At the Ritz-Carlton Beach Hotel, ballyhooed as America’s finest resort, I valet parked the Audi and strode across a huge, echoing lobby scented with tropical florals and the odor of money. Trying not to be impressed by all the fake European opulence, I rode an elevator to Suite 1209. The purpose of this visit had me puzzled, but to be honest, I couldn’t wait to find out why Ilona had summoned me.
She answered the door to her three-thousand-dollar-a-night suite with her mouth in a pout, a lace-edged handkerchief dabbing at her eyes. “So good that you come to me,” she said, leading the way into a coral and gold living room with a sweeping view of the Gulf.
“This is gorgeous,” I said, glancing around at the faux, but well-done, eighteenth century décor.
“Is adequate,” Ilona said. “Have seat, Deva. I must talk to another woman or go crazy. Megbolondulok we say in Hungary.”
“Sounds the same in English,” I answered, taking the seat she indicated, but my attempt at humor fell on deaf ears. I suspected Ilona only heard the sound of her own needs. “All right. I’m here. Now tell me why.”
Ilona sat opposite me, one arm flung lightly across the back of her loveseat. “You, I trust with the truth.”
“Which is?”
“I leave Trevor. We are no more. I already speak to divorce lawyer.”
I bolted upright. And on down cushions that wasn’t easy. “You just took my breath away, Ilona. It must have been a quick decision. You never let on.”
“Nem. Not quick. I plan to leave him long time ago. Before Christmas. Now I no can stand any more.”
“That’s too bad, Ilona. Trevor loves you very much.” I thought I’d toss that out, even though I had no idea, really, what Trevor did or didn’t love. About what he liked, on the other hand, I had a really good idea.
Ilona threw her hands in the air, as usual sending light rays sparking around the room. Her marriage might be dead, but there was a lot of life left in those wedding diamonds. “Love? Love? You want to know what Trevor love? No, you innocent working girl. I no say.”
“Let me guess. Cookies and milk at bedtime?”
She ignored my attempt at a wisecrack. “But I treat him fair. I ask only for what our, how you say, pre-nup contract say is mine. Sunrise at Royan belong to me. I ask for no more.”
“That’s fair,” I replied, trying to keep the acid out of my voice. I glanced outside, the Gulf water, a soft aqua so like Monet’s sea, shimmered in the distance. The painting had been appraised at twenty million. The hidden one-which I was convinced was Sunset at Royan-must be worth at least that much. Even fenced, the black market price would fetch plenty. Clever. Very, very clever. And high payment, indeed, for a mere two years of wedded bliss.
“Can you keep secret, Deva?”
I nodded. “Of course. Keeping secrets is part of my job.”
“This one is serious. For rest of my life.” She paused to think that over. “Well, for a while anyway. I have new man.”
I wasn’t really surprised. Goddesses like Ilona might go braless but not manless. At least not for long.
“My new man, he is so different from Trevor. He has cultivation. Sophistication. He can speak of music and art and medicine. Psychology, too. I have headache, he understand. I need pill, he give. I need back rub, he rub. Not like Trevor. All he know is money. And sex. So coarse. The things I could tell.” She shuddered, a little ripple running from her shoulders to her hips.
I asked the only question that mattered. Actually, I went for the jugular. “You love this new man?”
“That question, Deva, it is so American.”
“Really?” I tamped down my annoyance. “I thought everybody in the world needed love.”
She waved a dismissing hand and shook her head. “To choose a man for love is ridiculous. Respect, that is ticket. But I tell you something else. Another secret.”
I leaned forward on the overly soft down cushions. “I’m all ears.”
“A man must love a woman. That is what matter. Then he is in palm of hand.”
“An interesting concept,” I said, leaning back and sinking so deep into the cushions my thighs disappeared. Love on one side and respect on the other. Like bathroom taps: hot and cold.
“My new man call just before you get here and insist I go to him today. He cannot wait to see me. To hold me to him. I say yes, though he should wait. But he cannot help himself.” She glanced at her watch. “I ordered tea for us but I cancel. He expect me in little while. I would like you to meet, but is not possible. But you meet soon, I promise. I trust you, Deva, with everything-even with my new love.”
Humph, she did, did she? I guess she didn’t see me as any kind of female threat. In that she was absolutely correct. In the looks department we were apples and oranges. Though come to think of it, while I might be a Macintosh, she was no navel orange. A luscious exotic would be more like it. In other words, no contest. Her boyfriend would be safe with me. The burning question was, who was he?
“Want to tell me his name?” I asked, striving for an arch girl-talk tone.
“I want to, but I no can. We must wait for divorce before we tell.”
With difficulty, I pulled myself off the sofa and swooped up my handbag. “I have to run. Don’t worry about the tea. You don’t want to keep your man waiting.”
“He wait,” she said, utterly confident. “Something else there is. Before you go, I have little favor to ask.”
“I’ll help you if I can,” I said. For that two grand, I did owe her a favor, and maybe, just maybe, she didn’t know about the hidden canvas.
“My clothes, my jewelry, my shoes, even, are in house on Gordon Drive. I want you to go there, pack everything and bring it to me here.”
I shook my head. “Ilona, that would be breaking and entering. I can’t do that. I could end up in jail.” The irony of what I’d just said wasn’t lost on me, nor was the kernel of truth in it. “Why don’t you go get your things yourself?” I’d seen the stuff in her closet. She’d need an eighteen wheeler to move all of it out of there.
“Trevor, he no allow. He forbid me to step foot in house. He’s such a pig. What can he do with my clothes, I ask you?”
Burn them? “Bitter, is he?”
She nodded and sighed, deeply enough to send her chest into a spectacular up and down boogie. “You sure you will not do it?”
“I’m sure.” I fake peeked at my watch. “Now I really must go.”
“Well, I tell my new man I tried. I can do no more.” To my surprise, she jumped up and gave me a farewell hug and a kiss on the cheek. I resisted the urge to wipe it off.
“I appreciate that you listen,” she said. “I needed to talk.”
“Not a problem, Ilona. I’d help you with the other but-” In the foyer, my hand on the doorknob, I turned to her. “Just between us girls, I think it’s damn sporting of you to ask Trevor for the Monet and nothing else.” I paused, a Meryl Streep with perfect dramatic timing. “But what a shame you can’t have both Monets.”
Ilona gasped. A quick intake of breath. Nothing more. But it was enough to reveal what I had probed for-she knew.
In a flurry of “Ta-ta’s” and air kisses, I hurried to the elevator and jabbed Down.
After a valet pulled the Audi up under the Ritz canopy with only a faint squealing of brakes, I tipped him, drove along the horseshoe-shaped drive and parked at the foot of the curve by Vanderbilt Beach Road. The driveway was the only guest exit from the hotel. Ilona would have to pass me to get to her tryst.
I jumped out of the car, popped the trunk and removed a sunhat I stored there with my Nikes for beach excursions. More than once it had prevented me from turning into Freckle City. Together with a pair of outsized shades, it would have to do as a disguise. I got back behind the wheel and, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, watched for the Porsche. For I was sure Ilona would be driving “her” car. Her pride and joy…well, one of them, anyway. I didn’t think she’d recognize the Audi. When I called on Gordon Drive, she had never greeted me at the door. That had been Jesus’s job, God love him. My hands gripped the wheel as a flash of silver came streaking down the curved Ritz drive.
I ducked down as the Boxster sped past and took a right onto Vanderbilt. I followed, and when Ilona turned north on Tamiami Trail, I kept on her tail, a super sleuth in a sunhat.
The daytime traffic, always heavy at the height of the tourist season, ran bumper to bumper. I took my eyes off the Porsche long enough to glance at my watch. Four-thirty. Rush hour. The Boxster could outmaneuver and outrun most cars on the road, but like the rest of us, Ilona was hemmed in on all sides and subject to the same limit, fifty per.
Or was she?
Two cars ahead of her, the middle lane opened up for a millisecond. Her foot, no doubt in her usual backless, spike-heeled slide, must have tromped on the gas. She zoomed into the opening, took the high speed lane, then swerved to the right, passed a pickup and was back in the far left lane in the blink of an eye.
Watching her antics, I admired her daredevil driving and the Porsche’s flawless performance. Its racing car suspension switched lanes with no rocking and not the slightest tilt of the chassis, as smooth as water over glass.
A minute later, I was swearing my head off. Ilona had sped out of sight. I had lost her. Doing some fancy passing of my own, I picked up speed and eyeballed the crowded lanes for several more miles. No luck. Whether she’d headed for Ft. Myers or beyond, or driven off onto one of the dozens of side roads that intersected the Trail, I couldn’t tell.
Damn. Now I’d have to wait for a formal introduction to The Boyfriend.
Some sleuth. I snatched off the sunhat, flung it in the backseat and slowed down. I had taken a chance chasing Ilona. With the Glock still in my purse, I was carrying without a permit. One more piece of bad publicity in the Naples Daily and I might as well set up shop in Bangladesh.
As soon as I came to a turnoff, I’d head for home. Under the speed limit. Disgusted, I snapped on the radio. Some kind of fifties elevator music clogged the airways. I was about to change stations when an announcer’s voice interrupted what was passing for music.
“A breaking news bulletin. An hour ago, a prominent Naples citizen was found dead in his Fifth Avenue South office. Mr. George Farragut, well-known financial analyst to many of Naples’s wealthiest residents, was shot to death in what is apparently a homicide. Police are now investigating…”
I switched into the low speed lane and turned off the radio so I could digest what I’d just heard. George? Murdered. Unbelievable. So I had been wrong about him. Perhaps, all along he had been the prey not the predator. Or maybe his death and Maria and Jesus’s were totally unrelated. But somehow I didn’t think so. With his close connection to the Alexanders, it was entirely possible that George had been the victim of the same killer. But why George? What had he seen? What did he know that had caused his death?
I pulled off the highway and parked in a Walgreens lot to think for a while. The day I was in Trevor’s study, Simon had left a phone message saying he had dealt with George. Whatever the problem might have been, was killing George the ultimate solution?