“It’s easier for him. I’m doing classic French cuisine, so all my wines have to be from over here. Ken’s got superb American fare-steaks, pork, fish, lobster-so he can draw from the California vineyards just as well. You understand, Alex?”
“I do now.”
“So where are we storing all this wine, Jim? Have you figured that out yet?”
“Solved.”
“Not some warehouse in the city, is it? Nobody’s got the right conditions.”
“Try this. It’s subterranean and it’s secure, for starters. Everything a good bottle of wine loves. Dark, no vibrations, and a steady temperature of fifty-five degrees.”
“How pricey?”
“If you’ve got more than a hundred cases, it’s only a dollar twenty-five a month per case.”
Luc looked intrigued. “Hard to believe, Jim. What is it?”
He reached for his glass. “A 1962 bomb shelter, in the boonies of Connecticut. Vintage Cold War paranoia built by a rich man on his estate. No more boxes of food rations, just lots of great wine. I’ll take you up to see it when you’re over next.”
Talk of the new business venture had made Luc more vibrant than he’d been since the party last night. He was eager to get started when the headwaiter returned to take our order.
“You know what you want, darling?”
“I was thinking about veal.”
“Forget the menu,” Luc said to me, before addressing the waiter. “Tell the chef Alexandra would like veal, however he wants to prepare it. Something very special, no?”
“Make it two,” Jim said.
“And I’ll have a carpaccio of tuna. Salad for all of us,” he said.
“Monsieur Rouget,” the waiter said, instead of turning away to place the order. “What would you like me to do about table three?”
“Nobody has arrived yet?”
“No, sir.”
“A seven o’clock reservation for four,” Luc said to Jim, “at one of the best tables in the house. A no-show, and not courteous enough to call to break it. Looks bad to leave one empty in the front. That’s my prime real estate.”
“I’ve got two parties having cocktails on the terrace, neither of whom was able to book inside tonight. Shall I seat one of them?”
“By all means. I’ll go schmooze when you’ve got them inside. You have a telephone number for the no-shows?”
“Hotel du Cap, Monsieur Rouget.” The waiter bowed his head and left the bar.
“That was another thing that got my father noticed in New York,” Luc said to Jim and me, warming up as he talked. “He couldn’t abide no-shows. Thought it was the height of rudeness when part of the attraction to other customers was filling every table and turning them over if he could. So Andre would wait till midnight, then call the offender, asking whether he wanted the kitchen to stay open in case their party was still planning on coming in.”
“Ouch,” I said. “I guess he didn’t see many of those folks again.”
“You’d be surprised. I think the harder he made it for people to get what everyone else wanted, the more they came crawling back anyway.”
Luc was in his element and I was happy to see him beginning to relax. The three of us ate and drank, and told stories about our favorite food experiences. Jim seemed almost as excited as I that Luc was coming to New York to re-create Lutèce-named for Lutetia, the Latin word for the ancient city of Paris.
I could have set my watch by Luc’s prediction that Jacques Belgarde would show up at nine o’clock. He came into the bar alone, and saw us as soon as he entered.
As he made his way to the table, Luc tried to explain to his guest that we needed to cut the evening short. Jim Mulroy didn’t ask any questions. He got up to excuse himself and practically bumped into Belgarde, who clearly wanted to be introduced and find out about the man who was with us.
The captain reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, which he unfolded as he spoke. “Were you in town last night, Mr. Mulroy?”
“I just arrived at five o’clock today. I’ve come from Lyons.”
“Then you missed Luc’s soiree, too?”
“My misfortune, yes.”
“Maybe next year we’ll both be favored with an invitation,” Belgarde said. “And you, Alexandra, it looks like your colleagues think they’ve got a big case on their hands.”
He handed me a printout that he had downloaded from his computer. It was a news headline from a French site much like CNN, with a photo of Mohammed Gil-Darsin featured in a perp walk-a uniquely American tradition for the high-profile criminal.
Baby Mo looked the camera directly in the eye. His hands were cuffed behind his back, the collar of his dark trench coat stood up, almost as though styled for the photo op. There was none of the head-hanging or sense of shame that such moments usually engendered.
Two first-grade detectives from Manhattan’s SVU-Mercer Wallace and Alan Vandomir-gripped his arms, one on each side.
The text above the image was in bold caps, three inches high. I held it up so Luc could read it, too. L’AFFAIR MGD!
“That’s unbelievable,” Luc said.
“What is?” I asked.
“You couldn’t do that to a man in this country. Photograph him in handcuffs before he’s been convicted of a crime. It’s-it’s indecent.”
“So is first-degree rape.”
“I’ll owe you the caviar for sure,” Luc said, shaking his head as he crumpled the paper. “I tell you, the French won’t be happy with your justice system.”
“Who cares?” Jacques said. “Bébé Mo isn’t French.”
“He certainly is. He’s spent half of his life in this country. His father’s been good to your men, Captain. He probably spends more money bribing them for favors than they make in salary.”
“Watch your step, Luc. My guys like to eat as well as you and I do. And the Gil-Darsins-uh-they’re African, after all. They’re not French.”
“You mean they’re black, is that it?” I asked.
“I said African, didn’t I?” Jacques buffed the nails of his right hand on the edge of the tablecloth. “Don’t make me out to be a racist.”
“Mo’s mother was French,” Luc said, talking to Jim Mulroy and me. “Her father owned a cocoa plantation in the Ivory Coast, and she fell in love with a local young political leader. Radical stuff in those days, sixty years ago. The Côte d’Ivoire was a French colony then. It didn’t gain its independence till 1960.”
“That explains why we couldn’t extradite him if the plane had actually taken off for Paris. He’s a French national.”
“Exactly. It’s the vast family wealth of Bébé’s mother that launched Papa Mo’s political career, though she didn’t live to see him become president.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“She was killed by rebel forces there when her son was only three or four,” Luc said.
“Living dangerously, that lady was,” Jacques said. “And now Bébé Mo’s a problem for the Americans, not for me. I’ve got my own fish to fry.”
In just a few short hours, I could see that the case involving MGD would be like a Rorschach test, everyone coming to the story with his or her own point of view, bringing to it preconceived notions of race, class, power, and sexism. My colleagues at home were no doubt being assaulted by journalists voicing each of these positions.
“Do you have any news about Lisette?” I asked Belgarde.
“I do, madame. But it would go down better if I had a drink.”
Jim Mulroy, clearly puzzled by the different threads of conversations, said good night to the three of us as Luc told the captain to pull out a chair at our table. He called the waiter over and told him to get Belgarde whatever he wanted from the kitchen. He walked to the bar and came back with a double shot of single malt Scotch.
“What’s the story?” I asked again.
“The body’s at the morgue in Nice. They’re going to do an autopsy tomorrow. It’s just as I thought this morning, at the pond. They suspect she was murdered.” He winked at me and lifted his glass in my direction. “The big city flics thought I was pretty smart, actually, to know so much about drowning-pink foam and all that-so I’m grateful to you, Madame Prosecutor. À votre santé, Alexandra.”