Cooking for Picasso (38 page)

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, feeling embarrassed by today's discussion of my psyche.

“I think what you're really looking for is somebody you can trust,” Aunt Matilda remarked.

“I have you,” I answered.

“And as you heard, I won't be around forever! You know, Céline, people don't necessarily have to
earn
your trust. In the end, trust is a choice we make. We decide, ‘I choose to trust this one'. Sometimes, you just have to roll the dice.”

W
HEN WE ARRIVED
back at the
mas
Aunt Matilda said, “I for one could use a swim and a cocktail.”

I smiled, knowing that she was eager to see Peter. “Go ahead,” I said, dropping her off in front. “I'll park this buggy and catch up.”

I drove on and pulled into a good space in the parking lot. I was thinking that if Grandma Ondine died before she could tell Mom that her Picasso was hidden in her blue cupboard, then either the dairyman who bought the
mas
found the painting in the cupboard and sold it; or, the painting was still hidden somewhere in that cupboard. But where was the cupboard now?

It wasn't until I arrived back at the front door of the
mas
and spotted Rick walking out that I recalled what Gil said:
The dairyman who sold me this mas left some old country-style stuff, which my business partner's got in storage
.

“Then Rick probably has it!” I reasoned. As I got closer I noticed that he was looking supremely pleased with himself, and I wondered if he'd convinced Gil to sign his contract.

“Hi, there, Rick,” I said in the most charming way I could manage.

He glanced up quickly, with the look of surprised pleasure that a guy gets when a woman who's been inaccessible suddenly becomes nice to him. “Hi, yourself,” he said. “What are you up to today?”

“I'm hoping to convince Gil to decorate the
pigeonnier
with some of that lovely country furniture from here that you guys put into storage,” I said blithely. “But you know Gil. He's
so
stubborn.”

“
That
he most definitely is,” Rick said knowingly.

“I'm thinking I should
show
Gil, rather than
tell
him,” I went on recklessly. “You know, just pick out a few good pieces and bring them back here to convince him. I think he said you put them in a storage vault for him? Are they kept very far away?”

For a moment he had to think about it. “Oh,
that
stuff. It's in Monaco,” Rick said easily. “Forty-five minutes, if the traffic's not too bad. I can't take you there today; I've got meetings. Tomorrow afternoon, okay?” His voice was low and sexy now, as if he'd just asked me for a date.

“Okay,” I said. Then I found myself adding in a conspiratorial hush, “But look, please don't mention this to Gil. I want to surprise him.”

Rick laughed as his driver arrived with his car. “Your secret's safe with me, babe,” he said.

When I went into the lobby Maurice was engrossed in his computer until I greeted him directly. Then he glanced up distractedly and said, “The farewell dinner is being served down by the pool.”

“Maurice—what's happening with Gil today? Is everything—okay?” I said in a low voice.

He answered carefully, “We are fortunate. The blog review for the restaurant was
très bien
.”

“But Rick was just here. Does that mean he and Gil have come to terms?” I asked. After all, Gil would have to repay his loan by Thursday. Today was Sunday.

Maurice glanced around first to make sure no one was listening. “The game is not yet finished,” he murmured, as if the whole thing was too much of a burden to bear silently. “But I think we have reached
la crise
.”

Crisis time. Not just for Gil, either, because this was surely my last chance to find that Picasso.

I
CHANGED INTO
my bathing suit and went down to the pool to join the others. The poolside bar had opened and everyone was getting a little high-spirited, even frisky. Joey, Magda, Lola and Ben were all lying on inflatable floats, which had armrests with circles for holding their drinks. Aunt Matilda and Peter sat under the pergola, side by side on matching
chaises longues,
nibbling canapés and sipping champagne. And Martin was skateboarding all around the pool, performing more and more daring stunts, egged on by the applause he was getting from his elders.

“Gil was here for a bit, but he's gone off somewhere again,” Aunt Matilda told me. “I take it things aren't going swimmingly for him?” I nodded. I kept getting distracted by Martin, who'd disappear around a bend and then come wheeling back from a completely different direction.

This time he was heading directly toward the pool. Even placid Aunt Matilda sat up alert.

“He's not going to try to vault across the water, is he?” she asked in trepidation.

But that was exactly what Martin intended. Apparently, as he told us later, he'd done it successfully before; but there hadn't been any people in the pool then. The distraction of those paddlers must have thrown him slightly off his expert timing, because this time Martin leapt up into the air, skateboard and all, and came down just a bit too short. With a yell, he smashed right into the water, plunging deeply and then, on the way up, he got conked on the head by his own skateboard.

Nobody else in the pool was hurt, because they'd all scrambled to the other side. Aunt Matilda sprang to her feet, but I had already dived in, stroking rapidly over to Martin. He'd been so stunned by the blow that he began to sink. I fished him out, scooped him in my arms and dragged him to the side. Joey, Ben and Peter all helped me pull Martin out and lay him on the ground like a beached baby seal.

“Anyone know CPR?” Ben asked worriedly, checking the boy's pulse. “He doesn't seem to be breathing.”

I summoned up my first-aid training and bent down to Martin's little face. Gently as I could, I pushed on his chest again and again, then, seeing that he really wasn't breathing yet, I pinched his nose, covered his mouth with mine and breathed into his until I saw his chest rise. I had to do this several times. The whole thing was one of those incidents that just seem suspended in time.

At last, Martin choked, gurgled and gasped. He opened his eyes, but it took him awhile to realize where he was. Then, his first words were, “Don't tell Dad.”

“Bollocks,” said a familiar voice behind me. Someone had telephoned Gil and he'd rushed over here. His voice was shaky with high emotion, but what he said to his son was, “You're bloody lucky you're alive, you little shit.”

T
HE NEXT DAY WAS A
free-for-all, with everyone arranging outings and day trips, now that the working part of our class was over. Lola and Ben were taking off to make various stops along the coast, ending up in St. Tropez, so they weren't coming back. Magda, Joey and Peter invited Aunt Matilda to join them on the ferry to Corsica for an overnight trip.

“Want to come?” Aunt Matilda asked. I told her about my little rendezvous with Rick.

“Hmm,” she said. “Ordinarily I might hang around in case you needed a chaperone. But if I don't go with the others, Magda will put the moves on Peter,” she said with all seriousness. I couldn't believe that at their age, the dynamics of courtship were the same as in high school. As if reading my thoughts she said, “It only gets more immature as you get older, because everybody has less time.”

I kissed her and said, “Have a great trip!”

A little while later, when I went downstairs, I found the lobby uncharacteristically silent. Rick didn't show up, so I had no idea if he intended to honor his promise to take me to Monaco, and I had no way to reach him without arousing suspicion. Even the front desk was unattended.

I stepped outside for a breath of air, trying to regroup. To my surprise I came upon Gil sitting on the stone wall near the entrance, slumped and defeated-looking, his coffee cup in his hands, staring into space while talking on his mobile. As I drew nearer I saw that he hadn't shaved, and this gave him a slightly derelict look. He ended his call just as I came out.

“How's Martin?” I asked. The French doctor who'd been summoned had insisted on keeping Martin under observation overnight at the hospital, just in case he'd had a concussion or retained any water in his lungs.

“He's fine,” Gil said, with that vulnerable look crossing his face again. “I get to bring him home tonight.” He paused. “Look, I really want to thank you for springing into action as you did. That dumb kid. He owes you. Well,
I
owe you one.”

“You already thanked me yesterday,” I said, “and you don't owe me anything.”

There was something else bothering him, though. I could hear it in his reserved tone. I sat down beside him and asked in dread, “What's the matter? Is it about the
mas
?”

“Why don't you ask your boyfriend?” Gil could not resist saying. I shot him a puzzled look.

“You know who I'm talking about,” he said bitterly. I immediately wondered if Rick had blabbed about my interest in the furniture storage.

I felt myself flushing guiltily, but I said, “What are you talking about?”

“He told me he had a nice conversation with you yesterday, and he thinks you'd make an excellent hostess for the hotel. Yep, he definitely sees a future for
you
in his new operation.” Gil smirked as if daring me to deny it. But it didn't appear that Rick had said anything about taking me to Monaco.

So all I said was, “
His
new operation?”

“That's right,” Gil replied in a self-mocking tone. “As of Thursday, if I sign his ruddy contract, Rick will own this entire place—lock, stock and barrel. So you picked the right horse to back.”

“What happened, Gil?” I asked. “Aren't you guys partners anymore?”

“Partners?” Gil said with a hollow laugh. “As it turns out, we were
never
going to be partners. He knew how to play me, though. Back then, money was tight with all the banks, so the only way I could raise enough to cover the renovation costs for the
mas
was to borrow from the loan sharks. I only did it because I had Rick's assurances that if I made him my partner, he'd sell off some of his other properties in time to raise the cash so I could repay my loan to—”

“Those thugs!” I exclaimed in alarm.

“To their boss, Gus,” he corrected. “Who absolutely will not extend the loan period no matter what I say. So, after months of back-and-forth with Rick's lawyer and mine just ‘ironing out the details' of our ‘good-faith' agreement—suddenly, at the eleventh hour, Rick tells me he can't come up with the promised cash to pay back my loan—UNLESS we modify our contract with his new clause to satisfy his bankers. Now I find out that, all along, he only wanted to take over my beautiful, newly renovated
mas
and simply add it to his hotel chain. It will be, as he put it, ‘another diamond in the tiara'.”

“And what happens to you?” I asked in disbelief.

“Hah!” Gil said hollowly. “He wants me to stay on and ‘cook for him'. He bloody well wants to use my chef's brand for his own profits, and keep me on as an indentured servant, basically. Or, as he puts it, ‘You just be creative, Gil, and leave the business end to me.' ”

“Well, that's preposterous!” I spluttered. “You don't have to take a rotten deal like that.”

“In fact, I do,” Gil said heavily. “Because those are the only terms under which Rick will go to his bank and transfer enough funds to cover my reconstruction loan. I have to sign his deal tomorrow, in order to pay off the bad boys on Thursday. Otherwise I sleep with the fishes. And if I don't take Rick's deal, then the loan shark will own the
mas
. Either way, I lose it. Thing is, this place will soon be worth so much more than what I owe! Well, maybe I
should
just let Gus have it!” he scowled.

“Can't you get any other backers to take Rick's place?” I asked. Gil gave me a withering look.

“What do you think I've been trying to do ever since I got wind of the fact that Rick has no intention of honoring our original deal? But this is too short a window for most investors, and I don't blame them. I was, in retrospect, a raving idiot to believe that Rick has been negotiating in good faith, just ‘tweaking' the damned contract here and there to appease his investors. The bloody bastard had this trick in mind all the time; he was just stringing me along with the promise of good terms to make sure I didn't make a better deal with anybody else. Well, more fool me, for believing it was in the bag.”

I realized that Rick was a well-dressed thug, no better than the loan shark—worse, really, for betraying Gil's trust. A little voice inside my head—sounding an awful lot like Aunt Matilda—was telling me that if I had to deal with Rick instead of Gil, I could just kiss that Picasso goodbye.

“NO!” I cried. “Don't sign it! You
can't
sell this place!” Gil was taken aback.

“Why should
you
care so much?” He stared at me keenly. “Are you ever going to tell me what you've really been up to in France? All I want is some truth. From somebody! Rick's gone to London and left me in the shit unless I sign to his demands.”

“Rick's gone to London?” I echoed. “But—when's he coming back here?”

“Never; unless I sign his wretched contract,” Gil said flatly.

“But—but,” I stuttered. “Are you sure he's gone?”

“Of course I'm sure,” Gil said, sounding irritable again. Then he recovered and said, “Hey, this isn't your problem. Thanks for asking, though.”

I figured it was a pretty good bet that Rick had no intention of returning here today just to honor his promise to take me to the storage area, because why would he care about decorating the
mas
now that Gil was resisting signing his contract? So how was I going to find the blue cupboard before this takeover happened? I knew I'd reached the point of no return. I could either get Gil on board right now, or go home and forget the whole thing.

“I just
might
have a better backer for you,” I said carefully. “It's a long shot, but you'll have to promise that no matter what happens, the deal is, the ownership of the
mas
will be divided fifty–fifty.”

Gil looked dubious. “An equal split with someone I don't know? Just who've you got in mind?”

“Me,” I said with more boldness than I felt.

Gil eyed me speculatively. “Well, you
have
been casing out this place ever since you got off the plane. So it's been business all along, eh? With most people, it's
always
about the money. But for some reason I got the idea that you had higher priorities, and the money was secondary.”

“It was—but I can't afford to think that way anymore,” I said. “If I turn up the money you need, no matter how I do it, then fifty percent of
everything
at the
mas
is mine, right?”

“Are you going to rob the bank of Monte Carlo or something?” he asked.

“You don't need the details,” I answered.

“Are you using legal means to obtain this money?” Gil pursued.

“Mostly,” I said. “So you have to swear that you'll honor this agreement, even-Steven.”

Gil looked as if it occurred to him for the first time that I might actually be serious. The desperate expression on his face abated, and I detected a faint glint in his eyes. “If you can really come up with the money before Thursday, it's a deal,” he said suddenly, offering his hand for me to shake.

“You can't welch on it like Rick did,” I said, before letting him take my hand. I was watching his face more closely than I've ever looked at anyone's face in my entire life.

“I won't welch,” he promised with his most winning, convincing smile. “Swear to God.”

“Write it on a napkin,” I said, and he actually did scribble out our impromptu deal on his coffee napkin and he signed it.

But he couldn't resist asking, “Are you going to sell off a yacht or a string of pearls?”

“Something like that,” I replied. “If you want the money you'll have to help me get my hands on it.” He gave me a deeply suspicious look. I plunged on. “Do you know where Rick's storage facility is?”

“Yeah, sure,” Gil said, bewildered. “It's in Monaco. Why?”

“Do you have a key to the place?” I asked.

“It's not a key. It's got a code,” he answered. “I think we can get in. Why?”

I had to tell him now. “Rick's got something that belongs to my mother in there,” I blurted out.

Gil said in surprise, “As far as I know, all he's got is the dairyman's old furniture from the
mas
. What's that got to do with your mum?”

There must be something about Monte Carlo that brings out the gambler in people. I knew what my lawyer would say if he had any idea of the risk I was about to take. But lawyers, I've discovered, know nothing about life. As Aunt Matilda said,
Sometimes, you just have to roll the dice
.

“Brace yourself, Gil. And don't freak out. That dairyman that you bought the
mas
from?” I said. “Well,
he
bought this place from my grandmother.”

Gil looked stunned, but then the light broke across his face as if it all made sense to him at last.

“So,
that's
it! No wonder you've been hanging about here. I knew it couldn't be your love of cooking, that's for sure. But what good's the old furniture? Is one of them some rare antique?”

I shook my head. “I've got reason to believe that my grandmother left something extremely valuable in it for my mom, which she desperately needs,” I said softly. “Grandma didn't want my dad or anyone else to get hold of it. I think it's hidden in a blue cupboard. Does a piece like that ring a bell?”

Gil glanced at me as if he now feared for my sanity, and said with some confusion, “But, I'm pretty sure all that stuff was empty when I took possession of it.”

I paused, remembering what my mother had told me about Grandmother Ondine:
She
did
have her little hiding places
…

I told Gil this. “So I really have to see it for myself,” I insisted. “Otherwise I'll be haunted by it for the rest of my life, just like my mother was.” I explained to him that I was facing a custody battle with siblings. “If I
do
find this item, I might be able to sell it, for a
lot
more than what you need, and then I can pay my lawyer to fight for Mom.”