Perfect (15 page)

T  H  I  R  T  Y

The locked drawers in Tinka’s office were almost empty—just a few personal items such as check ledgers, a laptop computer, extra pairs of glasses. The only items in the closet were a full-length sable coat and a large bank safe with an old-fashioned spin combination lock, which I set about cracking the old-fashioned way.

I set a gauge wire above the lock and began, very slowly, to feel my way around the dial. After five minutes, I had all the numbers and began testing their combinations. On the fifth try, the dial began to tighten as the proper sequence fell into place, and seconds later, I heard the satisfying click of success. I took the worn brass handle and twisted it. The locking bars slid free, I tugged the heavy door open. Whoa. I leaned against the closet wall and bit into one of the truffles and just stared. The safe was jam-packed with cash. I counted it. Ten million brand-new U.S. dollars.

If Tinka’s cakes began to fall, she’d made certain she’d have a soft place to land. My admiration for her grew. I replaced the cash, closed the safe and spun the dial. Most thieves would be tempted by the crisp new bills. Most would keep it. Not me. That’s never been my style—I always have plenty of cash of my own.

I put a high-squeal, mega-decibel alarm on the closet door, so loud it would scramble the brain of anyone within a hundred feet with the sort of blanketing, staggering sound that you will do anything to get away from. I hate these alarms. Everyone does. But they absolutely serve a purpose.

It took an hour to assemble the portable jeweler’s bench and manufacturing studio. It was quite ingenious—a collapsible rolling metal table, made like a sewing machine table with a lower adjustable work section in the front, and tool racks across the top. The racks were arranged in such a way that when the simple gray cotton cover was over it, it actually looked like a sewing machine. I clipped two high-powered lights onto the sides and clamped a flexible arm with a 55x Zeiss magnifying glass onto the top of the bench. I’d brought my own jeweler’s tools from home. I’d had them made in Switzerland almost thirty years ago and they fit into the palm of my hand like old friends, my fingers clasped them effortlessly. I snapped them into the racks. It was just like old times.

Twelve-thirty. Almost done.

I heaved a heavy, briefcase-sized steel case up on top of Tinka’s safe and undid the latches. The sides fell open and the setup became a small smelter with crucibles for gold, silver, and platinum fired by butane capsules. I arranged solid ingots and molds next to them and hid the cartons of butane refills behind the safe on the floor.

As a final touch to my studio’s disguise, I set up a complete artist’s studio: an easel, a box of oil paints with their assortment of necessary turpentines and linseed oils and so forth, a palette, a cup of brushes, and a medium-sized canvas over which I draped a white cloth. I leaned a stack of blank canvases against the bookshelves and draped a clean smock from one of the struts of the easel. The only things lacking were a beret and an overflowing ashtray. And a painting, of course. But I’d give that a go later.

I looked around. It was a very well-equipped manufacturing studio. I had everything I needed to duplicate the queen’s missing jewelry. Except for one thing: the stones themselves.

I removed my headband and placed it on the jeweler’s bench, which I rolled into the closet and covered with its sewing-machine-table cover; returned all my gear to its proper place then relocked the closet, restoring the room to normal. Confident that all was as it should be, I poured another glass of Champagne and took it into Tinka Alexander’s perfect bathroom—solid white marble and mirrors—where Klaus’s maids had reassembled my toiletries in just the right order. It was as though I’d been living there forever. The shower doubled as a steam-bath chamber and had a bench long enough to stretch out on. The tub, which had a Jacuzzi, ran horizontally to a wall of glass with a view of distant peaks. The sinks were white marble basins sitting at a comfortable height on top of the counter. The commode and bidet were in a separate little compartment. The only color in the room was a mighty bouquet of dark purple hydrangeas in a cut crystal vase as big as a milk bucket.

I washed my hands—the soap was Alma Naxos’s signature carnation scent—repaired my hair and makeup, changed out of my paint-stained clothes into a pink silk robe with white marabou trim, and returned to the study where I picked up the final unopened package.

It had been sitting on top of the desk waiting for me, like a patient lover. I sat down on the floor and sliced open the box. Inside, wrapped in tissue, were a number of black velvet bags tied tightly closed with black silk cords. A small tag was attached to each one with the description of its contents. They were filled with stones of differing weights and cuts—diamonds and emeralds, dozens and dozens of them, made precisely to my specifications. Three bags held only one stone each: two had the Lesser Stars of Africa: the forty-five- and fifty-carat Cullinans III and IV that make up the queen’s giant diamond brooch. And the third contained a very rare forty-carat pink diamond. Even larger than the legendary Pink Elephant diamond. Mine was possibly the largest pink diamond in the world.

I leaned back against the sofa and studied each tag, feeling the excitement build inside me. I opened all the bags and let handfuls of diamonds and emeralds drizzle through my fingers and fall across my face and neck and bosom, a brilliant shower of green and white stars. I was covered in them. I rolled the pink diamond in my fingers and laid the Lesser Stars over my eyes. They were so beautiful. They made me weak with desire.

They were all perfect. Perfect fakes, that is.

T  H  I  R  T  Y  -  O  N  E

Intercoms evoke images of old movies for me—thick-lipped, cigar-chewing bosses angrily jabbing away at the buttons on the big gray box and shouting into the speaker loudly enough to be heard in the next county. It’s like people who yell into the little mobile-phone bug microphones because they’re so tiny they couldn’t possibly carry the sound of anything of any import. Lack of size inspires a lack of confidence in the technology. So when I pushed the little button on my kitchen intercom in an attempt to rustle up Barnhardt, it took a great deal of self-control for me not to shout.

“Barnhardt,” I said as normally as I could.

“Your Highness?” The answer came instantly, as though he had been sitting next to the speaker awaiting the sound of my voice.

‘Would you come over, please.”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

Moments later he appeared at the kitchen door.

“Do you know how to hook these things up?” I held up a pair of aluminum snowshoes. “I’d like to give this a try.”

“Certainly.”

I had on a pair of tight coffee-bean-colored Bogner leggings, a light turtleneck sweater, a lightweight, mink-trimmed, semifitted Bogner jacket long enough to cover my rear end, and a pair of very snazzy special snowshoeing shoes. Big topaz-and-onyx earrings. And a couple of noisy charm bracelets. I stepped outside. Even bundled up as I was, I couldn’t get over the cold.

“Just put your foot in here.”

I did. He threw a couple of switches and there I was, legs inelegantly astraddle, already out of breath.

“Have you ever done this before?”

I shook my head.

“It’s very good exercise—quite rigorous. The secret is to walk as steadily and normally as possible.” He placed long poles in my hands. “Just go up the drive. You can’t hurt yourself. If you fall, the shoes will come right off.”

It was not possible to walk normally since the width of the shoes forced me into a sort of goofy, galumphy waddle, but I set out and aside from the fact that I had to stop every four or five steps to get my breath, it didn’t take any what I would call skill. Now I no longer felt the cold. Instead, I thought I was going to roast to death.

“Thank you, Barnhardt,” I called from the bend in the road. “I’ll call you if I need you.”

He gave me a little salute.

After about ten minutes, I made it to the top of my driveway, which makes it sound as though it was a long drive, but it wasn’t. I was completely exhausted and had to stop and take a couple of little sections of the Toblerone chocolate bar I’d had the good sense to bring along. Some purists put down Toblerones as nothing more than overmarketed, overavailable, mass-produced, and thus inferior candy bars—after all the company is owned by Kraft Europe—but in my opinion, the combination of almond, dark chocolate, and little chips of almond, nougat and honey are the perfect answer when a little shot of energy is needed, especially if you’re in the Swiss Alps in the snow. I mean, really, what could be more appropriate? Other than a St. Bernard with a cask of brandy. You wouldn’t want to eat, say, a Snickers bar in such a setting. (Although I do admit I can always be tempted by a Milky Way) And a Toblerone is just as effective and by far tastier than, say, Vitamin Water or electrolyte replacements, and it is after all, Swiss.

Nicely reinvigorated, I pretended to fiddle with something on my equipment while I peeled the paper off adhesive-ready strips on the backs of wafer-thin laser-beam transmitters and stuck them to the stone pillars on either side of the drive. I stood in their field and took out my cell phone and ran a test. The beams were properly aimed and operational. I stuck a small video transmitter next to one of them that took in not only a part of the road but also the width of the driveway entrance. It, too, was functioning.

At last, I started down the road, doing what I considered to be actual snowshoeing. Certainly, going downhill was much easier and I fell into a sort of comfortable amble. If all went according to plan, I wouldn’t have to worry about how I was going to get back up the hill. But if all didn’t go precisely according to plan, I’d just call Barnhardt and ask him to hook up the horse and drag me home.

It had stopped storming and the afternoon had cleared. The fresh snow shone like diamonds scattered across the mountainside and the sky was so blue and cloudless, it seemed as though I could see all the way into outer space. The sun was warm on my face and I hoped would put a little color in my cheeks. I’d really started to get the hang of this snowshoeing thing and was scooting along just fine. I’d just drawn abreast of the red mailbox at the entrance to Robert Constantin’s chalet, where I planned to stage a Damsel in Distress incident—a helpless little tumble or some such thing—when, suddenly, something in my right snowshoe snapped and I fell hard, severely twisting my ankle and practically pulling the mailbox down with me. Not even slightly the graceful sort of wilt I’d had in mind.

I looked around for help. The road was silent and deserted. No one knew I was there. But, with the level of security around Constantin’s house—really, it looked like a secret missile range or something there were so many cameras—I assumed my whole crack-up had been observed from beginning to end and I would be rescued before long. I was correct.

The biggest black man I’d ever seen in my life emerged from a door in Constantin’s row of stables. He came toward me with the sort of muscle-bound gait typically associated with weight lifters, looking for all the world as if he were set on tearing me limb from limb.

T  H  I  R  T  Y  -  T  W  O

“Are you all right?” he called. He had some sort of accent.

“I’m not sure,” I answered. “I think I might have broken my ankle.” I struggled to get up. The snow where I’d fallen was loose and deep.

“Stay still. Don’t try to stand by yourself,” he ordered. He spoke like a man accustomed to giving orders. He was enormous. I couldn’t tell if he was Congolese or Ugandan, but he was from a part of Africa where the people have physical presence—he had none of the lithe, fine-boned grace of Ethiopians, Sudanese, or Kenyans. His hands looked as big as dinner plates and his shoulders were at least three feet wide. He had on black trousers that strained around thighs as big as oak trees, a white shirt and tie, and black leather lace-up boots with steel-capped toes and heavy treads on the soles. He had a cell phone clipped to his belt. He also had on a shoulder holster with a gun in it. He looked terrifying, like one of Idi Amin’s thugs—an enforcer.

“Let me see.” He knelt down and removed my snowshoes and straightened first my left leg, which was fine, and then my right. I would love to be able to say that he was as big as a giant and as gentle as a lamb, but in fact, his bedside manner, if you want to call it that, had all the gentleness and care of a man in the boxing ring swinging his way out from the ropes.

I couldn’t help but scream. “Owww,” I howled. “That hurts.” And it did. It hurt like the dickens, not as much as I was acting as though it did, but even so, I’d very much overdone my phony fall. If I really had broken my ankle, I’d be in a terrible mess.

“I’m going to carry you into the house. Put your arm around my shoulder.”

He smelled of strong, sweet cologne.

I must say, as a woman with my own physical presence, I have never in my entire life had a man carry me anywhere, or even attempt to carry me anywhere. But I had absolutely no compunction about letting this giant African pick me up. He and his muscles were so big, I think he could have picked up two of me and not experienced even a slight sciatic or lumbar twinge. He marched up the hill, knocked the door open with his foot, and carried me down a long hallway to an elevator, which I noted made four stops: basement, main, and two upper floors. We got off on the main floor. The door opened into a dark vestibule opposite a cloakroom. Then he backed us through a swinging door and we emerged into a blindingly bright commercial kitchen worthy of a three-star restaurant. The ching-chong sound of Asian rap music could be heard. A Chinese cook in a checked chefs cap looked up from a chopping board on the other side of the room, snapped off the radio with a flick of his hand that fell right in with his chopping rhythm, and returned to his task. A maid in a brown-and-white dirndl, green utility apron, and yellow rubber gloves was polishing silver candlesticks at a service sink. I could hear the water running in a slow steady stream.

The African settled me gently onto a high kitchen stool that had a padded back and arms, and lifted my legs onto a facing stool. Then he leaned over and removed my right shoe and sock, taking my foot in his giant black hand. The Cheery Cherry polish on my toes looked like pink sapphires against his skin.

“It’s becoming swollen.” He had an intriguing half-French/half-something-else accent. “I think I’d best call the doctor.”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m beginning to think it’s just badly twisted.” I gingerly moved my foot in a slow, painful circle. “It feels better than it did a couple of minutes ago.”

“I’ll get an ice bag, that should help. You stay here.”

I don’t know where he thought I would go but I assumed with a boss as high profile as Robert Constantin, he was on the job all the time. I wondered if he was Constantin’s security chief or personal bodyguard. He seemed more the bodyguard type to me, but that was probably just wishful thinking, just wishing that Constantin was back in town, here in this house. More importantly, if he were, I hoped Tremaine and his briefcase were with him.

While the African scooped crushed ice into a plastic bag on the other side of the kitchen, I took advantage of the moment and pulled a small radio transmitter out of my pocket and stuck it on the bottom of the counter overhang. It was invisible—all its components made of clear plastic—and was the size of a thin slice of a pencil eraser, or a round little transparent band-aid dot.

Honestly, I had so many gizmos and gadgets on me I could have bugged the entire town.

He draped the ice bag over my injury. “Leave this here for a few minutes and if it’s not better, I’ll take you to hospital. Would you like a coffee or a water?” In themselves, his words were polite but his voice lacked inflection or courtesy. The pupils of his eyes were as black as coal and the whites were yellow with angry red corners. There was no gentleness about him.

“Coffee, if it’s not too much trouble, thank you.”

“Cream, sugar?”

“Both, please.”

“You want cappuccino?”

“That would be lovely.”

He inclined his head slightly and walked over and delivered the order to the maid, who nodded. I could vaguely hear her assent. She immediately turned off the water, stripped off her gloves and apron, and went to a counter occupied by a sleek industrial espresso machine. He came back and stood at the end of the counter where I was, not too close, not too far. He was keeping an eye on me, as though I were in custody.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Oscar.” His expression had not changed since he gathered me up in the snow. It was flat as a mask.

“That’s a nice name.” I know that doesn’t sound like much of a comeback, but it wasn’t easy to gauge how to strike up a conversation with this man. For example, I knew weather wasn’t going to work.

He grunted.

“Where are you from?”

“Kisangani, Congo.”

“Umm. Lovely.”

“You have visited?”

“No. But I’ve heard it’s very beautiful.”

“Very, very beautiful. Very dangerous.”

“Lots of diamonds come from there, I think,” I said. “And I know the natural resources are supposed to be sizable—gold, all manner of minerals actually, oil, gas.” I could have given him at least an hour’s worth of naming the alluvial diamond beds along the Congo River and the famous diamonds that had come from them—and still did—and that I knew Kisangani was one of the major ports along the river deep in the jungle. But I thought I’d wait until Oscar and I knew each other a little better before I expounded on the untapped wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which was a mess of a brutal dictatorship and not democratic at all) because I could tell he had virtually no interest in diamonds or natural resources. He seemed like the sort of man who was more interested in catching a lion bare-handed and ripping it apart and eating it for his dinner, raw.

“What do you do here?”

“Security.”

“Whose house is this, anyway?”

This time he snorted impatiently, as though I were an idiot, and did not bother answer my question.

His cell phone must have vibrated because he put it to his ear. “Yes, boss.” He listened and nodded. “Yes, sir. I will, sir. Yes, sir.” He flipped the phone closed.

The maid brought my cappuccino and while I took a sip, Oscar removed the ice bag and examined my ankle. “Better,” he said. “Move it around.”

I twisted my foot in a circle. “Much better,” I said. “I can tell it’s going to be fine. Just a little sprain. Thank you so much for rescuing me.”

“Okay. You can go home now.”

“Do you mind calling Barnhardt and asking him to come get me? I don’t think I can make it back up the hill and I’m not sure where to tell him I am.”

“Number?” said Oscar.

I told him and he dialed while I pulled on my sock.

“Oscar here, Schloss Constantin. Your …” He looked at me. “Your name?”

“Princess Margaret,” I answered.

I suppose when you work for a superstar like Robert Constantin, one princess more or less is neither here nor there. He didn’t look even slightly impressed. “Your Princess lady is here and requires you to pick her up. She fell down on her ski shoes.” He nodded. “When will you be at the gate? Okay. Fine. Come to the service door.”

I needed to see much more than the elevator and kitchen on this first foray into Constantin’s chalet. And, while I had no idea how long it would take Barnhardt to hook up the horse and sleigh, I assumed I had five or ten minutes at least to conduct some initial, critical reconnaissance.

“May I use your powder room?” I asked.