Riviera Blues. Jack Batten

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СКАЧАТЬ paled when I compared it to a vision of Annie and me sauntering hand in hand in the streets of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Lingering over a bottle of vin rouge. Driving to Saint-Paul de Vence to lunch at whatever the place was where Yves Montand played boule with the friendly peasants.

      “I hope you appreciate the responsibility I am entrusting you with, Crang,” Swotty Whetherhill said.

      “Oh, yeah, sure.”

      We finished our coffee. Swotty lead the way to the Concord’s smoking room, where two middle-aged fogeys were puffing on cigars the size of Cuba. My ex-father-in-law and I sat in a pair of facing leather chairs while he repeated the name of the restaurant in Monaco and recited the address from memory. I jotted the name and address in my notebook.

      Swotty didn’t offer me a glass of port or a chance to look over the Concord’s bound volumes of Punch. Out on the street, he shook my hand solemnly and turned west, toward The Trust Company. His pace as he walked away from me was stately and remote and inevitable. Kind of like an iceberg.

      CHAPTER TWO

      I asked Annie what colour my eyes were.

      She gave me an intent look from five feet away. “Swamp green,” she said.

      I was filling out a passport application. Date of birth. Height. Weight. Colour of eyes stumped me.

      “Too long,” I said. “The form doesn’t have room for descriptives.”

      “Write smaller, big guy.”

      “Please,” I said. “One simple colour.”

      “Swamp.”

      “Listen, kiddo, will green do the trick?”

      “Actually,” Annie said, “your eyes are green with a soupçon of grey.”

      “I’ll put green and hope I don’t get picked up for travelling on somebody else’s passport.”

      “I thought all you swift criminal lawyers kept passports at the ready. You know, in case a client needs instant services in Bogota or some sleazy place like that.”

      Annie was curled on the sofa in the living room of my apartment, leafing through Premiere magazine. I live on Beverley Street, across from the park behind the Art Gallery of Ontario. I own the house the apartment is in, and rent the first floor to a gay couple and their dog. Annie had on a black wool dress with big black buttons all the way up the front. Annie is small and dark and beautiful in a gloriously old-fashioned way. Myrna Loy beautiful.

      “I let my passport lapse,” I said. I was sitting in an armchair kitty-corner to the sofa. I had the passport application propped on a record jacket. The record was playing low on the stereo, Billie Holiday from the 1950s. I said, “The last trip I took out of the country was a week in Baja.”

      “You must have left me at home.”

      “Before your time.”

      “Oh.” Annie put down the Premiere. Behind the “oh” there was a curiosity that might set the room ablaze. “Okay, fella, so who did you go to Mexico with?”

      “Myself. I was mending a broken heart. Or that’s what I was supposed to be doing.”

      “Oh.” Flat and anticlimactic this time. “When you split from old what’s-her-name,” Anne said. She picked up the Premiere. “Your ex-wife.”

      Under “in case of accident or death, notify:” I wrote Annie’s name and address. She lives in a third-floor flat over in Cabbagetown. Her movie reviewing is freelance and not conducive to a paycheque every Friday. She discusses movies twice a week on Metro Morning, the local CBC radio wake-up program, and writes features for whatever newspapers and magazines she can wangle commissions from.

      “Speaking of whom,” I said, trying for a casual delivery, “her father bought me lunch today.”

      “Old what’s-her-name’s father?”

      “Pamela’s.”

      Annie swung her legs out from under her and set her feet on the floor.

      “What did her dad want all of a sudden?” Annie asked. “Anything about patching up the family dynasty?”

      I shook my head. “He wanted a favour.” I told Annie about Swotty Whetherhill and Jamie Haddon and Monaco. I used sentences that I hoped came across as off-hand.

      “Gee, rich guys don’t mind presuming,” Annie said. “You’re gone years from his life, and he thinks he can crook his finger in your direction and you’ll snap to attention.”

      “Maybe I felt a little sorry for him. Maybe I felt a little intimidated by him. Maybe a little of both.”

      Annie smoothed the skirt of her dress over her thighs. “It wouldn’t do any harm,” she said.

      “What?”

      “Looking up this Jamie Haddon.”

      “You noticed the circumspection of my approach to the subject?” I said. “I thought you might be pissed off.”

      Annie shrugged. “Monaco could fit nicely into our program.” Annie’s shrug looked Gallic. Insouciant, yet assured.

      “You’re in charge of the itinerary, sweetie,” I said.

      “Monaco’s vulgarity quotient is awfully high. But there’s the Oceanographic Museum. Very Jacques Cousteau. And you’d get a kick out of the decor in the Casino. I’d estimate a half day’s worth of sights.”

      “Built around a lunch at Le Restaurant du Port?”

      “Well, you have to ask after the rude cousin somewhere.”

      I balanced the passport and the record jacket on the arm of my chair. “I’m not questioning your innate good nature, my love,” I said, “but why are you being so accommodating all of a sudden?”

      Annie curled back on the sofa. She gave me a smile. It may have had a trace of the sheepish in it.

      “Well, you’ve got this case to take care of,” she said. “And as a matter of fact, a potential job … more than potential … a sure thing … came my way this morning.”

      “In France?”

      “In Cannes.”

      “He doesn’t call it a case, by the way. Swotty doesn’t. Very adamant on that point.”

      “I love that part, the man’s name.”

      “You should have met his father,” I said. “The late Bubs Whetherhill.”

      “I always wondered about upper-class nicknames,” Annie said. “Do the parents dish them out at birth?”

      “Swotty got his at prep school. He’s really a John.”

      “What did you call him СКАЧАТЬ