Sam was suddenly in his head, along with her brush-off at the ballet. And Joe was there with her, the sting of her words still in his ears. What did it say about him that he had to read an article about a dead architect three times before he fell asleep?
“Madame is in the loggia,” the old fellow said, gesturing to an archway.
Loggia?
The first thing that registered was the bracing sweep of rain-scented air. Two of the room’s walls were open archways with views of the gray ocean. From the high concave ceiling, painted sky blue, two paddle fans moved in lazy circles. The room was furnished in rattan, its blue cushions gently worn and dotted with limp yellow throw pillows and one needlepoint pillow with a dog’s face on the sofa. A glass coffee table was heaped with art books, glossy magazines, and newspapers, and two table lamps, with bases shaped like squatting monkeys, held out against the gloom. Off in the corner, a wrought-iron table was set with blue and white china, sparkling glasses, and a bouquet of white calla lilies.
“You’re right on time!”
Louis turned. Margery Cooper Laroche floated in on a swirl of rainbow silk. Her bony face was framed in a hot-pink turban. Big white hoops dangled from her ears. Four pug dogs circled her like chicks, snorting and barking.
“I love a man who’s punctual,” she said. “So many people today forget about manners.” She frowned. “Where’s the big bald fellow, Marvin?”
“Mel,” Louis said. “He’s a bit under the weather.”
She waved toward the open window. “Yes, vile, isn’t it? Quel sale! But at least it’s nice and cool out here. You don’t mind being out here, do you?”
Before Louis could answer, she went on, “I don’t use air-conditioning. Bad for the sinuses, and don’t even get me started on what it does to the skin, dear. I mean, why should I pay a hundred bucks for an enzyme peel and then have air-conditioning freeze my face like I’ve been entombed in dry ice like a six-pack of Bud-”
She stopped suddenly. “Listen to me. I’m beating my gums again. I know I do it. Reggie tells me all the time that I do.” Her wide red mouth curled up into a smile. “Next time I do it, you just tell me to shut up.”
Louis smiled as he kept one eye on the dog sniffing at his ankle.
“Can I get you a drink?” Margery asked.
Again, before Louis could answer, Margery yelled, “Franklin!”
The old fellow in black materialized.
“Shampoo, please,” Margery ordered.
The fellow nodded and left. Margery spun back to Louis. “Sit, please,” she said, waving at the rattan.
Louis settled into the cushions of the sofa. Margery arranged herself on a lounge across from him. Three of the pugs bounded into her lap, and she drew them to her like babies. The fourth dog jumped up and positioned itself at Louis’s thigh, staring up at him with baleful brown eyes.
“So, Reggie tells me you want to know what our little island is really like,” Margery said.
What he wanted were the names of any women Mark Durand had slept with. But Louis had a feeling that the only way into Margery’s confidence was via the long and winding scenic route.
“This is a strange place to an outsider like me,” Louis said.
Margery’s hard gray eyes seemed to be taking stock of him.
The butler or valet or whatever he was returned with a tray holding an ornate ice bucket and two stemmed glasses. He set the tray on the table in front of Margery and left.
“Shampoo?” Margery asked, raising the dripping bottle of champagne.
“Please.” Louis accepted the glass and took a drink. He had little to compare it with-just the pink André in a plastic glass Frances let him sip on New Year’s when he was sixteen and some other stuff over the years that tasted like carbonated kerosene.
But this-he snuck a glance at the label that read Heidsieck-this was great, like someone had crossbred pears with Pop Rocks.
He drank down half the glass. Margery was smiling at him as he lowered it. “Swell stuff, huh?” she said.
“Not bad.”
A phone was ringing somewhere in another part of the house. It had been ringing for at least a full minute now, Louis realized. He noticed an old rotary-dial yellow phone on a table in the corner, though it apparently had its ringer off.
Margery seemed not to hear the phone. “Now,” she said, “let’s talk about Reggie. I adore him. He’s like family to me. But he’s a helpless old thing in many ways, and some people here take advantage of his good nature. So, before we go any further, I want to make sure you are a right gee.”
“Ma’am?”
“A good guy. Excuse me, I slip back into the slang of my youth sometimes. I get away with it because I’m so old, and when you get old enough, you’re allowed to mutate into an eccentric.”
The phone finally stopped ringing.
She eyed him. “You’re very young. How old are you?”
“Just turned thirty.”
“How old do you think I am?”
Louis smiled. “I know better than to answer that question when a lady asks it.”
She let out a low-throated guffaw. “Tell me about your background. I want to know what kind of man is going to be helping my Reggie.”
Louis wasn’t sure where to go with this. “I’m an ex-cop. I’ve been working as a private investigator for three years.”
Again, the eyes bored into him. “But who are your people, dear?”
He had been in Bizarro World long enough to know what she meant. Family and name were everything here. He’d be damned if he’d let her intimidate him into spilling his guts about his messed-up childhood. But before he could answer, Margery waved a dismissive hand.
“Never mind,” she said. “That was rude. Lou would have skinned me for asking that.”
“Who’s Lou?”
The wide smile came again but this time tinged with melancholy. “My late husband, Louis,” she said, pronouncing the name “Loo-EE.” “I guess that’s why I told Reggie I would talk to you, because you have the same name. That, and you seem like a right gee.”
“Thanks.”
The phone started up again. Margery leaned forward, sending the dogs flying. She yanked the champagne bottle from the bucket and topped off his glass.
It was ten-thirty in the morning. There was no sign of food coming yet.
What the hell. He took a drink.
“Maybe we should start with me,” Margery said, lying back against the cushions. The little dogs quickly reclaimed her lap. Except for the one at Louis’s thigh. It was still staring at him like he was lunch.
“I’ve lived here forever,” she said. “Well, since I was thirty, anyway. Before that, Lou and I lived in Paris-that’s where he was from, being French, of course-but he was living in New York when we met, in this big old town house on Fifth. He was fifteen years older than-”
She stopped, smiled, and wagged a finger. “You didn’t stop me.”
Before Louis could answer, Margery jumped up, sending the dogs scrambling again. “Franklin! Bring me my book! And the Sears catalogue, too!”
Margery and the dogs resettled into the cushions. “Unlike most of the people here, I wasn’t born into money,” she said. “My people were farmers in upstate New York, and it about killed my momma, so I sure as hell didn’t want to live the rest of my life with dirt under my fingernails.”
Franklin appeared, cradling a large red book and a small black one. He set them before Margery and left, without bothering to pick up the extension of the still-ringing phone.