glanced at the money. The film festival. Movie people. Rogues. Rule breakers. He answered without hesitation. “Come aboard.”
Simon helped Lucy onto the nearer tender. A high-pitched whistle sounded as he placed his foot onto the gunnel. Pierrot was leaning over the railing above their heads, hand pointed at them. “Keep them here,” he shouted as he made his way to the ladder.
Simon jumped into the cockpit, tearing off his bow tie and throwing it into the sea. The engine was idling. The mate stood onboard, mooring rope in hand, looking confusedly between Pierrot and Simon. The tender’s skipper—eighteen, crew cut, yet to have his first shave—confronted Simon. “Sir, I can’t—”
“Get off,” said Simon.
“Yes, sir.” The skipper and the mate both stepped around him and boarded the Yasmina.
Simon put the tender into reverse, spinning the wheel to port, then sliding the throttle forward. The nose rose. Wake spread behind the boat. Pierrot and another guard clambered aboard the second tender. Simon increased his speed. The sea was rising, wind from the Maritime Alps scudding across the surface, stirring up whitecaps, sending spirals of spume into the air.
Simon killed the running lights. The speedometer read 25 knots, and he was astonished to see the markings went to 80. “Hold on,” he called over his shoulder. “This is going to get bumpy.”
He shoved the throttle forward. The twin outboards roared. The hull slapped the water with force. Instead of heading toward shore and safety, however, he steered in a straight line, retracing the Yasmina’s path.
“Where are you going?” shouted Lucy.
Simon ignored her. He looked over his shoulder. A quarter of a mile separated them from their pursuers. He searched the water to either side of the boat, looking for a head, an arm, any sign of the man he’d thrown overboard. There. He spotted him, the man no longer wearing a jacket, his white shirt visible. He was on his back, struggling.
Simon cut the engines and made a tight circle. “Give me a hand.”
Leaning over the gunnel, he grabbed the guard’s collar and, with Lucy’s help, hauled him aboard.
The guard lay at Lucy’s feet, coughing seawater, exhausted. “Merci,” he managed, weakly.
Simon freed the man’s pistol from his shoulder holster and threw it into the water. “Stay,” he said to his face. Then to Lucy: “Watch him. If he moves a muscle, shout.”
Simon removed his own jacket and tossed it to the guard, telling him in French to cover up.
He retook the wheel. A hundred yards separated him from his pursuers. Rain began to fall in earnest, wind freshening by the minute. He turned the boat toward shore and hit the throttle for all it was worth. The nose jumped precipitously, knocking him to his knees. It wasn’t a tender, it was a Cigarette in drag.
Across the bay, boats were making for port. On shore, dock lights blinked red. Danger. Storm conditions.
Simon scanned the coastline. He couldn’t go to Cannes or Antibes. Sun’s security team would have radioed ahead to arrange a welcoming committee. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone. Under M he dialed a number he’d sworn never to call again. A familiar voice answered.
“Ledoux. What now?”
“Where are you, Jojo?”
“It’s nine o’clock on a Wednesday night. Where do you think I am? In the middle of ten plates of moules-frites.”
Jojo Matta was a lousy hood and a gifted cook. Once, a very long time ago, they’d worked together committing all manner of illegal acts. Last year Jojo had helped Simon with a small problem in Monaco. As payment, Simon had helped Jojo open a restaurant in Juan-les-Pins, a leafy hamlet adjacent to Antibes.
A spit of land extended into the bay to his right, the peninsula that separated the Bay of Cannes and the Bay of Nice. At its very tip, barely visible, two lights burned red. Maybe, he thought.
“Jojo, how long to get to Eden-Roc?”
“People like me don’t go to the Du Cap unless we’re lifting something.”
“Du Cap” for the Hôtel du Cap, built in 1870, long home to wealthy Europeans, cosmopolites, and their hangers-on.
“Tonight you do.”
“I’m in the middle of a shift.”
“You own the place. Your sous-chef can fill in. Be there in twelve minutes.”
“Get lost. I’m not your errand boy.”
“Who paid for your restaurant? I’ll yank it. Watch me.” There was only one way to talk to a gangster.
“That’s not fair.”
“Twelve minutes, Jojo.”
Without warning, the windscreen shattered. Something struck one of his engines. The men were firing at him.
“Lie down,” he called over his shoulder. Lucy didn’t need telling.