The Namedropper

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Stupid of me: not concentrating,’ apologized Jordan, giving his own number.

  Jordan drove contentedly along the Croisette in the direction he’d earlier walked, leaving the Renault in the underground public car park adjoining the port and choosing the restaurant with a first-floor overview of the marina and its yachts, reflecting upon what it had been so easy to learn about the dismissive Mrs Appleton. She was an abstemious American woman about thirty years old who liked classic English literature, with so few friends or acquaintances she didn’t even bother with a cell phone, staying alone and without transport in one of the best hotels in the South of France, sufficiently wealthy to wear a five-carat diamond ring and be able to afford a beach-fronting suite, although unlikely to venture out too long upon it from the umbrella and sun hatted care she took to protect her complexion. And she was hopefully lonely or bored or both.

  The ice maiden melted the following day, although initially only very slightly. But still enough. By the time she emerged from the elevator, just before eleven, Jordan had bought a paperback edition of Jane Austin’s Sense and Sensibility from the English language bookshop near the railway terminus and was back, ensconced in the lounge, the book and its title positioned on the table in front of him to be obvious to anyone entering from the lobby; Jordan himself was once more hidden behind his raised newspaper awaiting her arrival. He kept the Herald Tribune uncomfortably high, his arms beginning to ache, until the coffee service began, thankfully lowering it to order and establish that she was deeper within the room, writing at an upright table. Whatever it was appeared to be a long letter, several thick pages, not a holiday postcard. She was wearing a bare shouldered day dress but with a matching patterned bolero, her book, wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses carefully beside her on the other chair. Better able to see her without the glare of yesterday’s sun Jordan decided she was very much younger than the casino professional and her hair a much more natural blonde. The dark-rimmed reading spectacles it seemed necessary for her to wear added rather than detracted from her attractiveness. It was going to be an interesting distraction trying to establish whether she was a genuinely natural blonde. He’d give himself today, maybe going over into tomorrow; if there hadn’t been sufficient progress by then he’d move on. Maybe, even, go back to one of the casinos to find the more approachable Ghilane.

  Jordan waited until she finished whatever it was she was writing and was reading through it before rising to make his way out into the lobby, choosing a path to take him directly by her table. He did not look in her direction, nor was aware of her looking in his, and he was past before she said, ‘Excuse me!’

  The satisfaction coursed through him. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Your book. You’ve left your book.’

  Jordan frowned, turning to where he had been sitting. ‘I have a call to make. I’m coming back.’

  ‘I’m sorry … I thought …’

  The words were stumbled but she didn’t colour with embarrassment. Closer he saw that she was blue-eyed, so maybe she was genuinely blonde. ‘Thank you. Will you stand guard while I’m gone?’

  ‘I’m embarrassed.’ She still didn’t blush.

  An East coast accent, the vowels hard, judged Jordan, expertly. ‘You’ve no reason to be.’

  Jordan continued on before she could reply, building in the time for his absence by going up to his suite and remaining at the window for a few minutes, watching the beach filling up beneath its parasols. From the attention with which the sunbathers were creaming and oiling themselves Jordan guessed it was hotter out on the beach than it had been the previous day.

  She was waiting for his return, smiling up at once, her thick manila envelope sealed. It was automatic for Jordan to try to read the address but it was very positively turned against him, which would have made his interest too obvious if he’d tried harder. ‘My book is untouched, as I left it,’ he said and smiled. The spectacles were back in their case now, along with everything else on the chair beside her.

  ‘I misunderstood. I’m sorry …’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Jordan, maintaining the momentum. ‘Now we’re talking instead of being on the opposite sides of the room from each other.’ Standing above her he could see the dark beginning of a deep and enticing cleavage.

  ‘I didn’t intend to intrude, but …’ she began again.

  ‘I didn’t think that you did,’ Jordan stopped her. ‘I think it was a fortunate misunderstanding.’

  She shifted uncertainly, looking down at the only available chair full of her belongings.

  Gesturing to where he had been sitting earlier, Jordan said, ‘There’s more room where I am. Let’s have an apéritif there.’

  ‘My things?’ she said, making her own gesture.

  ‘They can stay where they are. Or be brought to us if you want them.’

  She hesitated. ‘They can stay here.’

  It was going to work, as it invariably did, Jordan decided.

  Harvey Jordan, whose vocation was seduction in every sense and definition of the word, didn’t hurry. He never did once the first barrier was breached. The initial isolation and pursuit of a victim was as much an orgasmic pleasure as its culmination, either sexual or financial, and he had a lot of mental foreplay to savour here. Remembering her half glass abstinence the previous lunchtime he chose a single glass – not even a half bottle – of champagne for their apéritif and distanced himself from her at the furthest end of the couch. He gave her his real name – Christian as well as family – and learned that hers was Alyce (‘with a y, just to be different’) and that it was her first visit to France. She hadn’t yet felt confident enough to try the French in which she’d graduated, as well as in Spanish, both with A plus, from Smith college; she admired the ease with which he spoke French to their waiter, ordering the drinks and asking for the luncheon menu and for a table, not outside on the open terrace, but directly inside the better shaded floor-to-ceiling veranda doors which, still imposing his own pace, Jordan did without inviting her in advance. She accepted at once when he belatedly apologized for his feigned presumption. Jordan felt a fleeting jump of unease at her mention of the park-view appartment, because his last identity sting had been in Manhattan, quickly dismissed by the self-assurance that small though the island was, the likelihood of her knowing anyone with whom he’d had a chance encounter was remote, particularly after her reference to a weekend house in the Hampton’s, which she preferred to the city. And he hadn’t been using his own name then anyway. There was no reference to a job, or a profession, or to the husband who had presumably provided the diamond and the wedding band, and Jordan held back from any curiosity: it was a not infrequent reflection of his that so easily did he find it to encourage people to unprompted disclose their life histories that had he chosen a legitimate profession he could have lived well – although not as well as he did now – by setting himself up as a psychologist. Or an end-of-the-pier fortune teller, complete with crystal ball.

  Jordan’s restricted offering was well rehearsed and faultlessly delivered in the hope of encouraging further disclosures from her: he’d been fortunate with a family inheritance, which he’d used to develop a so far sufficiently successful career as a venture capitalist. It enabled him to travel extensively, although that freedom brought with it personal restrictions, chief among them a difficulty in establishing permanent relationships; there had been someone, a few years earlier, with whom he believed himself to have been in love – although now he was no longer sure – but against whom he felt no resentment or disappointment for refusing to put up with his too frequent absences, and abandoning him for someone else to whom he believed, and certainly hoped, she was now very happily married. They still exchanged Christmas cards: last year’s had featured a family photograph that included a baby girl. In reality it had been the drunken self-pity that Rebecca had refused to put up with. He’d seen the announcement of her second marriage in the Daily Telegraph. And the birth announcement. He certainly didn’t
feel any resentment against her walking out on him as she had; he’d have done the same in her circumstances.

  ‘That’s sad,’ responded Alyce, although not offering an explanation for the wedding band now covered by her other hand.

  ‘Not for Rebecca – that was her name,’ further tempted Jordan. ‘She’s got a husband and a baby and a proper life, not someone whose existence is regulated by airline schedules.’ Or, after the bankruptcy, the availability of a gin bottle, he remembered.

  ‘Sad for you,’ she insisted, still without volunteering more.

  ‘But not today!’ declared Jordan, briskly. ‘Today I am on vacation and we’re having lunch together and I am no longer lonely.’

  Alyce hesitated and for the briefest moment Jordan thought she was going to change her mind and decline the belated invitation. Instead she said, ‘No. Now neither of us are lonely.’

  Jordan did order a whole bottle of wine, a grand cru Chablis, and took time consulting the menu with Alyce, who followed his recommendations. He’d seen a film version of Pride and Prejudice and speed-skimmed enough of Sense and Sensibility to maintain a conversation about Jane Austen and her books -his familiar, never-yet-failed technique now fully on track – and went easily into his well practised repertoire of fictitious venture capitalist and investment anecdotes. She laughed on cue but once more brought him up short after the third story by saying, ‘Your experiences seem much more amusing than my husband’s.’

  ‘He’s in the business?’ queried Jordan, his stomach lurching.

  ‘Wall Street. He’s the Appleton of Appleton and Drake, the commodity traders.’

  ‘Different sort of finance altogether,’ insisted Jordan, the alarm receding. ‘All far too clever for me.’

  ‘And me,’ she said as she smiled. ‘I don’t understand any of it.’

  Thank God he hadn’t gone on to his two New York inventions, Jordan thought. ‘I’ve visited New York, of course. Great city. But I haven’t done any business there.’

  ‘I prefer the Hampton’s,’ she repeated.

  She’d opened the subject at last! Jordan said, ‘Is your husband joining you here?’

  ‘No!’ Alyce said, sharply.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ hurried Jordan, feigning the embarrassment to match hers earlier. ‘I didn’t … forgive me …’

  ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘Let’s,’ agreed Jordan, anxious to maintain his self-imposed schedule. ‘Have you read Dumas?’

  Alyce frowned, confused by such an abrupt switch. ‘I tried him in the original French but ended up with the translation.’

  ‘Which book?’

  ‘The Man in the Iron Mask. What else?’

  It was like winding a clockwork toy, knowing how it would respond when the catch was released. ‘Have you any plans for tomorrow?’

  The frown returned at the further apparent switch. ‘No?’

  ‘Will you trust me to take you on a mystery journey?’

  ‘Should I?’

  The first hint of flirtation, Jordan recognized. ‘That’s for you to decide.’

  She made as if to consider it. ‘I’ll take the risk.’

  ‘You’ll need sun protection: something to cover your arms as well as oil or cream. Not the sort of hat you’ve got over there. A bill cap. A swimming costume, if you decide to swim. Bring one anyway.’

  ‘Are those all the clues I get?’

  ‘It’s too many already.’

  ‘I like mystery.’

  ‘So do I.’ She really was quite beautiful, Jordan decided.

  Should he cool things down before things even got started? Jordan asked himself, observing the familiar precaution. He would certainly stage the promised, now inescapable excursion, but then move on further along the coast, which had always been the intention. But not with Alyce Appleton as a companion, which, objectively, she might not be persuaded or want to be anyway. Jordan had worked often and successfully in New York but knew there was no way his path could have crossed or intertwined with that of Alyce’s husband. If they had, he would have immediately recognized her name, even before she identified her husband. And she was hardly going to mention him or his name when she got back to America. There couldn’t be the slightest risk of any professional difficulty arising from her husband being in commodity trading, which really was a quantum leap from any company identity theft with which he might involve himself in the future, doubly so now by his knowing the name of her husband’s firm. The more Jordan rationalized it, the more he accepted his concern at learning what her husband did had been exaggerated. Too early to abandon his pursuit of Alyce, he determined. Just something to keep in mind.

  Jordan excused himself immediately after lunch, talking of prior arrangements that were going to keep him busy for the rest of the day and into the evening, sure he detected her disappointment at their not spending more of the day and perhaps dinner together.

  ‘Don’t forget what you’ll need tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s a boat, right?’

  ‘Maybe. You don’t like the sea?’

  ‘I told you I’ve lived in the Hamptons, remember?’

  Lived, in the past tense, isolated Jordan. ‘Much rougher there than here.’

  ‘So I’m right!’ she demanded.

  ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Ten. I’ll call you if there’s any change.’

  Not wanting to use those of previous expeditions, Jordan got the names of three new yacht charterers from the concierge on his way upstairs and fixed meetings with the two most convenient, both with boats available in the port. A man of instinctive attention to detail Jordan checked the following day’s predicted wind strength and chose the twin-hulled catamaran instead of the older, mahogany-fitted single hull he would have preferred in calmer conditions. It took longer to decide the food and wine he wanted, even for a one-day charter than it did to choose between the two yachts. The departure was confirmed for ten o’clock, which meant he didn’t have to alter their already agreed schedule. Jordan could easily have got back to the Carlton for dinner but guessed she would be eating there, so he ate again in the restaurant dominating the marina. From his balcony table he could easily see the catamaran he’d hired being prepared for the following day.

  Jordan’s 9 a.m. call was a test, to assess her tone.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ she asked at once

  ‘None at all. I’m just checking it’s still all right with you?’ She’d been worried, prepared for disappointment.

  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  You got everything?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘I’ll see you in the lobby at nine forty-five.’

  She carried a small duffel bag and wore jeans, a white shirt with a thin anorak looped around her shoulders, her blonde hair in a ponytail under the bill cap, confident without any make-up, and Jordan thought she looked good enough to eat and hoped he would be doing just that very shortly. He definitely wouldn’t be moving on soon. He’d ordered a hotel car rather than bother with the hired Renault, pleased to see that the previously tipped crew of two men and one woman were already waiting for their arrival, the catamaran open and ready to sail.

  As they cleared the marina on engine Alyce said, ‘It’s time I knew where we’re going.’

  ‘To see the cell in which the man in the iron mask was actually held,’ announced Jordan. Her reaction was exactly the same as that of the two other women – one English, the other Australian ’ he’d taken on the same trip, hopefully this time with the same uncomplicated result of the previous two.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Alexander Dumas’s story is based on fact. One of the fictions was that the mask was iron. It wasn’t. It was black velvet.’

  ‘I can’t believe what you’re telling me!’

  The catamaran cleared the immediate harbour and the sails billowed out above them. Jordan said, ‘Why don’t you relax in the webbing between the hulls?�
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  ‘Because I want you to tell me what you’re talking about! It’s not really true, is it?’

  ‘Totally true. What no one has ever established is his real identity, although he’s buried as “M de Marshiel”. He was a state prisoner, of Louis XIV. For forty years he was held in jails all over France. He died in the Bastille in November, 1703. Whenever he was moved, from jail to jail, he had to wear the velvet mask to prevent anyone ever recognizing who he really was …’ Jordan waved his hand beyond her. ‘And one of those prisons was on the Ile St Marguerite, where we’re going.’

  Alyce swivelled to look at the undulating smudge on the horizon. ‘We’re going to see the actual cell?’

  ‘The actual cell,’ echoed Jordan. It was going to work. It always had.