Henri occupied the seat David had just vacated and poured himself a cup of thick black coffee. Flooding it with cream, he took several satisfying swallows.
"I see you breakfast with the too-large gentleman," he commented smugly. "I told you he had the passion for you. He hires you for the entire night, then?"
Heat crept up Paige's throat, but before she could decide how to answer, he gave her a stern look.
"I just hope you collect the appropriate fee."
She thought about the thick fold of notes David had tossed on the table last night, and the heat spread across her cheeks.
"I appreciate your interest in my, ah, business affairs, Henri, but I don't think I should be discussing such matters with—"
Her voice faltered as the boy reached across the table to snag a croissant from the linen-covered basket. In the process, the sleeve of his sweater rode up, revealing vicious, swelling bruises on his bone-thin forearm.
"What happened to you?" she gasped.
"Pah!" Henri got out around the pastry he'd stuffed in his mouth. "Antoine, he tried to take the commission you paid me last night.''
Shocked, Paige searched her memory for a moment before she recalled that this Antoine was the man Henri carried money for.
The boy devoured the rest of the croissant, then grinned at her. "It appears I shall have to find a new business partner. You're sure you don't wish the manager, mademoiselle?"
Paige felt her heart constrict at that brave, irreverent grin. She swallowed, noting how his skin stretched across his sharp cheeks and how his thin, narrow shoulders were hunched under the baggy sweater.
"I'm sure," she said slowly, pushing David's untouched bowl of raspberries toward the boy.
She chewed on her lower lip as he attacked the berries with unabashed gusto. The entire bowl of fruit disappeared in less than a minute, as did the thick cream, which Henri slurped noisily from the silver spoon.
"Maybe there's some other service you can provide while I'm here—" she said hesitantly.
Tugging the pastry basket closer to examine its remaining contents, the boy nodded enthusiastically. "Most assuredly, mademoiselle. I shall be your guide, yes? I know shops that carry dresses with the labels of Saint-Laurent and Givenchy—but not the price, you understand. And perfumeries that sell scents for a third what you pay on the Croisette." His red brows waggled. "Not even your so-large gentleman will know it isn't Ar-pege you wear, and we will split the difference in price, no?"
"No," Paige said hastily.
Good Lord, was there anything this youngster wasn't into? She took another look at his pinched face and swallowed the impulse to ask.
"Look, why don't I order you breakfast and you can... you can tell me about Cannes, and some of the famous people who live here? Like Gabriel Ardenne," she added in a flash of inspiration. If anyone knew about the international jet-setter, she suspected this boy would.
''The banker? Pah, you don't want to waste your time on that one, mademoiselle. He is a pig."
"He is?"
Her heart thumping. Paige summoned a waiter. After ordering half the items on the menu, Henri recited a list of the banker's astonishing excesses, some of which he knew for a fact to be true, he swore.
He ran out of information at precisely the moment the first covered dish arrived at the table. His brown eyes alight with pleasure, Henri cut off a chunk of sizzling sausage and popped it into his mouth.
By the time she caught a flash of a red knit shirt out of the corner of one eye, Paige had extracted a few more interesting bits of information from the boy, including one or two about the reclusive film star Victor Swanset. She wondered if David knew that Swanset made private visits to the wing he'd endowed in the huge convention hall that was home to Cannes's famous film festival. According to Henri, his silver Rolls-Royce had been spotted parked at the back of the Palais des Festivals several times of late.
Anxious and excited, Paige scanned David's face as he wound his way through the scattered tables. At the silent, reassuring message he telegraphed to her, she sagged in relief. Wherever Maggie was at this moment, evidently she was all right.
When David approached, he caught sight of the diminutive figure ensconced in his seat. The array of empty dishes in front of the boy sent his brows soaring.
"Do you remember my friend Henri?" Paige asked.
"Of course." David eyed him thoughtfully. "Do you breakfast at the Carlton often, or was there some purpose to this visit?"
"I came to inquire how mademoiselle fares, of course. And to see if she has reconsidered my offer to act as her business manager."
"Her business manager?"
At David's startled glance, Paige shifted guiltily in her seat. She'd been so overcome by nervousness last night, she'd neglected to inform him of Henri's previous offer to act as her agent.
The boy scooted back the heavy iron chair and rose. Hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts, he rocked back on his heels. "I fear mademoiselle has not the head for numbers. She needs someone to watch out for her and protect her interests."
"I won't argue with you there," David drawled.
"I've explained to Henri that I am not in the market for a manager right now," Paige put in. "Of any kind. But I'm thinking of engaging his services as a guide."
David's frown told her he didn't think much of the idea.
"He's been sharing some very interesting information with me. About Cannes, and some of the people who live here," she added, hinting heavily.
"He has?"
"I have, monsieur. Just to entertain mademoiselle, you understand, since you leave her unattended for so long." There was no mistaking the disapproval in Henri's voice, or the implication that he would manage Paige's time far more efficiently.
"Thanks for watching her for me," David responded in a dry tone. "I'll take over from here."
Paige didn't particularly care for this turn in the conversation. She felt like a pet poodle being passed from keeper to keeper.
'Bon!" Henri announced. "I will go, then." Contrary to his words, he rocked back on his heels and waited expectantly.
David's mouth twisted in a small smile. "Let me guess. I owe you another fifty francs." "Qui." "For what?"
"For my time, of course. Like mademoiselle, I am paid by the hour."
With a shake of his head, David reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.
Henri made an elaborate show of folding the bill and tucking it into his pocket. Then he brushed past David to give Paige a gallant little bow.
"If you wish me to show you the Palais des Festivals, mademoiselle, you have only to come to my headquarters. The telephone kiosk at the corner of the Croisette and the Allees de la Liberte," he added, at her blank look. "Yes, of course."
"A bientdt." He took a jaunty step toward his moped.
"Henri?"
"Old, monsieur?"
"I'd like my wallet back before you leave."
Paige gasped, and a look of wounded innocence filled the boy's brown eyes.
"Your wallet, monsieur?"
"It's in your left pocket, I believe."
Henri's freckled face scrunched in disgust as he dug into his shorts. "Me, I am losing my touch."
Her jaw sagging, Paige watched him hand over the wallet, then saunter down the steps to his moped. With an unrepentant wave, he was off.
Calmly David took his seat and signaled for the check. During the brief interval while the waiter cleared the table, he scribbled a few quick words in a small leather-bound notebook.
Still struggling to recover from her shock at the attempted larceny, Paige craned her neck and saw that he'd jotted down the location of Henri's telephone kiosk.
"You're not going to have him arrested, are you?" she asked anxiously as soon as the waiter moved out of range. "I'm sure he just needed the money for food. He was so hungry."
David slid the notebook into his pocket, then eyed the five-digit total on the chec
k. "Hungry isn't the word for it."
He caught Paige's anxious look and scrawled his name and room number across the bottom of the bill.
"I'm just going to have Control check him out," he told her, rising. "Come on, let's go upstairs. Maggie's on her way back to the hotel. She's discovered some rather interesting information about our friend Gabriel Ardenne."
"That one, he's a pig," Paige murmured, unconsciously imitating Henri's scornful tone. At David's quick glance, she lifted her chin. "Maggie's not the only one who can do a little extemporaneous sleuthing. Did she discover that Ardenne's into drugs, big-time?"
"She did," David said, holding the heavy door of the elevator cage. "But not the kind you think, perhaps."
The door clanged shut, and the elevator began to wheeze upward. Ignoring the panoramic vista of the Carlton's gilt- and palm-strewn lobby, Paige turned to the man beside her.
"What do you mean? What kind of drugs is he into?"
"Experimental ones. Very experimental, and as yet unsanctioned by most medical authorities. The clinic at Saint-Agnes is one of the few places in the world that will administer them."
"Why? What's he being treated for?"
"It appears Ardenne is in the last stages of AIDS. According to Maggie, he's on a respirator and IVs. He won't be leaving Saint-Agnes again."
Paige swallowed. "So.. .so it couldn't have been Ardenne who was waiting for me on that yacht," she said after a moment.
"No, it couldn't." David's jaw tightened. "Which means the only lead we have at this moment is Victor Swanset. And he's locked away in that impregnable fortress of his."
"No, he isn't! At least, not all the time."
The elevator clanked to a halt, but David didn't reach for the heavy lever that operated its door.
"What are you talking about?"
A thrill of excitement shot through her at the thought that she, plain little Paige Lawrence, had uncovered a nugget of information that this powerful secret agency David worked for hadn't.
"Victor Swanset recently endowed a wing at the Palais des Festivals," she said smugly. "The word on the street is that he visits it occasionally."
Chapter 10
After a debrief with Maggie in the suite across the hall, Paige and David left her to catch up on a few hours of much-needed sleep. They'd hit the Palais des Festivals around noon, they decided, unless the individual seeking the microdot made contact with "Meredith" sooner.
"There's still that possibility," Doc reminded a restless, pacing Paige.
She turned, and her skirt swirled open to reveal a length of satiny thigh.
Doc drew in a quick breath, then suggested casually, "Why don't you get changed while I work out our approach?"
She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. "Good idea. I'd better wear the halter, so the contact can identify me."
Doc stifled a groan as she pulled the slinky thing out of her purse and headed for the bedroom. He experienced a pang of real regret for Paige's plaids and bulky jumpers, which he suspected might now be a thing of the past.
He pulled out his notebook and flipped to a clean sheet to compile a list of items he wanted Control to check for him.
A—the exact physical layout of the Palais des Festivals.
B—the hours it was open to the public.
C—this wing Swanset had reportedly endowed.
Doc tapped his pencil against the notebook, studying the neat, precisely printed letters. A crooked grin tugged at his mouth as he recalled Paige's smug disclosure about Swanset's supposed visits to the Palais. She was so pleased with herself for having uncovered that bit of information. As she should be.
Unless...
Doc stiffened. His grin faded as he flipped back a page and stared at the address of the telephone kiosk.
Unless the information had been planted. By a certain grubby-faced boy.
They'd all assumed Henri's appearance on the scene after Paige fell into the sea was simple chance. Suddenly, Doc wasn't so sure.
Cursing under his breath, he ripped out a clean sheet of notepaper and began a new list. When it was done, he studied the four entries that documented the boy's involvement so far.
Henri had just happened to be in the right place at the right time to fish Paige out of the bay.
The chauffeur had accosted him outside the hotel, supposedly to find out where he'd taken the bedraggled woman.
Paige had reported belatedly that the boy had popped out of the bushes when she returned from the casino last night.
And now be showed up this morning, running up a breakfast tab roughly equivalent to the US. national debt while he cleverly fed Paige nuggets of information.
Christ! Doc shoved a hand through his hair, feeling like ten kinds of an idiot. They'd been sitting here all these hours, wondering just when Meredith's mysterious contact would try to approach her, and it was entirely possible that he had. Several times.
The boy could very well be acting as a courier for whoever wanted the stolen technology. If so, Henri would've grasped at once that Paige wasn't Meredith, when he plucked her from the sea. No wonder he'd been so obliging about delivering her to the Carlton. The boy wanted to find out exactly what Paige's relationship was to the real Meredith Ames.
David's unexplained presence in Meredith's suite must have confused him. Not enough to keep him from extracting his fifty francs, but enough to delay retrieval of the microdot from Maggie. What was more, Paige's emergence as Meredith Ames last night must have added to his confusion.
Anyone else would probably have abandoned his mission at that point. But not this kid, Doc guessed shrewdly. Not someone who lived by his wits and snatched at any chance to make a few francs. What was more, he could very well be too frightened to report failure to the individual who'd sent him. A kid like Henri was expendable. All too expendable, when the stakes were this high.
His face grim, Doc pulled his cigarette case out of his pocket and waited for Control to acknowledge his signal. Everything was conjecture at this point, he reminded himself. Their only recourse was to proceed with the plan to visit the Palais des Festivals this afternoon. But he was damn well going to know everything there was to know about a certain red-haired street rat before Paige set one foot out of the hotel.
Several hours later, Maggie slipped across the hall in response to Doc's signal. Her silvery-blond hair was still tousled from sleep, but her eyes were wide and alert.
Paige sat quietly on the sofa, thoroughly shaken by Doc's suspicions about the boy, while he briefed Maggie.
"Claire can't find out anything about the kid?" she asked incredulously.
Doc shook his head, frowning. "Nothing definitive. A child of his description was picked up for truancy a couple of years ago and returned to his foster home. The authorities suspected abuse, but the boy disappeared again before anyone could check it out. Since then, the local police have heard his name mentioned by several of the kids who work for a local thug by the name of..." He reached for his notebook.
"Antoine," Paige supplied in a small voice.
"Antoine," he confirmed. "The guy's a pretty rough character, from what Claire was able to piece together. He's a member of the Sicilian contingent here in Cannes. Specializes in drugs, prostitution and bookmaking. A few of his money carriers suspected of shorting him have been found strangled in back alleys."
Paige locked her arms around her waist. "Poor Henri."
"So far," Doc continued, "there's no known connection between Antoine and Victor Swanset, or Henri and Victor. I even had Claire check to see if there was any link to Swanset's missing cook, who, incidentally, was found a few weeks after he disappeared, floating facedown in the bay."
"Was there? Any link, I mean?"
"None," Doc admitted.
"If there is a connection, we'll find it," Maggie said. Maggie stretched, then tucked a stray curl behind one ear. "This telephone kiosk the boy mentioned is located on the Alices de la Lib
erte, isn't it? I'll nose around the area while you guys check out the Palais des Festivals."
"Be careful," Paige cautioned. "I saw the bruises this Antoine gave Henri." "I will."
Paige's delicate features assumed a stern expression. "Check in with us if you stumble onto something. Don't try to take out this character by yourself."
Maggie snapped to attention and rendered her own, less than precise version of a salute. "No, ma'am."
"I'm serious!"
She abandoned her military posture and smiled at Paige. "I'll be careful. I promise. You just keep yourself covered at the Palais des Festivals."
That might take some effort, Doc thought wryly as the two women gave each other a little hug. The damned halter slithered sideways with the movement, baring a good portion of Paige's small, sweet breasts.
The sprawling five-tiered tan-and-white Palais des Festivals dominated the western end of the Croisette.
Crammed with every imaginable audiovisual device, the convention center had been designed as a permanent home for the film festival—which, Paige discovered from the guidebook Doc purchased for her at the front entrance, got off to a shaky start by opening on the very day in 1939 that Germany invaded Poland.
'The festival reopened in 1946, when Ray Milland won the Best Actor award for Lost Weekend,'" she read aloud. “Since then, this glamorous gathering each May has drawn greater and greater crowds and garnered worldwide attention, until Cannes now rivals Hollywood as a center for the serious study of cinematic art.”
"I suspect the starlets cavorting on the beaches were as much of a draw as any of the films by Bergman and Fellini," Doc suggested with a grin, his eyes on the spectacular view visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall in the central rotunda.
It wasn't the panoramic seascape that had snared his attention, Paige saw at once. Her mouth dropping, she gaped at the generously endowed young woman who was using the Palais as a backdrop while she posed for a cluster of reporters on the beach below.
Paige recognized the girl at once. She was the star of a recent Czech release that critics in twenty different countries had raved about. She'd played an insatiable nymphet in the movie, and although Paige hadn't seen the film, she could understand why the critics said the girl had been born for the role.
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