Pierre’s hand drifted up to his forehead, and his fingers combed through his hair, mussing it, a gesture of significant distress for him. “Yeah.”
“Is that why you had him taken to your yacht?” Arthur kept his tone thoroughly disinterested. “For his own safekeeping?”
“I didn’t have himtakenanywhere,” Pierre said. “I told you, he slipped away from Defrancesco.”
“And yet,” Arthur still seemed to stare out the window, but he was watching Pierre with his peripheral vision, “your yacht is missing.”
“Myyacht is missing?”Pierre stammered. “Which one?”
“The Last Toy.Were you on it last night?”
“I haven’t been on it in months. Ever since—” Pierre paused, and he turned to look out of the window and to the glittering sea beyond.
“Ever since what, Pierre?” Arthur prodded, knowing that Pierre meant since his wife had disappeared. Arthur wondered vaguely if the yacht had anything to do with her disappearance.
Pierre said, “Nothing. Immaterial.Fuck,he stole myyacht?”
Thatwas interesting. Pierre’s exclamation and easy blame were predicated on his underlying belief that Maxence was still at liberty, or at least that Pierre didn’t have Maxence stashed away somewhere.
It seemed that Pierre did think that Max had gotten away and had not been taken by someone, not even his own men.
Arthur said, “I think ‘stole’ is a harsh word. Is it your personal yacht, or does your family trust own it?”
“That’s not relevant,” Pierre grumbled, his habitual response to any question he didn’t like.
Arthur continued, “The trust, then. Has Maxence officially given up his inheritance yet?”
Pierre frowned. “No.”
Ah,so Maxence hadn’t formally and legally relinquished his rights to his inheritance, and thus he was a threat to Pierre when Rainier Grimaldi died. Arthur had wondered when Rainier had allowed Maxence to sign those papers, and it appeared he hadn’t. “Perhaps we could ask the Navy to raiseThe Last Toyon the radio to see if he’s okay?”
As they left Pierre’s apartment, Arthur noticed that they’d picked up their tail again of two surveillance teams, now four men each. Again, they were clearly not coordinating their efforts and seemed to be unaware of each other.
Such an abject failure of tradecraft dismayed him.
Chapter Fourteen
Tea at the Hotel
Casimir
“Nothing!” Casimir slammed his hands on the dining table hard enough that a jolt jostled his elbows and shoulders. His palms stung. “Not a damn thing. No radio signal. No answer on the phone. No records or radar or anything.Nothing.I knew Pierre’s guys were incompetent, butJesus.That’s not the damned Atlantic Ocean out there!”
Roxanne frowned and also stood, bracing her arms on the table and leaning toward him. “I can’t believe those jerks couldn’t raiseThe Last Toyon the radio. What kind of dumbass idiots are they?”
Gen looked a little nervous.
Casimir hadn’t meant to startle her.
Arthur took Gen’s hand, and the tension left her shoulders.
“Yes, I’ve been rolling this over and over in my head,” Casimir griped at Roxanne. “They’re either incompetent or hiding it from us.”
“Either way, they’re dumbasses,” she agreed with him. “Probably both.”
“Probablyworse,”he said.
Casimir and Roxanne bickered for a while as was their hobby in their law firm and at home, each of them raising the stakes in bashing the stupidity of Monaco’s Navy.
