Nearly two years had gone by since his last visit-a long and lovely weekend with Elena Morales-but Sam found the Montalembert to be its usual charming self. Tucked away off the Rue du Bac, the hotel is small, chic, and friendly. The younger, less grand ladies of the fashion world descend on it each year during the collections. Authors, their agents, and publishers haunt the bar, looking intense over their whisky as they brood about their royalties and the current state of French literature. Pretty girls flutter in and out. The antique dealers and gallery owners of the quartier drop by to celebrate a sale with a glass of champagne. People feel at home here.
Much of this, of course, is due to the staff, but it is helped also by the informal way the ground-floor area of the hotel has been laid out. In a relatively small space, a bar, a small restaurant, and a tiny library with its own wood-burning fireplace are separated not by walls but by different levels of light: brighter in the restaurant, dimmer in the library. Business lunches in the front, romantic assignations in the back.
Sam checked in, tantalized by the smell of coffee coming from the restaurant. After a quick shower and shave, he went down for café crème and a croissant, and went over his plans for the morning and afternoon. He was treating himself to a day off-a day of being a tourist-and it pleased him to think that his chosen destinations could be easily reached on foot: a visit to the Musée d’Orsay; a walk across the Pont Royal to the Louvre for a quick bite at the Café Marly; and a stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries on the way to the Place Vendôme and his appointment at Charvet.
The weather in Paris was hesitating somewhere between the end of winter and the beginning of spring, and as Sam walked up the Boulevard Saint-Germain he saw that the girls were of two minds about what to wear. Some were still swathed in scarves and coats and gloves; others, in defiance of the chilly breeze coming off the Seine, wore cropped jackets and short skirts. But no matter how they were dressed, they all seemed to have adopted a particular style of walking. Sam had come to think of this as a mark of the true Parisian girclass="underline" a brisk strut, head held high, bag slung from one shoulder, and-the crucial touch-arms folded in such a way that the bosom was not merely supported but emphasized, a kind of soutien-gorge vivant, or living bra. Pleasantly distracted, Sam almost forgot to turn in to the street that led down to the river and the Musée d’Orsay.
There was, as always, too much to take in. Sam had decided to confine himself to the upper level, where Impressionists rubbed shoulders with their Neo-Impressionist colleagues. Even so, even without paying his respects to the sculpture or the extraordinary Art Nouveau collection, more than two hours slipped by before he thought of looking at his watch. With a mental tip of his hat to Monet and Manet, to Degas and Renoir, he left the museum and headed across the river, toward the Louvre and lunch.
The French have a talent for restaurants of all sizes, and a special genius for huge spaces. La Coupole, for instance, which opened in 1927 as “the largest dining room in Paris,” manages despite its vastness to retain a human scale. The Café Marly, although smaller, is still, by most restaurant standards, enormous. But it has been designed so that there are quiet corners and pockets of intimacy, and there is never a feeling that you are eating in a canteen as big as a ballroom. Best of all, there is the long, covered terrace with its view of the glass pyramid, and it was here that Sam settled himself at a small table.
Returning to Paris after a long absence, there is always a temptation to plunge in and taste everything. Call it greed, or the result of deprivation, but food in Paris is so varied, so seductive, and so artfully presented that it seems a shame not to have a dozen of Brittany ’s best oysters, some herb-flavored lamb from Sisteron, and two or three cheeses before attacking the desserts. But in a fit of moderation, remembering that dinner was still to come, Sam made do with a modest portion of Sevruga caviar and some chilled vodka while he watched the world go by.
Over coffee, he did his tourist’s duty and wrote his ration of postcards for the day: one to Elena, telling her he was busy looking for clues; one to Bookman (The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful); and one to Alice, a housekeeper at the Chateau Marmont who had never ventured outside Los Angeles, but who traveled vicariously through Sam whenever he went away. He reminded himself to buy a miniature Eiffel Tower for her collection of souvenirs.
As a tentative Parisian sun broke through to brighten up the sky, he left the crowds of the Louvre for the orderly precision of the Tuileries, pausing to admire the long and extraordinary view through the gardens, along the Champs-Elysées, and all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. So far, the pleasures of the day had more than lived up to his expectations. By the time he reached the Place Vendôme he was in an expansive mood, induced by lunch and good humor-dangerously expansive, when shopping at Charvet.
Haberdashers to the gentry for more than 150 years, Charvet appealed to Sam’s fondness for the understated extravagance of custom-made shirts. It was more than just a simple matter of comfort, style, and fit that he loved. It was also the whole ritual, itself an essential part of the process: the browsing over fabrics, the unhurried discussion of cuffs, collars, and cut, the certain knowledge that he would get exactly what he wanted. And, as a bonus, there were the stately surroundings in which these deliberations took place.
Charvet’s premises-one could hardly describe them as a shop-occupy several floors of one of the most distinguished addresses in Paris: 28 Place Vendôme. No sooner was Sam inside than a figure hovering in a silky vantage point among the ties and scarves and handkerchiefs came forward to greet him. It was Joseph, who had initiated Sam some years ago into the arcane delights of single-needle stitching and genuine mother-of-pearl buttons. Together, they took the small elevator up to the fabric room on the second floor, and there, among thousands of bolts of poplin, Sea Island cotton, linen, flannel, batiste, and silk, Sam spent the rest of the afternoon. Each of the dozen shirts he eventually ordered would, like wine, be marked with its vintage, a tiny label sewn into the inner seam that identified the year in which it was made.
During his walk back to the hotel, Sam’s thoughts turned to the man he was about to see. Axel Schroeder had for many years been one of the world’s most successful thieves. Jewels, paintings, bearer bonds, antiques: he had stolen-or, as he preferred to put it, arranged a change of ownership for-them all. Not for himself, he was quick to point out, being a man of simple tastes, but for his acquisitive clients. Schroeder and Sam had met when they found themselves working on different aspects of the same job. A certain mutual respect had developed, and professional courtesy had since ensured that each kept well away from the other’s projects. Schroeder held valid passports from three different countries, and Sam suspected that his fingerprints had been changed more than once by cosmetic surgery. He was a careful man.
Sam found him waiting in the bar of the Montalembert, a glass of champagne on the table in front of him. Slim, with a skier’s tan, dressed in a pale-gray pin-striped suit of a slightly old-fashioned cut, his thinning silver hair perfectly barbered, and his nails gleaming from a recent manicure, he looked more like a retired captain of industry than the grand old man of larceny.
“Good to see you again, you old crook,” said Sam as they shook hands.
Schroeder smiled. “My dear boy,” he said, “flattery will get you nowhere. Have they come to their senses in Los Angeles and kicked you out?” He signaled to the waiter. “A glass of champagne for my friend, please. And make sure you put it on his bill.”