Sure enough, this ma?tre d’, like the ones before him, was nodding, clearly sympathetic.
“René du Malassis,” Finn said, winding up. “But he may have taken a different name. The Milice were looking for him”—a trade of grimaces; even two years after the war, everybody bristled at the mention of the Milice—“and this has made Mrs. Knight’s inquiries very difficult. But we do have a photograph . . .”
The photograph of René, folded and clipped so all his swastika-wearing dinner partners would not show, was pushed discreetly across the table. The ma?tre d’ studied it. Eve allowed her shoulders to shake, and I patted her back, looking worried. “Grandmaman, don’t upset yourself.” My role here: to ramp up the sympathy factor. I chafed Eve’s gloved hand between my own, heart thudding as the ma?tre d’ hesitated.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, and my heart thudded again more leadenly. “No, I’m afraid I don’t recognize the gentleman.”
I crossed Les Trois Cloches off the list as Finn slid a discreet banknote across the table with a murmured, If you see the gentleman, do contact me . . . Only a few hundred more places to go.
“Don’t look dejected,” Eve said once we were outside. “I said this would take legwork and luck, d-didn’t I? This is the part that isn’t Hollywood. You don’t just go looking for someone and have him pop up like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat.”
“You’re certain this is the best way to locate him?” Finn asked, donning his fedora. No more striding about hatless for him; Donald McGowan (solicitor) was a good deal more businesslike.
“One of these places”—Eve gave a whack to the crumpled list in her bag—“will know him.”
Her argument was simple: René Bordelon prized the finer things of life. Whatever else had changed, that wouldn’t have. He’d still patronize the best clubs, drink at the best cafés, attend the best theaters, and he was the kind of patron the staff noticed, because he tipped and dressed well, and could talk wine with the sommelier and Klimt with the museum guide. We had a relatively recent photograph—if we canvassed the best culture spots in Grasse, Eve argued, someone would recognize that face. Then we’d have a name.
Standing on that sunny day among the flowers, I’d wondered, “How long is this going to take?”
“If it were Paris, forever. But Grasse isn’t enormous.”
Finn had worried about something more sinister. “What if he finds out a woman is looking for him? A woman with mangled hands, about the age his little Marguerite would be now?”
Eve glowered. “I’m a professional, Finn. Give me some credit. You think I’m going to march all over Grasse with a horn announcing my presence?” Hence Mrs. Knight and Mr. McGowan, and the gloves concealing Eve’s hands.
“One condition, Gardiner,” Finn replied. “You leave that Luger in the hotel room.”
“You think if I saw René Bordelon on the streets of Grasse, I’d walk up and put a bullet into his brain?”
“I’m no dunderhead. I won’t take the chance.”
Four days now we’d been at it. We were barely unpacked in our hotel before Eve was gathering information, compiling lists. And as soon as Finn had his business cards and his suit, and Eve had a good pair of gloves and a dowager hat that hid her face without looking like it was trying to hide her face, out we’d sallied.
I was almost too nervous to speak the first time we sailed into a high-end café with our prepared story. Now, six restaurants, three museums, one theater, five clubs, and four days later, it was almost boring. Except for the moment of liquid anticipation every time a new concierge or waiter leaned over René’s photograph and I thought maybe, this time . . .
“Welcome to real spy work,” Eve said outside Les Trois Cloches, transforming before my eyes as she straightened from her old-lady hobble. “Mostly tedious, occasionally exhilarating.”
Her eyes sparkled, and I thought how much better she looked than the day I met her. Then she could have been sixty or seventy, harrowed and lined and pale. Now she’d shaken off the slump of grief and inactivity that made her seem old and fragile, and I was astounded at the change. Her face had healthy color again even if there were still harsh lines graven about eyes and mouth; she moved with swift efficiency rather than a defensive hunch; her graying hair had a gleam to it like her sharp eyes. She looked her age again, fifty-four, with plenty of vigor left.
“She hasn’t had one of her screaming nightmares since we got here,” I commented to Finn after dinner that night, watching Eve head upstairs. “And she’s not slamming back as much whiskey.”
“The chase is good for her.” Finn finished his after-dinner coffee. “She’s a hunter at heart. The past thirty years, she’s been standing still. Dying slowly with nothing to pursue. Maybe it’s not a bad thing if this hunt lasts awhile.”
“Well,” I said. “I certainly wouldn’t mind that.”
He gave me that invisible smile that turned my knees to water. “I’m pure done in from all this tramping about. You?”
“Exhausted. We should make it an early night.”
But there wasn’t much sleeping being done in our little room with its blue shutters and wide soft bed. Neither Finn nor I objected when Eve’s search expanded to a week, ten days. The mornings were for the three of us: flaky croissants and cups of ink-dark espresso at a table so small our knees jammed together. Then the hunt, the repetition of our now-seamless play: stopping at a shop for handmade shoes off the Place aux Aires, then an atelier for expensive cologne. Strolling through the narrow twisting streets of the vieille ville headed for clubs and theaters that might recognize a favorite patron, and finally during the sleepy hour before dinner, visiting restaurants full of shaded lamps and heavy silver cutlery. Finally back to the hotel and supper, passing a bottle of Proven?al rosé over plates of heaped frites. Those were the days, and Finn and I were content to let Eve direct them, because the nights were ours.
“Have I mentioned,” I asked one night, my head against Finn’s arm, “that you look absolutely jaw dropping in a three-piece suit?”
“Aye, you have.”
“It seemed worth repeating.” I leaned over to tip out the last of the wine we’d brought up to bed. I was completely naked, no longer even slightly self-conscious in front of him as he lay with his hands clasped behind his head, admiring me. “When do we get the Lagonda back?”
“Maybe another week.” Upon learning we’d be in Grasse awhile, Finn made arrangements to have that elusive leak repaired. He telephoned every other day to check on his precious car like an anxious mother.
“You need a new car, Finn.”