Million Dollar Road (34 page)

“You're so pretty this morning. Rest up, baby. See you later.”

Mr. Con was whistling when he went back inside the suite.

Feeling as though she'd gotten a Get Out of Jail Free card, Lireinne stayed behind on the balcony, thrilled to be alone at last with Paris. The Eiffel Tower was still there; in the street below the cars flowed and a man called out a greeting to someone.
Bonjour!
Lireinne breathed a huge sigh of contented fulfillment. She leaned her elbows on the railing, her empty glass clasped loosely in her fingers, and lifted her face to the day.

Champagne, this totally amazing suite, and all of Paris at her feet—despite having crossed an ocean only to find that the word whore had followed her here, despite Mr. Con's insane and deeply worrisome
thing
for her, Lireinne's spirits soared as high as the flock of burbling pigeons over her head.

“T
hat's bullshit, Julien, and you know it,” Con said, doing his best not to give up and just throw something. He'd been at this for hours and he needed another dose of Vicodin. Soon.

In the wide-windowed atelier, the burlap-covered walls glowed with the tannery's collection of exotic skins. They were dyed every color imaginable: viridian-green ostrich, cerise python, lemon-yellow crocodile, fine-scaled lizard in Phoenician purple and shining gold, stingray in a lucent, starry ebony. The twelve-foot cerulean-blue alligator skin, though, lying across the immense mahogany conference table, dominated the room with an elegant, stupendous savagery.

Julien snorted Gallic derision. “Bullshit, eh? I think not.”

Up till now the negotiations had been going better than Con had dared hope, but the devil, as they say, was in the details. Contrary to their reputation as surrender monkeys, the French were sticking to their guns: the last shipment of flawless alligator hides had been, in fact, less than flawless, and Julien, that sly bastard, was using that unfortunate shipment as leverage to drive down the current deal. Predictably, Roger had been furious when Con called him during a break in the meeting to bring him up to date—“Tell 'em I said
hail
no!”— so it was back to the salt mines of guile and argument for the rest of the afternoon.

Although his left hand muttered and growled, Con hadn't taken any more Vicodin since earlier that morning because he needed every ounce of wit and Obi-Wan skills at his disposal so he wouldn't get skinned alive. He needed this deal to happen
today
.

“Give me a fucking break, Julien.”

Looking as smug as though the cards in his hand were all aces, Julien raised his eyebrow and wagged a finger at Con. “Hah! I am thinking you are the one with the bullshit, Costello. What do you call that last lot of crap?” The skepticism on his long-nosed, saturnine face turned to amused contempt. “Twenty percent of the shipment was not of the premiere grade and had to be sold to the Japanese for a loss. That,
mon ami,
is the bullshit.”

Although privately Con had to admit Julien had a legitimate complaint, he wasn't going to give anything away. He couldn't. It was coming down to that inevitable crossroads, the crux of the deal, and Con was going to have to bring it home without consulting his boss. Drumming the fingers of his right hand on the conference table, he realized the moment had come. Roger was going to hate what he'd have to do to make the transaction happen, he knew it.

But ol' Rog wasn't here.

After a long, tension-filled minute, Con made his own move. “Look,” he said. “I've got my instructions from Mr. Hannigan. He's not going to budge an inch. There's no room for a discount, not on this deal.
But,
” Con emphasized, playing his hole card, “if you agree to buy another twenty thousand eight-foot skins before the end of the year, I can offer you a small reduction on the price per centimeter—say, three percent?”

Con had the fingers of his good right hand crossed, praying that Julien would fold his own cards and take the offer. It wasn't an ideal solution, but Roger would just have to live with it: this French tannery
was
the market for eight-foot hides. It wasn't like SGE would do any better trying to sell them someplace else, and would probably take a loss. The taut atmosphere in the room held its breath as Julien gazed out the wide windows of the atelier, tapping his aquiline beak of a nose with a manicured forefinger.

Con was beginning to sweat, but he was determined to remain outwardly unperturbed. This was the moment, the precise circumstances, where his talent excelled. This was the kill. Julien's silence might be hell on his nerves, but sometimes silence was an ally. When you're holding a pair of nines, Con reminded himself, you play it like you've got four queens. Better yet, five queens. Certainly Julien didn't have all the aces: Con had one of his own. This morning on the way to the meeting, he'd done his homework, making some discreet calls to his contacts in Italy. The word in the industry was that just days before, the tannery had signed a contract with Luigi Spada, a brash and sometimes outré Italian designer. Young Spada needed a boatload of eight-foot hides for his new line of motorcycle jackets, thigh-high boots, and trench coats. There was even a rumor of an alligator-skin wedding gown, the centerpiece of the new collection. Julien would have to purchase a whole warehouse of new inventory to honor
that
contract.

Con craved his pills, couldn't wait for them much longer, but at this point in the negotiations it was necessary to give his opponent enough time to weigh the lucrative Spada deal against the tannery's recent loss. In his coat pocket, the Vicodin wheedled promises of relief, but he endured the pain with a stoicism that was beginning to feel heroic.

Finally, after an interminable minute more, Julien swiveled his chair back to the table, facing Con. Lighting a cigarette, he gave him the big nod.

“Done, then,” Julien acknowledged. “Done, you skin-dealing thief, but this means I must eat some shit with my boss. You owe me one, as you say.” He extended his hand. “
Enfin,
it's after four and the day is finished. Let us shake on this deal and go get
un verre,
a drink, before I take you to dinner, yes?”

Con grasped Julien's hand and pumped it once. He'd pulled it off, the Jedi Knight had come through again, and pain be damned. Ready to crow his victory to the adjacent Saint-Honoré slate rooftops and swallow his pills besides, Con found an easy smile instead.

“A drink sounds good, but I've already got dinner plans. Maybe another time?” Even if Con hadn't already made the reservation at Marius et Janette, a world-class seafood restaurant on the Avenue George V, he didn't want to share Lireinne with anyone tonight. For Julien's part, it wasn't as though he would object to the company of a
petite amie
. Like so many French power players, he'd accept Con's girlfriend as a charming addition to the evening, although he never brought a woman of his own to an after-hours business dinner. This was unusual, sufficiently so that Con had speculated perhaps Julien wasn't into girls—that, or else Julien was damned discreet. Throughout the two years Con had known him, he'd never once discussed his love life, and in the male-dominated skin business this reticence alone made Julien something of an odd bird.

Odd bird or not, dinner with Julien would keep. Tonight Con meant to celebrate a much more special event than the mere successful conclusion of a huge deal. Tonight would be waiters in white aprons bearing great silver trays of oysters. It would be Iranian caviar and blinis, flaming desserts and cold champagne. Con would command anything, however costly, to delight Lireinne's senses, for dinner would be a prelude to love. Afterward, they'd return to the privacy of the hotel suite. There, the rest of the night was going to be all he'd dreamed of and more. So much more.

The two men rose, buttoning their coats, and gathered the papers scattered across the brilliant blue monster-hide on the conference table.

Julien said, “I have heard of your misadventure, Costello. What a terrible thing! How goes it with your . . .” He gestured at Con's bandaged hand with a sympathy unusual for him.

“The skin business is a small world, I suppose,” Con said. He'd known people were going to spread his grim story throughout the industry, but that didn't mean he had to like it. “It goes as it goes, you know?” He shoved his left hand in his trouser pocket, out of sight.

“You will be better soon, yes?”

Con grinned, thinking of the girl waiting for him back at the Plaza Athénée. “Much better, my friend. Soon I shall be very much better indeed.”

“
Bon
. Let us go find that drink. We finish our business tomorrow, yes?”

After a round of double scotches with Julien at the bar in the Hôtel de Crillon (and a couple of Vicodin in the men's room), Con paid the bill, shrugged into his overcoat, and went outside into the cold, pale-violet air of the Place Vendôme.

During his latest appointment with that little son-of-a-bitch Binnings, the plastic surgeon had declared the operations had been as much of a success as could be hoped. Con was healing, although the deformed hand was every bit as hideous as he'd feared it would be—a grotesque claw. Lireinne was made of more compassionate stuff than Liz, though. She wouldn't be sickened by him. Not my Lireinne, Con thought with a confident smile.

It was time for that victory cigar. The fresh bandage on his left hand was considerably less bulky, freeing his thumb and index finger, and so with only a little trouble Con unwrapped the cigar and lit it. Shoving his left hand back out of sight into his overcoat pocket, he set out on his solitary walk back to the Plaza Athénée.

This late Thursday afternoon the Place Vendôme was filled with throngs of soignée shoppers, all hurrying home from the Rue Saint-Honoré, all carrying glossy, tastefully appointed bags of designer swag. The Arabs were out in force, too, roaming like well-heeled Armani-suited nomads across the vast stone space. There were the ubiquitous bundled-up tourists wearing fanny packs with their maps and cameras in hand, and the pretty shopgirls in fur-trimmed coats and stilettos heading to their shared one-room apartments at the end of their working day. Con paused beneath the obelisk to admire them, the long-legged beauties passing him in pairs, chattering in rapid French.

The thin, lavender-tinted light was just beginning to fade into indigo dusk. Glowing lights from the ground-floor shop windows fell onto the cobblestones in pools of yellow. Con sauntered the perimeter of the Place enjoying his cigar, gray smoke a thin, acrid plume trailing behind him. The excellent scotch and his pills had filled him with a crackling-warm sense of well-being, further fueled by the satisfaction of having prevailed. Like an alchemist, once again he'd effected a miracle: what had been dross metal had come out of the crucible as gold. As was the case in most negotiations, it was true that nobody was getting a hundred percent of what they wanted. Without a doubt Roger would be less than ecstatic about the terms of the new skin contract. But a deal, Con thought, was still a deal.

As Julien had put it over their second drink at the Crillon, “When the foxes quarrel over the chicken, the farmer still has the shotgun, eh, Costello?”

The October evening was turning colder. There might be frost on the statues, a thin rime of ice edging the fountains' basins by tomorrow morning. The last of the daylight had disappeared behind the roofs of the surrounding tall stone buildings when Con stopped in front of the display window at Chopard. The venerable store was an undisputed icon of opulence even among the exclusive ground-floor jewelers of the Place Vendôme. Last spring in Paris, Con had bought Liz her diamond solitaire earrings at Chopard, and this evening the gold watches, emerald rings, ruby bracelets, and the magnificent necklace of tawny topaz and rich amethysts caught both his eye and his imagination.

On the other side of the window, the saleswoman in her severely chic black dress and smooth chignon was removing the displayed merchandise, preparing for the store's closing. Con tapped at the window to get her attention.

Startled, the saleswoman looked up from the gray velvet tray of jewelry. One impeccably drawn eyebrow arched in a silent question.
“Oui?”
her crimson lips mouthed. Con pointed to the canopied entrance where another saleswoman was in the process of locking the doors, then pointed to himself with a quizzical tilt of his head.

“S'il vous plaît?”
His cigar between his teeth, with a charming smile he gestured at the doors, the fingers of his right hand miming walking inside. The saleswoman seemed uncertain. Con kissed the tips of his fingers with an admiring nod for the older woman, trusting his talent to do the rest.

With a slowly dawning smile, she nodded in emphatic agreement.
Mais oui!
Grinning, Con stubbed his cigar out in one of the ilexplanted stone urns flanking the entrance and strolled into Chopard, a conquering prince ready to take the spoils of war.

 

When Con returned to the suite, Lireinne wasn't there.

Night had fallen and he'd expected her to be waiting for him. He wasn't truly worried, though, not yet. She was only eighteen and on her own in Paris, a huge, confusing city, but she was probably still out shopping on the Avenue Montaigne. Lireinne would return soon.

But thirty minutes passed and so, killing time, Con called down to room service for another bottle of Taittinger to settle his growing unease. While he waited, he paced the sitting room, fingering the bottle in his pocket like a plastic talisman. Con managed to resist the Vicodin's seductive call, telling himself he could hold out against it. The quiet in the suite became increasingly oppressive, though, so he turned on the radio to keep him company: he'd always found French TV to be, for the most part, incomprehensible.

At 6:15, the waiter had delivered the champagne and was opening it when Lireinne came back. Hearing the click of her key in the lock, Con's rigidly held shoulders sagged, releasing a tension that had been growing more unbearable the longer he waited for her return. His girl was home, unscathed. But to Con's surprise, when Lireinne walked inside the sitting room she wasn't carrying the armfuls of shopping bags he'd expected—or anything else, for that matter. Only her old purse was in her hand. But her green eyes were shining, her hair was windblown, and her creamy cheeks were flushed pink from the cold.

“Where've you been, sweetheart?” Con said. “I was getting worried.” He tipped the waiter, whose eyes had widened in appreciation when Lireinne entered the room.