One of Those Malibu Nights (27 page)

“Coffee?” She held up the pot. Two mugs already awaited on a pewter tray.

Mac thanked her and they went outside and sat on the terrace in a pair of white basket-weave chairs. Mac took her in as she sat quietly, looking around her garden. She was a handsome woman, very much in charge of herself, but her casual confidence was appealing.

“Are you a musician then?” he said, thinking of the doorbell.

She laughed. “Absolutely not. No. I’m a voice coach. That’s how I met Allie, years ago when she first came to L.A. I coached the Texas twang out of her. We’ve been friends a long time,” she added, looking directly at Mac. “And that’s why I’m so worried.”

Mac sat back, in his usual wait-and-see-what-they-say-to-incriminate-themselves fashion.

“I heard from Allie a while ago,” Sheila said, surprising him.

He put the coffee mug carefully down on the small tiled table between them. “Yes?”

“She was still in France but wouldn’t tell me exactly where. She said it would save me having to tell a lie if anyone asked me if I knew. She sounded happy, said she had
made some new friends, she had changed her appearance and was certain nobody knew who she really was. And that she was working as a waitress. Maybe she’d even met a man …”

“Sounds promising.” Mac picked up his mug and took another sip of coffee.

“Let me get you some more.” Sheila hurried into the kitchen and came back out with the pot. “It’s still hot,” she said, pouring it. She looked at him. “I haven’t heard from her since, though she promised to call. I was worried, so this morning I telephoned Ampara, the housekeeper. She told me something even more worrying. About the stalker getting into the house, the slashed dresses …”

Mac nodded. “We have to be glad Allie wasn’t there.”

Sheila shuddered. She didn’t want to think about it. “There was something else Ampara told me, though, that I thought was unusual. It’s about Jessie Whitworth.”

“Allie’s personal assistant? The one she fired a few months back?”

Sheila’s dark brown eyes met Mac’s. “Exactly. And what Ampara told me was that just this morning, she’d had a phone call from her. Jessie told her she was concerned about Allie, that she felt she needed a friend, another woman, someone who knew her, who was close to her. Jessie said she felt strongly that Allie needed help, and since she happened already to be in the South of France, if Ampara would tell her where Allie was, she would go to her aid.”

Mac put down the coffee mug and sat up straight. “About what time did she call?”

“Ampara said it was just before I did. So that would make it around eleven this morning.”

Mac got to his feet. There was no time to waste. He said, “You have no idea what a big help you’ve been.”

Sheila was also on her feet, looking anxiously at him. “Do you think Jessie has anything to do with it? I know Allie fired her, and that she used to have a key to the house.”

“We’re certainly going to find out,” Mac said. And then, because Sheila’s kind face looked about to crumple into tears, he gave her a hug.

“You’re a good friend, Sheila,” he said, holding her away from him, smiling. “And don’t you worry, I have just the man to find out where Jessie is, and exactly what she’s up to.”

Mac was in the car, driving back down Main Street, Venice. As Sheila had said, it was crammed with boutiques and clothing stores, and cafés, with young people toting surfboards and beautiful girls pushing strollers with cute babies. Stalled at the light, Mac called Roddy and told him the news.

“Miss Whitworth, the perfect secretary?” Roddy said. “I always thought she was a dark horse. I wonder if she’s still with the Queen of England.”

“That’s a thought,” Mac said, already busy thinking in fact. “I’m on my way back to the beach,” he said. “Why don’t you meet me there.”

“Okay. Maybe you should send me to Cannes to find her. After all, I’m the only one who’s actually met her, the only one who knows what she looks like.”

Mac laughed. “Maybe,” he said, just as he had to Allie when she had asked him to go to Cannes with her. “I’m calling Lev right now, getting him over too. We’ll talk then.”

He speed-dialed Lev, told him what was going down and asked him to meet him at the Malibu house.

“I’m in Hollywood, I’ll be there in forty,” Lev said. “God and traffic willing,” he added.

In the event, he was there on time. Roddy and Mac were already out on the deck where the velvety sunshine dappled the ocean with sequins of silver. Cold beers were handed round and the three men sat for a moment, enjoying the view of the ocean and the blond girls—somehow they always seemed to be blond—cavorting at the edge of the waves, as well as the surfers “boldly going where few men dare to go,” Roddy said, though in fact he happened to be a great surfer himself.

“Okay, so Allie is still in France.” Mac laid out the scenario as told him by Sheila and the two men listened attentively.

“The Whitworth woman left her apartment early on the morning after the break-in at the Bel Air house. She told the apartment manager she was going on a vacation to Cancún.”

“She and her friend, the blonde?”

“Yes. And who, by the way, she said, looked a bit like Allie.”

“The security guard at Mentor Studios told me the same thing,” Roddy said.

“So maybe Whitworth didn’t go to Cancún. Maybe she went to France instead,” Mac said.

“Looking for Allie,” Lev said.

Mac turned to Lev. “You know your way around that part of the world?”

“I used to work in Paris. I have contacts there. Whitworth will have needed to rent a car, and for that you need a driver’s license and credit card. We can check that.”

“Okay, I want you to get on to it right away. We don’t know where Allie is, but then, neither does Jessie.”

Lev glanced at his watch. “I’ll be in Paris tomorrow. Trust me, I’ll find her.”

Roddy looked at Mac. “Can’t I go with him?”

Mac laughed. “I think Lev is a man who likes to work alone. Besides, you don’t have any contacts in Paris.”

Roddy looked aggrieved. “I could make some.”

“Okay, so when we find her, you’ll go to France.”

“I always like celebrations,” Roddy said gloomily.

Sunny was fixing a salad with mini lettuces, fresh herbs, avocado and sliced strawberries, sprinkled with toasted walnuts, while Mac barbecued a couple of steaks and opened a bottle of Caymus, a deep rich Cabernet that was one of his favorites. Pirate snored loudly, competing with Bryan Ferry’s album playing in the background. Sunny had bought it thinking of Ron. They had just settled down to eat when the phone rang.

“Hi,” Marisa said. “It’s me.”

“I know.” Mac put her on speakerphone so Sunny could hear. “I recognize your voice.”

“I read about the murder in the
Herald Tribune,”
Marisa said in a trembly voice. “About Ronnie being suspected of killing that woman, about him still being missing,
and about … oh, everything. Then someone broke into my apartment. Nothing was stolen just everything turned over. Now I’m scared. I think it might be Ronnie.”

“Maybe it was the paparazzi,” Sunny said to Mac. “They could have found out she was Ron’s girlfriend,” she added.

He shook his head. “Paparazzi don’t break in. And anyhow what could they have been looking for?” He asked Marisa the same question.

“I didn’t tell you everything,” she confessed. “I took some documents from Ronnie’s place that night. They’re to do with offshore bank accounts, serial numbers, that sort of things. I know Ronnie wants them. And I think now he’s killed one woman and maybe I’m next on his list. I’m scared, Mac. I’m really
really
scared. Please, oh
please
, you have to come out here and help me. I’ll give you the papers. And I’ll tell you everything I know about Ronnie.”

Mac’s eyes met Sunny’s.

“I’m already packing,” she said.

“We’ll be there tomorrow,” Mac promised Marisa.

The following day Sunny and Mac were installed in their usual Rome hotel. There was a message to meet Marisa at her apartment. Mac called to tell her they were on their way. There was no reply but he assumed she had gone out shopping and decided to go anyway.

They took a cab to Trastevere, the old section where artisans and manual workers once lived crammed together in the narrow cobbled alleys and ancient piazzas. Now, though, parts of it had been gentrified and there were smart little bars and cafés with tiny flowered sidewalk terraces.

Marisa’s apartment was on the first floor of a tall narrow stucco building whose green-shuttered windows looked out onto the cobbled street. TV aerials sprouted from the roof
and a black cat gazed down at them from an ugly iron balcony that was definitely not meant for Juliet.

“Hmm.” Sunny sniffed disparagingly. “I would have thought the famous movie producer could have done better for her.”

Marisa’s apartment was to the left of the hall. A yellow Post-it note was stuck on the door. “Mac, meet me at Bar Gino, in the piazza at the end of the street,” was all it said.

They walked to the bar, a long dim narrow cavern of a place with glass shelves lined with bottles of cheap red wine, and sat on the tiny terrace, sipping a glass each of the red, waiting for Marisa. After a while, Mac got worried and called her again. Still no reply. He called their hotel to see if she had left a message, but there was nothing. They decided to wait a little longer and Mac went back into the bar to order more wine and a pizza. Without anchovies.

Left alone Sunny was drinking the last of her wine, listening to the hungry rumble of her tummy—she hadn’t eaten on the plane—when she spotted Marisa at the top of the street.

How could she miss her, even if she was draped in a black pashmina shawl, attempting to look like an old Italian peasant woman and definitely not succeeding? And it wasn’t only her Prada platform shoes that were a dead giveaway. A tall man was walking with her, a priest in a black soutane and one of those wide-brimmed flat hats. He was holding on to Marisa’s arm and seemed to be guiding her firmly
away from the piazza.
Too
firmly, Sunny thought, alarmed. In fact he was pushing her.

Leaping to her feet, she yelled for Mac, then took off after them, trotting in her high heels over the tricky cobbles. In front of her she saw the priest drag Marisa down the dark narrow alley and heard her cry out as they disappeared round a corner.

Panting for breath, Sunny whizzed after them. Her heel caught in between the cobbles, and she went sprawling. A pain shot through her ankle and tears stung her eyes. When she looked up, Marisa and the priest had disappeared.

She saw Mac at the end of the street, running toward her. “What happened?” he asked anxiously.

Sunny told him the story. “Looks like Marisa knew she was being followed and she tried to lose him, and you almost caught up to them,” he said.

Her ankle was swelling rapidly and he helped her up. “At great self-sacrifice,” she muttered, clenching her teeth against the pain.

Mac said there was no point looking for Marisa now, she might be anywhere in that maze of alleys, and with his arm around her, they hobbled back to the bar, where a shot of grappa temporarily eased the agony. Then they took a cab to a
farmacia
where they inspected her ankle and prescribed ice packs and an elastic support stocking.

“ Terrific,” Sunny muttered, surveying the piggy-pink elastic support miserably. “It’ll look just great with a little
black dress.” She had already decided that Marisa Mayne was not worth it.

Mac had called the police and told them what had happened. They said there was not much they could do since Marisa was not yet officially a missing person.

“She’ll turn up,” the cops told him. “These women always do.”

Mac left Sunny at the hotel nursing her swollen ankle, while he returned to Marisa’s apartment. The yellow Post-it note was still stuck on the door. He put it in his pocket, then tried the lock. He was surprised to find it open.

Marisa’s tiny apartment was immaculate. Her clothes were neatly arranged in the closet, shoes lined up, sweaters stacked. There was a coffee mug on the sink and a couple of magazines on a side table next to the sofa, along with a remote for the TV. And that was about it. No Marisa. No photos, no letters, and no personal documents, not even her passport. And certainly no incriminating papers with RP’s offshore account numbers. There was just the yellow Post-it pad near the phone with an address written on it.

“Villa Appia, Gali, Tuscany.”

Mac called Hertz, arranged for a rental car, then went back to the hotel to tell Sunny he was off to Tuscany. Of course, despite the injured ankle, she said she was definitely going with him.

It was Saturday night, Robert Montfort was at the Bistro again, sitting at the same table under the arbor opposite the same Paris blonde. Allie, her crackling starched white apron wrapped twice around her narrow waist, bustled outside, saw them and stepped hurriedly back in again. She asked Jean-Philippe to take their order and ran to the kitchen to tell Petra.

“It’s Robert Montfort,” she said. “He’s out there with the Paris blonde again.”

“The TV gal?” Petra raised an eyebrow at her. “Should’ve thought he’d know better, after having met someone like you. Don’t you worry about it,” she added, briskly sautéing up chicken pieces in butter with garlic and shallots and pouring in a dollop of good heavy cream. Petra never spared a thought for calories or cholesterol. Good food was good
food. “I’ve no doubt he’s saying goodbye to her.” She threw Allie a penetrating glance. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Robert Montfort, I mean.”

Allie stared back at her. An image of Ron flew into her mind: his beetling brows, his powerful frame, his arrogance that concealed the vulnerable man inside. There was nothing vulnerable about handsome Robert Montfort. “I don’t know,” she said, honestly.

“Well, then.” Petra sloshed the chicken around in the sauce, seasoned now with cumin and thyme. “You can’t grumble, can you, if he has a blonde here on a date.”