Uh-oh. I’d just found the hole I was apparently not out of yet.
“I distinctly remember what you told me, Clare. There were two female detectives already on the case.”
“I certainly would have included you, Madame, but once the train started moving, there was just no turning back—”
“Excuse me,” a deep voice interrupted. “I would like to thank Matt’s mother for the very lovely lunch.”
“Javier! So nice to see you could make it to the wedding after all.”
A tall, stiffly formal man about Matt’s age took Madame’s hands and kissed her on both cheeks. His face was bronzed, and sun wrinkles framed his dark eyes. He wore his jet-black hair slicked back, and his mustache was thick and long—a very retro south of the border machismo look, which the man carried extremely well.
“Thank you for coming, Javier.” Madame turned to me. “Javier Lozado, this is my daughter-in—excuse me, my manager at the Village Blend, Clare Cosi.”
Good try, Madame, I thought. You’ll get it down sooner or later.
(Several months ago, during the planning stages of the wedding, Madame introduced me as her daughter-in-law, right in front of her future daughter-in-law, Breanne. It was a fairly awkward faux pas and did little to improve my relationship with the next Mrs. Allegro.)
Javier’s smile widened. “Ah, Ms. Cosi! You are the woman we toasted.”
“That was very nice of Matt. How do you know him, Mr. Lozado?”
“Please, call me Javier, if I may call you Clare?” he said, his crow’s feet crinkling attractively. “Matt and I met years ago. In those days, I was a coffee buyer, too.”
“You’re not a buyer any longer?” Madame said, surprised.
He shook his head. “It was too much like my career in the army. It sounds exciting and glamorous, and I confess I enjoyed it for a while. ‘A woman in every port,’ as my American friends used to say. But I soon discovered that I did so much traveling I didn’t have a home. That’s why I grow coffee now, in Colombia, the land where I was born.”
His eyes caught mine, and Javier smiled slyly. “When I long to travel or lack for feminine companionship, I explore the nightlife in a nearby city, or—excuse me, one moment—”
Javier hailed someone and gestured him forward. The short, sad-eyed man approached us. “Madame Dubois. Clare Cosi,” Javier said with great formality. “I am pleased to introduce you to my manager, Hector Pena.”
Like Javier, Pena had clearly spent hours in the scorching sun. But the older man’s deep tan didn’t appear glowing and healthy like Javier’s. His flesh almost seemed to sag, and there were dark circles under his eyes. There was an air of heaviness about the man, as if he were bearing the weight of Job on his slouching shoulders.
“I was just telling Clare it is good to get away sometimes. To travel, eh, Hector?”
Still unsmiling, Hector nodded. “I very much needed to make this journey.”
A waiter appeared with a tray of lomo saltado, a hearty meat dish that’s a favorite in Peru. Marinated strips of sirloin are sautéed with hot and sweet peppers, cilantro, garlic, and oregano. Usually served over rice and garnished with crispy French fries, the chef made the dish “hand-friendly” by skewering the beef, along with chunks of succulent peppers and a fried potato square. I took a bite of the marinated meat and slipped into a food trance. When I came out again, Hector Pena had drifted away.
“Why is your friend so sullen?” Madame asked.
“A recent personal tragedy,” Javier replied in a lowered voice. “His young daughter was a beautiful and talented singer. She moved to Bogotá to pursue her career. About a month ago she died quite suddenly, by gunshot.” Javier frowned and shook his head. “I have never seen Hector so desolate, and I have known him for fifteen years, since we were both with the Lanceros—”
“My, that sounds dashing.”
“There is little dash to be found in the Colombian army,” Javier replied. “Only an endless battle against drug cartels and terrorists.”
“It’s appalling, the tragedy in the world,” Madame said, shaking her head. “Roger Mbele was telling me about Kenya’s troubles not long ago. The post election violence left over a thousand dead in his country.”
“Yes, yes, there is much sadness in the world. That is why I encouraged Hector to come with me to the wedding. He knows Matteo, of course, and is very happy for him, but I am personally grateful for this opportunity to get Hector away from home, away from his troubles, and cheer him up. I am afraid, however, that I am not doing a very good job. Perhaps a lady’s touch?”
“Let’s you and I try together,” Madame said with a wink. She took Javier’s arm and led him off in the direction of his sad friend.
“That’s what happens when you come to the party late,” a deep voice said to me a moment later, “you lose your best girl to a younger man.”
I turned to find Otto Visser standing beside me—Madame’s latest love interest. He was a tall, dapper fellow, leanly built with thinning but still-golden hair. In his late sixties, Madame had met her “younger man” a few months ago, while we were having dinner uptown. They “eye flirted” across the room at each other (Madame’s version anyway), and then Otto approached her, and they’d been dating ever since.
I smiled up at him. “Madame wondered why you hadn’t showed.”
“Work, as usual,” he said, his voice carrying a slight Dutch accent.
An art dealer now, Otto had originally studied to become a Roman Catholic priest, but he left the seminary and became an art historian instead, working for years at the Vatican museums. Now he ran the Otto Visser Gallery in Chelsea and performed private consulting work for several of the city’s most prestigious museums and auction houses.
“I know all about working too many hours, but one of these should cheer you up.” I snagged the waiter.
Otto sampled a bite of the new tapas offering: chicharron de calamar, a crispy fried squid served with crema de recoto, a kind of Peruvian creole sauce.
“Mmmm, delicious,” Otto said. “I’ll have one of these, too.” He snatched a glass of the flowing sangria blanco from a passing tray. After a long drink, he sighed. “I was caught in the middle of another dispute between a buyer who’s willing to spend the moon, and an artist who refuses to sell.”
“Anyone I know?”
“I doubt it. The artist in question is Spanish, famous in some circles, but not yet widely known—”
Apparently, Breanne was near enough to overhear our conversation, because she walked right up to Otto and without even a polite greeting asked, “Do you know Nunzio?”
“The Italian sculptor?” Otto shook his head. “Only by reputation.”
Breanne shot me a sidelong glance. “A shame, because I just got a text message with some very bad news for you, Clare.”
“Me?” I blinked.
“Yes, it seems Nunzio has had second thoughts about loaning us his fountain.”
My breath caught. The fountain was to be the centerpiece of the wedding’s coffee and dessert station. Janelle Babcock and I had worked like dogs planning the details of the tablescape around it.
“That fountain was part of Nunzio’s profile in the magazine,” Breanne said. “Without it, your little display won’t be included in that section. I don’t think our photo editor will even bother including it in the magazine’s wedding spreads.”