The Namedropper (2 page)

‘You talked more in English than French to the croupier.' Her own minimal accent wasn't French.

‘And you don't gamble. You didn't last night. Or tonight.' He wanted to establish his own awareness.

‘Not at the tables.' She slightly moved the chair at which she was standing. ‘May I join you?'

Jordan nodded, politely rising as she sat. ‘You'd like champagne?'

‘That would be very pleasant. My name is Ghilane.'

‘John,' responded Jordan, gesturing for a waiter. It was the christian name of his most recent victim and that to which he was therefore most accustomed. It would have been unthinkable – amatuerish – to have given her his real name even though this was going to be the most fleeting of encounters.

‘You are here on vacation, John?'

Jordan hesitated, while her wine was served. ‘I enjoy the South of France.'

‘So you know it well?'

‘Well enough.' He wondered by how much the fulness of her breasts was helped by the uplift of her bra, but decided against paying to find out.

She grimaced extravagantly, pulling down the corners of her mouth. ‘Which means I can't offer to show you places you haven't seen before?'

She was very good and very enticing, acknowledged Jordan. Refusing the heavily intended double entendre, he said, ‘It's quite late.'

‘Not too late to be too tired,' she misunderstood.

‘I was thinking of you.'

‘As I was, of you.'

‘An hour from now only sad loss-chasers will still be here, without any money left. I don't want it to be a lost evening for you.'

Her face tightened imperceptibly but quickly relaxed, opening into a smile. ‘You sure about that?'

‘I'm sure.'

‘I don't usually get a response like this: get so immediately recognized like this. I think we could have had fun together -more interesting fun than normal for both of us.'

‘I'm sure we could,' said Jordan, meaning it but at the same time discomfited by her reaction to his rejection. He'd never known a hooker anywhere in the world – and he'd known enough in a lot of the world – who wasn't or didn't easily become a willing police informant to protect themself. Which, professionally again, he totally understood and accepted.

‘You're right,' said Ghilane, looking briefly around her. ‘It is late and there's a lot of desperately perspiring men around the tables. Maybe tomorrow night will turn out better.'

Jordan knew she hadn't given up and admired her for it. He touched her champagne flute with his brandy snifter and said, ‘Here's to a more successful tomorrow.'

‘But not with you?'

‘But not with me,' echoed Jordan. It had been a passing, even entertaining interlude but it was time it ended.

‘Perhaps I'll see you again? I'm often here or in Monaco.'

‘I'm moving on tomorrow,' said Jordan, gesturing for his bill.

She shrugged, philosophically. ‘My loss.'

‘Both our loss,' said Jordan, gallantly.

Jordan's excursion the following day took him away from the coast, just beyond Mougins to where Picasso once crafted his ceramics, of which there were still a lot of photographs but with most of which Jordan was unimpressed, as he was with some, although by no means all, of the artist's various period experimentation, particularly Picasso's female genitalia obsession. The eating choice had obviously to be the Moulin de Mougins, even though Jordan knew the legend of Picasso settling bills there with sketches instead of cash to be untrue.

Jordan didn't hurry the short descent to the Carlton at Cannes, timing his arrival perfectly for a late lunch on the terrace, although as far back from the traffic-thronged promenade as possible, his placement perfect for when the heat went out of the day. He wasn't aware of her when he first sat, but almost at once registered the carefully page-marked but set aside book, as well as the solitaire engagement ring he conservatively estimated to be at least five carats overwhelming the surprisingly slim adjoining wedding band. She was remarkably similar to the blonde-haired, heavily busted girl who had called herself Ghilane, although younger, probably little more than thirty. There was a handbag too small to contain a cell phone, a protective, wide-brimmed hat on the same side chair as the discarded book, no longer necessary because of the table umbrella, the shade of which made it impossible for Jordan to make out her features. Despite the shade, she still wore sunglasses. She was already on her coffee, the single glass of wine only half drunk. Jordan smiled when she turned to look across the intervening four tables in his direction. He could see enough of her face to know that she didn't smile back but looked immediately away, towards the sea.

Time to move on from Impressionists, Jordan concluded. It really was developing into the sort of vacation he'd hoped it would be, as in previous years it had invariably proved to be.

Three

O
ver months, eventually stretching into years, Harvey Jordan had learned every trick and manoeuvre to access, uncover and utilize the identity of unwitting victims, none of which had to be employed to discover all he needed to know about the blonde, disdainful woman. This was pleasure, an amusement to pass the afternoon, not work upon which he had to concentrate. Directly after making his deposit box arrangements and setting the intrusion traps in his suite, Jordan quit the Carlton to stroll along the Croisette towards the port to indicate his own disinterest, although frequently pausing to ensure that she was not coincidentally taking the same exercise behind him, wanting the intended encounter to be at his choosing, not by accident.

Using his knowledge of the hotel, he timed his return to the Carlton for the beginning of their afternoon tea service, confident that he entered the lounge without her awareness and gained a seat sufficiently close behind her to easily overhear the waiter address her as ‘Madam Appleton' and to detect the American accent when she ordered. He was also close enough to see that the book in which she was now engrossed was
Pride and Prejudice
. Jordan declined tea himself, needing to be in position in the lobby. He didn't hurry selecting the right place, disappointed there wasn't an unobtrusive spot from which he had a complete view of the room-key pigeon holes as well as a sufficient warning of her approach into the lounge. He settled for the best available combination and hid himself behind the
Herald Tribune
, raising it higher at the first sight of her before she actually came into the reception area. He was doubly lucky as she did precisely what he'd hoped by going straight to the desk for her key, which Jordan immediately recognized to be at the suite level upon which he had his own, five rooms further along the same corridor; an unexpected but welcome bonus. Because he was not working and sought recognition, rather than his usual anonymity, Jordan had ensured his immediate acknowledgement by heavily tipping upon his arrival the valet parking supervisor at the top of the hotel's sweeping entrance into the underground facility, and so was greeted by name as he approached. Knowing from his previous visits that vehicle spaces were allocated by room number he gave that of the woman, not his own, shaking his head when the supervisor frowned as he looked up from his occupation list and said, ‘That's Mrs Appleton's suite? She doesn't have a car here.'

‘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.