“There’s the candy connection,” Mercer said.
“Yeah, Lisette had blow hidden in her Bronx wallet, and Luigi had a boatload of cocaine stashed in the canal.”
“Has the ME given you any word about Luigi’s drug use in the autopsy report?”
“No signs of it. Gina Varona might have been right. No vascular changes in the nasal submucosa, no perforation of the nasal septum like a chronic addict might have.”
“And the tox results will take weeks. So what do you think Luigi’s brother meant about his drug problem?”
“Could be,” Mercer said, “that he knew the kid wasn’t a user, but that he was up to something every bit as lethal.”
“Importing it for sale,” I said. “There’s something I’ve got to ask you, Mike.”
“Shoot.”
“Did Luc tell you anything else about what time Luigi got to the party last Saturday? Or how long he stayed?”
“He said it was late. Definitely toward the end of the night. Probably after you left for home.”
“And Lisette,” holding my breath, because Luc had so emphatically denied her presence to Jacques Belgarde, even though the clothes she died in were all white. “Did you ask him whether Lisette came to the party with Luigi? Did Luc see her there as well?”
“No. He still insists he hasn’t seen her in several years. We’re working on the car rental places at the Nice airport, to see whether Luigi rented one to get to Mougins, see where he spent the night.”
“They have to have been working together, Mike,” I said, putting down my drink to map out the lines between the players. “Luc and I left the house for the party at about seven o’clock, to make sure everything was set up for our guests. The door to the street is never bolted, but when I got home at around two A.M., not only was the door locked and jammed with bits of bone but the larger bones were stacked up in front, and three skulls had been placed at the entrance to the restaurant.”
“And did they resemble the skull I brought to your apartment from Luigi’s houseboat?”
“Exactly the same type. Very, very old and discolored. From the Parisian catacombs, I’m quite sure. Belgarde has Lisette’s arrest record for trespassing there.”
“So the logical thought is that Luigi and Lisette were deep in something together,” Mercer said.
“Something that Luc didn’t have any reason to know about.” Both of them ignored me when I spoke.
“Let’s say Luigi had a legitimate reason for going to Mougins.”
“Was Luc aware of that?”
Mike hesitated and glanced across the table at me. I’d seen that look before. He was trying to decide how much information to trust me with.
“He didn’t know Luigi would be there at the party, but one of the other waiters invited him, telling him to drop in at the end of the evening, after some of the guests were gone. He said he’d come to town to try to recruit staff for Lutèce from the other restaurants around Mougins,” Mike said. “Luc liked his moxie. He even agreed it would be great to steal talent from his competitors in France and have a few authentic French waiters.”
“That sounds like Luc,” I said. “So Luigi arrived after I left the party?”
“Probably so.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“That could account for the Lutèce matchboxes. Luc was giving them away at the party, and the waiters were using them to light candles, too. Luigi could have taken some, maybe even given one to Lisette.”
“That’s an idea,” Mike said.
“Lisette was dressed all in white,” I said. “I wonder if something or someone stopped her from coming to dinner.”
“Doesn’t seem like we’re ever going to know,” Mercer said. “She could have been planning to go in with Luigi, but got cold feet about being confronted by Luc.”
“I got another thought,” Mike said. “Suppose she’s the one who planted the bones and the three skulls while you were up at-where was the party?”
“At the highest point of the village, just outside the Saracens Gate.”
“Explain the geography to me, Coop. Can you see Luc’s house-or the restaurant-from that point?”
“No way. It’s a stunning vista, but built in medieval days to keep out invaders. So you can see all the way to the Mediterranean because it was meant to be a lookout for foreign armies, but you can’t see back down to the village behind the stone walls.”
“So if you and the town’s ‘in crowd’ were up at the party all evening, someone like Lisette could have made her way to the house with-let’s say-a bag of bones,” Mike said.
“Sure. And instead of looking to any villagers like a stranger roaming around the town,” I said, “she’d have seemed to be done up for Luc’s party. No one would have thought twice about it.”
“And she knew the way to his house, I take it.”
“No doubt. The timing works, too. When I was trying to get the door open-Lisette must have jammed it, just to make trouble for us coming home. That’s when I heard laughter from the field below Luc’s property. She’d delivered her gruesome skeletons and was on her way down to the parking lot.”
“But who was laughing with her,” Mercer said, “if Luigi was up at the party? How many people were involved, and what was Luigi really up to with his visit to Mougins?”
“Feels like the age-old double-cross,” Mike said.
“How?” I asked.
“Assume for a minute that Luigi Calamari seemed like the real deal to Gina Varona and to Luc. Smart, young, handsome guy-speaks French-has experience at an upscale private club, so they want to lure him away to head the waitstaff at Lutèce.”
“Got it.”
“Makes sense he’d sniff around to get other experienced staff. What’s to lose? You’re the one who told me these French places don’t like to use anyone but their own in the front of the house. Maybe Varona or Peter Danton financed his trip to Mougins, because Luc claims that he didn’t know about it.”
“And you believe Luc?”
“I do, Coop. I do,” Mike said.
“But what’s Luigi’s connection to Lisette Honfleur?”
“Cocaine, obviously,” Mike said, running his fingers through his black hair. “We just have to find out who hooked them up together, and how long ago.”
“So you’re saying Luigi worked the cross,” Mercer said. “Surprises Luc at the party, to show his face and offer his bona fides about the business trip. But you’re thinking he had two purposes, and the other involved a drug transaction.”
“Exactly.”
“And Lisette got bounced ’cause she was holding out on Luigi.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “Kept her coke too well hidden.”
“But the bones and the skulls?” I asked. “What about them?”
“Captain Belgarde is still convinced they were just a diversion. A hoax. Three skulls, like you said, and Luc’s three stars. They were supposed to freak out all the locals. Make Luc worry that someone was out to sabotage his standing, his restaurant in Mougins.”
“I’m seeing the light,” Mercer said, nodding his head. “The bones were meant to take Luc’s attention off what was happening here in New York.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “What’s happening?”
“Somebody in this partnership, Coop, is dirty-dealing. You’ve got blinders on, girl. You just keep looking stupefied while we get to the bottom of this. That’s all I’m asking of you. Either Luc’s not who you think he is-”
Mike stretched his hand out to reach mine while he spoke, but I recoiled.
“Or he’s being played for a fool by someone here-someone who’s trying to turn Luc’s dream into a nightmare.”
“And the girl was just a casualty of the drug wars,” Mercer said. “Maybe she was introduced to Luigi for his side game?”
“Importing drugs in his spare time, expecting a high-class clientele-hedge funders and young turks he’d curry favor to in the restaurant-ready to buy his stuff. He was probably looking for someone like Lisette to be a burrier,” Mike said, using the latest term of art for a smuggler, a combination of “courier” and “burro.”