucky that we met, Miss St. Clair.”

“Oh, Amanda, please,” she breathed, her eyes widening in delight as his lips brushed her hand. Paris was going to be all right after all.

“Your champagne, sir.” The waiter placed the tall silver cooler beside them and uncorked the bottle expertly, filling the crystal glasses. He placed the bill in its saucer, discreetly at Diego’s elbow, and Diego glanced at it casually. “Charge it, would you,” he said. “And by the way would you book a table for dinner in the restaurant—a table for two,” he added with a smile at Amanda, “in an hour’s time.”

“Certainly, sir. Of course. What room number shall I charge it to, sir?”

“Room three-two-five,” said Diego, placing a lavish tip on the saucer.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Three-two-five,” gasped Amanda. “Well, that’s an odd coincidence, I’m in three-two-six.”

Diego smiled into her wide blue eyes. This was almost too easy. He handed her the glass of champagne. “To a very happy coincidence, Amanda,” he murmured in her pretty ear.

“Of course our coffee plantation is vast,” he told her expansively over dinner in the candlelit intimacy of the dining room of the elegant hotel. “But I’ve always had a taste for adventure. It’s taken me halfway around the world by now and the last place I was in turned out to be the most profitable.”

Amanda was impressed. “And where was that?”

“Colombia, mining for emeralds.” It was almost true, he had been in Colombia and he had been to the emerald mining areas, but he certainly had never set foot in a mine—there were easier ways to get your hands on emeralds then digging them out of rocks! And he’d come away with a glittering green pocketful—regrettably all gambled away now except for the two cabachon stones he’d had set in gold to make the cuff links that were at the pawnbroker’s.

Amanda’s gaze became even wider. “Oh, Diego, emeralds! How exciting. Do you own the mine?”

“Of course.” Diego shrugged modestly. “But I rarely go there anymore. Colombia is such a boring country. Now, New York
 … that’s the place to be. I’d like to be there with you, Amanda.”

Amanda patted the fluffy fringe of blond hair, smiling at him from beneath darker eyelashes. What a lucky girl she was to have met such a perfect man on her first night in Paris, he was handsome, charming—and rich.

Courting Amanda St. Clair was getting to be not only boring, but expensive, thought Diego, studying the hotel’s account, which had been discreetly left on his desk. Not only that, he had to pretend to be elsewhere on business during the day because he didn’t have the money to take her out, and then he had to insist on eating at the expensive Ritz restaurant every night—it was more romantic, he had told her when she wanted to go to Chez Martine because that was where all the show people went. He tossed the bill onto the desk. He had to make a move soon or the hotel would begin to put the pressure on—and before Amanda spent all her money on new dresses to make herself more beautiful and tempting for her rich suitor. Tonight would have to be it.