Norman Bogner - The Deadliest Art

Excerpt from The Deadliest Art by Norman Bogner

[book jacket]

It was a rosy early June day in Aix-en-Provence, the wind a lackadaisical whisper daintily shuffling the leaves along the Cours Mirabeau before the hordes of tourists arrived to trample them and unsettle life. The visitors would be clamoring for the flavors of Provence, creating prohibitive prices for bottles of water, and swatting each other with berets over sacks of herbs that they'd never cook with, but which would adorn their kitchens, listing over the copper pans. The pans would turn green, the herbs fester, the house might lose its structural integrity, but the memory of Provence would be alive.

The placid mood of the town, however, had one spot that dispelled the present mood of sleepwalking and sloth. The incomparable Chez Danton, the locals' favorite restaurant for a rendezvous, had become a shelter to the homeless gentlewomen who had once plied their trade at Louise Vercours' brothel. After her murder, the establishment had been closed and was in the process of being converted into a hostel for university students. This change of amenities did little to abet the adventures of married men, but still they could slink over the ladies to discuss their theoretical divorces and steal a kiss. An invitation to dine on a platter of sizzling Charolais filets was not to be lightly discarded by mesdemoiselles barely able to pay the rent. They leeched a meal and promised future delights. This was one of the legacies of Louise Vercours, once the madam of Aix.

Louise's fortune and collection of masterpiece paintings had gone to Michel Danton. He had been overwhelmed by the gesture and hardly knew what to do about it. He was a criminal investigator for the Special Circumstances Section of the Police Judiciare. For the past seven years he had been Commander of this elite unit which handled the most intractable homicides in Provence. He had promised his fiancée, Jennifer Bowen, that he would retire as soon as a successor could be appointed. The previous summer they had both been wounded, and almost lost their lives, when the student Jennifer was chaperoning and the girl's psychotic boyfriend had gone on a grisly, murderous rampage.

The estate, cattle and vineyards, Louise had owned she settled on Michel's parents. Even in death Louise had influenced their lives. Nicole Danton, Aix's queen de cuisine, had been her lifelong friend. Nicole and her husband Philippe had worked for years to build Chez Danton. Although the business was successful, the grueling hours and had taken a toll on them. The Dantons were on easy street in every way, with the exception of the unremitting trench warfare in the kitchen.

But today, Chez Danton had become a madhouse of shrill Marseille fishmongers, food purveyors, men bullying along wheels of cheese on dollies, and ice sculptors in Michelangelo smocks brandishing chisels and hammers over blocks the size of icebergs calves. The sound volume of these artisans was enough to rouse a zombie from a temporary snooze.

However, the brawl in the kitchen overpowered even this din. No one without a mission would have tolerated the domestic discord between the Dantons. These legendary clashes over cooking had never been banished despite the docile academic environment of Aix-en-Provence. The town's historic past, its melodious fountains and air of repose provided no balm to the Dantons' feud.

At issue was the wedding menu for Michel and Jennifer. At the moment, the engaged couple were rushing around the city doing last-minute errands, relieved to have left the Dantons to duel in the kitchen.

"I will not serve Lobster à l'américaine in this establishment," Philippe bellowed. "Just the sound of it makes my skin crawl. Think of our reputation. We'll be cut off by Fournier's on the Quai de Belges and every decent market in the region … ridiculed by mobs of cuisiniers in Provence. We could have them picketing. No, that's my last word."

Nicole tore off her blue-striped apron and a furious calmness settled over her, like the torpid air preceding the mistral which drove people into a seasonal catatonia. She was a tall woman with a svelte figure, a lovely retroussé nose, alabaster teeth and a milky complexion. Neither sun nor endless kitchen hours had dappled her skin with anything more than a few casual wrinkles. She rolled down the sleeves of her pale indigo Prada blouse. Yes, she could afford Prada now.

"Damnit, Philippe, it's a Provence dish invented by a Frenchman. Pierre Fraisse was his name."

"No, no, he cooked it in Chicago for Al Capone!" Philippe protested, now somewhat shaken by his scholarly wife. "I'm not going to disgrace our name by serving it."

Both in anger or in pre-coital ferment, Philippe's muscles bulged and his big jaw assumed the unyielding structure of the Mont Ventoux massif. He was not simply stubborn in the way that stupid men can be, he was granite itself. His good looks however did not offer a reprieve from his gritty sauces or ferocious temper.

Nicole tried a feminine approach. "Jennifer wants it. Your future daughter-in-law--"

"Bring some substance to our kitchen discussions," Philippe growled. "Jennifer's an American, what else would she want? I thought that Michel was educating her in our ways. Isn't that in the marriage contract?"

"There is no contract," Nicole replied wearily, her energy at ebb tide.

"He should have one. Last week, Jennifer had the audacity to request meatloaf? I asked if it was something they hunted in America. I can imagine what a savage her mother must be."

Philippe had an abiding respect for women, but successfully concealed it. They had their place, that was his philosophy. Nicole's head drooped and she wandered away from the range. Sensing a browbeater's victory, Philippe took the opportunity to open the seawater tanks to welcome the flotilla of spiny purplish-indigo crustaceans creeping out of their iced crates. He reminded Nicole of Monsieur Paris, the pet name of the guillotine operator, in those bygone days when heads rolled and the public cheered the blade.

"I'll do my celebrated Lobster Cardinal with truffles and a cold lobster mousse with a velouté sauce."

"Then I'll make the Américaine," Nicole said.

"In someone else's kitchen -- with my blessings."

She picked up a stick to check the responses of the death-row inmates.

"Philippe, you're crowding the lobsters."

"Let them learn what the métro in Paris is like during rush hour. It builds character."

"Lobsters don't need character. Philippe, they'll be dead before they're cooked."

"I've never lost one yet."

Nicole left it at that. She did not have the courage to inform her husband that Jennifer's mother, imminently due in from San Francisco for the nuptials, had written, inquiring if sushi was a possibility as a starter.

The bizarre profusion of murders in Aix-en-Provence last summer had caused great agitation among the populace. Despite the fact that the killer, Darrell Vernon Boynton and his accomplice, Maddie Gold, were dead, shopkeepers had to reassure their evening customers that all was well. The locals appeared to walk a bit more warily and were obsessively suspicious, reporting to the police loud voices, and any signs of household discord. Everyone was on guard about funny looks; some of the residents carried cameras with them -- just in case -- to photograph mischievous tourists.

This preposterous reversal of the usual process amused Michel Danton and puzzled the sightseers who wondered why anyone wearing a beret would be snapping pictures of them as they lingered over a drink or were disgorged from a bus on the shady Cours Mirabeau. Many of the foreigners drawn to the magical city put this down to yet another charming Provençal trait omitted from guide books.

In some manner everybody had become a detective, and the local police kept their Marseille brethren very busy, demanding autopsies for ninety-year-olds who passed away in their sleep, claiming they had been poisoned or suffocated by avaricious relatives. Hospital attendants were also alarmed; whenever a patient died, they were suspects in foul play.

Michel Danton was frequently interviewed by the media and despised pontificating, but he had to calm down the locals: "Mass hysteria, the madness of crowds, the murky hallucinations of neurotic people..." He had become a talking head. Whenever he could get away, he hid out at the family farm in St-Rémy with Jennifer. They would prepare a picnic and return from the woods, dripping with sweat and evening dew -- naked.

Much to his chagrin, Michel had been elevated to heroic status and there was talk of erecting a statue in his honor beside La Rotonde. Meanwhile, he fretted about resigning from the police and taking a dreary job as an investigator for the judge. He didn't know how he could tolerate the stultifying boredom of everyday life, an existence without risks. But he had promised Jennifer never again to knowingly place himself in jeopardy. It was a dismal culmination of a distinguished career.

Putting aside such considerations, Michel craved the excitement and the passion an investigation always brought with it. The hunt, the pursuit, the use of his imagination and insight were a rare combination of talents. It was a strange quixotic gift, elevating him to the role of visionary. His métier was solving murders and the prospect of abandoning this accident of perfect pitch struck him as unjust. It would have been like telling Tiger Woods he should have been a car dealer or suggesting that General de Gaulle would have made a wonderful grocer. Seldom given to rash self assessment, Michel felt like a great natural athlete whose future would be confined to a clerk's desk.

But he was passionately in love with Jennifer and, more significantly, given her his word. The search for a replacement in Paris had unearthed several arrogant administrators -- not detectives -- with airs and attitudes, who thought a few years in the heartland with a high crime-solving ratio might launch their careers back in Paris. Convinced that they were meant for better things, they would all be marking time.

Jennifer had been patient during the process and seldom brought up the topic. In her quiet moments, he wondered if she relived the summer when she had killed two people, one in self defense, the other, to save his life. It was brutal, and her silence about the events suggested that the healing process might take a lifetime. She pretended to be free and easy, but she was nervous afflicted by nightmares. Only a week had passed since she had last awakened screaming. Perhaps the summery weather and the sunflowers would bring a respite.

Michel was always happy to get back to his friendly neighborhood in the Mazarin Quarter. It had been named for the archbishop who was the brother of the great Cardinal Richelieu. These two Sicilians had altered the course of French history through wars and treaties, shaping rebellious provinces into a great power. Michel paused near the Hotel de Marignane. Did he have time for a glass of chilled Manzanilla? Never mind, there was a line of tourists at the Café Mazarin.

He meandered through the streets. In the charcuterie the garlicky Toulouse sausages wafted out to the street. In the brimming window a galantine of boar's head was beside a tray of boudin noir and blanc; resting on tray beside a creamy Blanquette of veal, a platter of dark ruby coq au vin highlighted the succulent still life. He wondered about chancing a snack then realized the Force Ten squall of housewives would make him late. They were nibbling slices of sausage off the scales even before anyone weighed their purchases. A counterman spotted him, struck a fencer's stance and waved the hilt of a friendly Lonzo de Corse as a greeting. No, a chunk of it would not do before a groom's fitting. The fruit lady offered Michel a slice of Cavaillon melon from her cold storage bin. A few doors away, at the copper sign of the baguette, the baker was chatting with the cheese matriarch, and they paused to hail him. Forty years of rising at three AM to begin baking had given the skin under the baker's eyes the angry black hide of a gored bull.

"Merci, but I can't stop," Michel said to them, "I'm going to the tailor."

Michel stopped at the news stand and was handed his International Herald Tribune and USA Today. Neither he nor Jennifer could get used to reading newspapers online. He yanked out the sports section to check on his beloved Yankees. He was convinced Joe Torre would take them to a third, consecutive World Series victory? He studied home run stats while roving down the Rue d'Italie to Aix's master tailor.

Outside the shop, on rollerblades, Kristen, the golden child of the tailor's mistress was giving out flyers for barge trips and hikes in the Luberon. Her mother ran a travel business.

"Michel," she cooed, "get some of your police friends to take a trip with my mother."

He looked at the town's Lolita and prayed for her well being. "If you were the guide, they'd go."

Alberto Vellancio, a Neapolitan brigand claimed he had once worked in Rome for the great clothiers: A cutter for Brioni, and then a sleeve man with the revered Kiton in Naples. Michel was skeptical of these affinities with the Leonardo and Raphael of Italian mens clothing. Nevertheless, Vellancio's prices were steep. For years, Philippe had detested the tailor, chiding him on the cost of his clothes, but the fortune the Dantons had inherited abruptly altered Philippe's penny-pinching disposition.

The tailor's gold teeth flashed in an embracing smile. "Your esteemed father came in earlier. He ordered six cashmere sports jackets."

"Ahhh, il principe, Michel."

Depending on his mood, Vellancio, an arrant flatterer, always greeted Philippe as conto (count of chateaubriand) or dottore (doctor of Charolais), professore (professor of prime rib); the chef lapped it up like one of his own lumpy sauces.

Prince Michel extended his hand, but the fleshy tailor was still bowing and unctuously praising him. Dressed in a ballooned white smock, with an array of lethal pins on the lapel, tape measure hanging around his neck like a stethoscope, Vellancio was almost as wide as one of the bolts of fine cloth layered on his gleaming wooden shelves. At Chez Danton the tailor and his strapping Nordic mistress, always feasted on the Hercules T-bone, gnawing on it like Borneo cannibals.

"Will they help his cooking?" Michel asked. "Or is he going on television?"

"They are for entertaining at the chateau. He and your Mama obtain Louise's properties, you her paintings. Life is not so bad?"

So much for discretion and classified family business. It had seemed Philippe had trumpeted it from the rooftops of Aix. From working-class bourgeoisie chef to swanning millionaire landowner to the manner born. In his favor, Philippe had not set himself up with a harem of young women, taken to snorting cocaine, or gone insane gambling in Monte Carlo. Philippe's twin devotions remained bickering at his kitchen range and ravaging Nicole. His travel plans, such as they were, involved trips to survey his real estate and hiring a photographer to videotape the inventory. He had purchased a new Mercedes SUV, but drove it only when he was going to the country. At all other times it remained in the back lot of the restaurant under a canvas snood.

"Bianca!" Vellancio bellowed. "Michel's wedding suit!"

Parting the green velvet curtains from the workroom, a scrawny hand revealed a tuxedo in a clear plastic. Vellancio's wife timidly appeared; she wore glasses as thick as a microscope's eyepiece and shrank back as she walked. Behind her, an arsenal of sewing machines whirred, manned by a seminary of immigrants.

Thin as a fishbone, Bianca bowed to Michel, but not before her husband demanded that she put the Pavarotti on the CD carousel. In DVD, the tenor was in fine voice and not mopping his sweaty beard and spraying spittle on those in the billionaire seats.

"Please go to the changing room."

In a few moments Michel emerged, skin tingling from the sleek splendor of wild silk, and his mood lightened.

"Step, please, on the platform."

As he did, Vellancio's dark eyes beamed into the three-way mirror. He flung his chalk in the air, exhaled breathlessly, rejoicing in his sartorial genius.

"Bella Figura... the cut, the fit. Titian himself, he should be here to paint you. Did you know that Fellini came to me after La Dolce Vita and said he wished I had created the clothes for the film. Marcello Mastrianni would have been a star."

"In some circles, he was a star."

Unfortunately at this moment of Vellancio's self rapture, every herb, clove of garlic, and wild root oozed from the tailor's mouth, producing a terrorist gas attack. Michel reflexively turned his head away from the dragon fumes of the tailor's past meals.

"A minisculo adjustment," he said seizing Michel's balls. "The crotch, he is hanging a millimeter."

Michel turned pale and wrenched himself away from the tailor. "I forgot to wear my cup," he said, regaining his balance.

"You always joke with me, Michel."

"One more time, Alberto, and I'll arrest you."

"Stand straight, head high, cavaliere, and look into the mirror." With a mouthful of pins, Vellancio was exploring Michel's groin when an unnatural sound of agony detonated and the great tenor's aria from Aïda was drowned out.

Michel seized the tailor by the throat. "My balls, testicles! Alberto. "I'm not into piercing. And you need a license for corridas and instruction on the use of banderillas."

"You have two testicolos. Due, due. Ahhh, principe, you moved. I am like a surgeon. The patient moves, the problem is his. Now princessa Jennifer is always serene during the fittings."

"You're making a dress for her?"

"Of course, where else would she go? Bianca! Bring the dress."

"No, don't!" Michel countered. "It's bad luck."

"As you like. She bleeds on her wedding night, you bleed a little."

Jennifer Bowen stalked among the great paintings Michel had been bequeathed. She was in the back room of the new Chardin Gallery on the Cours Mirabeau. The hammers and saws of workmen putting the final touches on the hanging area did not intrude on her thoughts. In fact the noise was comforting. She was still jumpy from last nights' montage of tormented dreams. She had been attacked by snakes that had been thrust on her by the madman who had followed her to Aix last summer.

She was reluctant to discuss these episodes with a psychiatrist. What could he tell her that she didn't already know about trauma and murder? It will pass, time will heal the wounds.

"Bullshit," she said, staring at herself in the mirror. "No one gets over these things. And it's no reason to pig out," she added, criticizing herself. She had always had something of a weight problem, but now with her wedding a few days off, it had blown into a neurosis. "God, do I see a double chin?"

"No, it's the light." Grace Chardin, the American wife of the gallery's owner stood at the doorway. "And since when have you started talking to yourself?"

"I weighed one hundred and forty-five pounds this morning, Grace."

"So, you're five ten. How would you like to weigh that much and be five inches shorter? Jen, you have to accept the fact that we're hostages -- American women eating French food three times a day. We weren't designed for this kind of abuse."

"I guess you're right."

"How long are you going to be?"

"Just a few more minutes. I've got to finish these catalogue notes."

"Okay. Okay, but get these terrible thoughts out of your head. You're gorgeous."

"I'm plentiful."

"Lavish."

Jennifer's amour-propre sprouted wings. "Who said that?"

"Madame Desalle. Did you forget we're picking up your lingerie at her atelier?"

"Well, she's charging me enough to pay compliments."

"Oh, we're in a mood. I'm taking you to lunch at my favorite little haunt afterwards."

"Chez Danton's closed until after the wedding."

"I wasn't talking about Chez Danton. I'll be next door at Façonnable. Pick me up fast before I spend a fortune on their new blazers."

When Jennifer had first seen the paintings, she did not have the presence of mind to weigh the consequences of such an inheritance. Who could? After she hung them in the family farmhouse in St-Remy, and scrupulously examined each provenance, she was stunned. The collection consisted of three lyrical Renoirs from his days at Argenteuil when he was painting side by side with Monet; an exquisite Matisse Odalisque of his mistress; two Bonnards from his Nabi period when he and his coterie pushed Impressionism to its limits in search of new expressions, then abandoned it for bolder colors and intensely detailed surface design.

The Picasso, from his great gloomy Blue Period, was a major example of mood dictating his changing style. At a recent sale a "blue" had gone for fifty-five million dollars. There was a bewitching Watteau of a young actress at her make-up table. A Degas of swirling ballerinas made Jennifer do pirouettes and crash into the furniture; an early Monet seascape of Le Havre carried the flavor and scent of seaspray; a mysterious, unknown Gauguin painted in Arles when he was living with Van Gogh was like a detective story. Finally the walls were crowned with three mature, majestic Cézannes.

The fourteen paintings were worth a fortune. For insurance purposes, Jennifer contacted Sotheby's and Christie's recent auction sales. She estimated that the collection was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred million dollars. She had learned from Jules Chardin, Michel's former professor at the Sorbonne, that her appraisal was low. He thought it might bring considerably more. The prospect of such wealth was incomprehensible to Jennifer.

Only a year ago, she had been a professor at a second-rate college for problem girls with rich parents. She'd always been scrambling for money, worrying about her contract. And at thirty she brooded about the possibility of a loveless, barren future. She had won the lottery in love and money and she sought a perspective. Yes, she was a first rate art historian with a Ph.D. from Stanford and she had a good opinion of herself because Michel had fallen in love with her, but how could she suddenly deal with the trials of good fortune?

The prospect of eventually having children with Michel made her giddy with pleasure, but raising them in a privileged environment troubled her. Worse yet, sending them to exclusive schools so that they might march through life in a social class purchased by a woman who had kept a brothel and profited from paid sex outraged Jennifer.

There was nothing of the prude in Jennifer, nor some holy feminist ideal of justice in this viewpoint. It was deeply pragmatic and not mere posturing when she asked herself: "How many lovers did thousands of young women have so that I could wake up every morning with Renoir in my bedroom?" Profiting from their sexual drudgery was distasteful.

Jennifer was incapable of this degree of self-indulgence or sticking her head in the sand. Ultimately it was human question, a question of conscience. And when this mood struck, the paintings turned rancid. As a principal in their ownership, it aroused despair. Everything had depended on Michel's decision, and she tested his love.

"It's selfish and mean-spirited to hoard these paintings for ourselves," she'd said months ago on a frigid evening in February with the Mistral howling, fastened shutters clapping, sleep impossible, onion soup and lovemaking the only alternatives.

"What are you suggesting?"

"Let's show them to the public. Jules Chardin is opening a gallery. It'll help him and we can charge a hundred Francs a head and donate the money to the university's endowment fund."

Michel had never thought of this and he admired Jennifer's generosity.

"But a catalogue has to be prepared."

"I'm already working on it."

On the deserted Beau Rivage beach in La Ciotat, a short drive from Aix, the ruckled evening waves, formerly glistening pompadours, carried the flotsam of pleasure boats to shore. Only a short drive from Aix-en-Provence, a once popular old wreck of a hotel sulked above the sheltered cove. In its glory days, it had been a place of daytime sandcastles, seascape painters, splendid picnics, and topless women bathers.

At the hotel bar an assortment of gossipy locals filtered in. They complained about their lives, the lost grandeur of the nation, and how to scourge the immigrants from Gallic soil. And now they had to cope with the thirty-five hour week, their own truckers barricading the borders in protest. All these edicts were put in place so that unemployed aliens could be given a Frenchman's work. The Euro, as coin of the realm for the new Europe, was accepted with disgust, another debasement of the incomparable Franc.

Even worse was parité, actually electing women to public office. Where was Marie-Antoinette as a symbol of what could happen -- Robespierre, Danton, the glory Days of the Directory when heads rolled? Napoleon would have taught them a lesson. The republic needed him and not the cowed prime minister, appeasing every woman. Even among the regulars, it had been generally conceded that, if there were no one to blame, the French would invent someone -- along with a cause to go with it. The British boycott of Brie as a reprisal for the French ban on the English mad-cow beef brought along some "Vive La France" cheers.

Exotic affectations were not absolved from their disdain. This evening, along with U.K. beef, the extra dry, very cold, martini -- which had staged something of a baffling recovery in Provence -- made with Ketel One, Belvedere or the native Grey Goose -- came in for a scolding. It was sweeping the coastal resorts, requiring time and effort for a busy bartender to prepare, while the beer or Pastis drinker fretted and hooted for a refill.

The source of this calamity at the Hôtel Claude bar were a pair of sandy, parboiled Brits who blundered in and arrogantly demanded them. Berlitz opened to "ordering" phrases, the couple were behind the bar, pointing through a dusty array of bottles. They wanted martinis styled with triple distilled Wyborowa no less, a gentle rinse of Noilly Prat bathed over the rocks, firm Nyons olives and none of the wrinkled beards usually served with their pimentos drooping out like entrails. They also demanded chilled stem glasses and wanted to inspect the crusty Havana cigars lodged on a shelf above the rusting cognacs.

They intently watched René, the furious bartender, who, under their scrutiny, was forced to discard the ice and continue the laborious massage, cocking the shaker to his left ear like a maracas player. All the customers were fuming, but raptly viewing these aerobic follies. When would it cease? Despite the sign prohibiting the removal of glassware to the beach, no one said a word when the couple left the bar.

The regulars were happy to be rid of the limeys, with their mud-caked Air Jordans and ratty T-shirts advertising a visit to Aix-en-Provence. Even the waves below sighed when the couple pranced out, jauntily squeaking down the stone steps to forage for souvenirs. Whatever jetsam the sea had expelled, they would cart back through customs to some shaggy hamlet for a despised in-law who collected these atrocities.

Once the couple scattered to the beach with their martinis, a fizzle of voices accompanied the entrance of Claude Boisser, formerly Superintendent of the vice squad in Aix-en-Provence. Claude had bought the hotel with his lifetime's savings of bribes. He was a genial host, buying the bar a round.

"This pilot on a 747 with a full load has been waiting forever for permission from the control tower to take off. He and the passengers are at the end of their rope because of the delays. Finally, he turns to the co-pilot and says:

"'I'd give anything for a blow-job and a hot cup of coffee.'

"The pilot has no idea that the P.A. is still on and all the passengers and flight attendants have heard this casual request.

"Suddenly a stewardess who looks like Catherine Deneuve sprints down the aisle to switch off the P.A. As she passes an old priest, holding his beads, he calls out:

"'And don't forget the coffee.'"

Everyone at this happy hour roared. Trust Claude to come up with a lewd joke. The bar came alive with everyone ordering more drinks while the DJ began the evening's music with a John Lennon retro. "Imagine" would open the festivities.

An aged bellman with thick glasses, wearing a faded green uniform, chivvied in a reluctant flock of well-dressed women. They almost seemed to be on a towline.

"Ah, Benedict, I thought you'd made off with my swans. I think there's a touch of Mormon in Benedict."

"Too many years at Louise's," René, observed of the bellman's previous employment as gatekeeper of her brothel.

"I gave up penetration a long time ago," Benedict snapped.

"I'm not that fortunate," Claude replied, smirking at the liberated gaggle of women.

He had invited them to dinner and an investment lecture. When they grew bored reading his financial prospectus, prepared by his Chinese accountant, and threatened to bolt, he had locked them in the windowless banquet room in order to read. Ear to the door, he gloomily listened to the women complain that the evening had become a hostage situation. In a huff, Claude went for a walk to clear his head. Eventually he allowed his decrepit bellman to free them.

Claude splayed over the zinc bar: embracing, wooing these potential investors in his scheme to renovate the place. Girdled in baggy flea-market Armani trousers and a shirt which he wore outside in the musical Buena Vista Social Club style, Claude was a lascivious but amusing man with a brazen charm. Tonight as always, since he knew nothing of politics or current events, except that they were inconvenient, he tarnished Anglo-Saxon manhood.

From the master's seat, he pointed to the Englishman down on the beach.

"Ejaculato Praecox. These men never reach the harbor. They crash into the shoals..." By this he meant thighs or other destinations remote from the port of entry.

A shriek from the beach interrupted Claude.

"Her back!" The English woman's words were garbled by screams and ambushed by the sunset wind which had wildly swept up from Marseille. It was early June, the climate and sailing conditions unpredictable, rain-forest fodder for Greenpeace speeches and ominous La Niña forecasters.

"If that damned girl has a glass splinter, it serves her right. Let her get back to that dirty Hertz car and find a doctor," Claude sternly observed. He had become vigilant about foreign lawsuits. "It's a public beach and not technically part of the property."

"Maybe someone's hurt," René said.

The melancholy bartender, lifted the hatch and walked to the sliding window. He had been temporarily poached from his regular employment at Chez Danton, which had closed for a face-lift while the Dantons prepared for Michel's wedding.

René observed the couple waving frantically. They were beside some bundle. He couldn't make it out. The woman was jumping on the sand. A glass splinter. For once, Claude might have been right. One of the women slipped behind the bar and collected the ancient first-aid kit which had leaked iodine, then looked for a towel to wipe the greasy film off her hands.

She said, "Throw this down, Claude... René. Oh, I'll bring it myself."

A few moments later, she, too, began to screech, and the grumpy patrons trooped down to the beach. Claude remained above in the command post, the captain on the bridge, clutching a bottle of Pastis 51.

He had heard the dreaded word, body.

This was not the best news for a man who had laid on an eight course dinner for the widows and divorcées he had hoped to fleece that evening. He had made private appointments with several of them afterward to inspect the amenities and inquire if any of them engaged in orgies, since he intended to chase out the usual family summer guests and convert the hotel into a high class bordello, a place for pillow talk.

"We'll be eating duck with soggy olives for a week," he grunted to René.

The bartender tossed his blue-striped apron at him. "You will. I'm leaving. I've had enough of martinis and your company for a lifetime."

Claude finally ambled down to the sea, churlishly kicking sand like a child. The group from the bar had retreated to the ramshackle cabañas with the English couple. Someone was now calling for smelling salts.

Only moments before, the bloated, partially decomposed naked body of a young girl had been carried in by a wave making landfall just below Claude's rotting cabins and balding grass-skirted beach bar. This troupe of shanties managed to remain upright after the tail end of mistral had swerved out of its path; they resembled the salvaged hulls of old shipwrecked schooners.

Approaching the youthful corpse, lying on its side, Claude waved a fist. "Smelling salts, first aid kits -- I'm not running a pharmacy!"

Claude sprang back, stunned. He had been a cop long enough to have witnessed some gruesome sights, but the condition of this child was enough to make him ill. What had formerly been the flesh on her back had undergone hideous burns. She might have been set on fire or hit with a blowtorch. The girl's left nipple had been pierced and a tarnished ornament encrusted with seaweed hung from it. A faintly greenish engraving might have been the word amour.

He would have to telephone Michel Danton, a man he had always admired but now detested. Michel had forced his resignation from the vice squad with a charge of corruption. How else could a man live in France and buy a hotel?

After such a discovery, more than likely, Claude would find his customers looking fishy-eyed at the cloudy bar glasses. Next, they would be demanding bidets in the rooms that did not squirt up to the ceiling. Even for his future lower depth constituency, there was a repellent aspect to sodden clothes after a bout of lovemaking.

More significantly, a dead body did not go well at the hors d'oeuvres hour over a plate of Perigeux pâté and moules with warm frites.

It seemed he was now a hotelier with a murdered child on what was technically not his beach. As a police officer for thirty-five years, he had made his fortune by noticing nothing. When Michel Danton came to call, Claude would trot out a host of mildewed rationalizations regarding his legal responsibility for the beach. Murdered girls, like vermin, would lead to bad publicity. Michelin and Gault-Millau wouldn't even bother to send their inspectors to the rejuvenated hotel. Bereft, Claude groaned. He turned his head away from the dead child and dashed up the steps to the bar. The sight of the beach repelled him.