Riviera Blues. Jack Batten

but they looked to be in the high-priced bracket.

      “What brings you to Canada, Mike?” I asked.

      “Cats bring me.”

      “Really? What, some special breed? You a vet?”

      “No, no, on the stage. I watch it. I know all the songs by heart.”

      “Oh, that Cats. Andrew Lloyd Webber and the other guy.”

      “Beautiful music.”

      “Listen, it’s too bad you came all this way, Mike. Cats closed in Toronto, I’m not sure, a year back.”

      “No problem. Cats is opening in the city of Winnipeg, Canada, on Friday … where is Winnipeg, my friend Crang?”

      “Keep going west, Mike. Can’t miss it.”

      “I fly there tomorrow. This will make twelve times I have seen Cats. I love the songs. I love all musical shows. Everywhere there is a new show, I go. Or if I have not seen a show for a long time, I just go. Les Miserables is my best. I have been five times in three cities each time. Paris, London, and New York City. Incredible, you agree?”

      “Took the adjective right out of my mouth.”

      I had Mike tagged for a fanatic.

      “What else do you do, Mike?” I asked.

      “I shoot.”

      Was he also a hit man?

      “Pheasant is my favourite.”

      A sportsman.

      “Very big birds, but fast. Zip, zip, they go by. You need the good eye, my friend Crang.”

      “I guess.”

      “Last month I was in Scotland for the pheasant. Eight guns was on the shoot. In two days, we kill ninety-eight pheasant. Thirty-six were mine.”

      “The good eye.”

      “For sure,” Mike said. His voice came close to rattling the windows in the apartment.

      “When I asked just now what you did, what I meant was, this is a very Canadian question, Mike, what’s your business?”

      “Oh, I see. Lot of businesses. I have business in Antibes that sells cars. I have business in Nice sells houses and apartments. Real estate, yes? And in Monaco, my business is boats. That was how Jamie became my good friend.”

      “Enlighten me.”

      “Pardon?” he said with a French inflection.

      “What’s the connection between selling boats and Jamie?”

      “He bought one from me.”

      “Little sailboat you’re talking about? Something to catch the light breezes?”

      “That is funny. No, no, Jamie bought from me a Hatteras. Sixty feet.”

      I drew a blank on the Hatteras, but the sixty feet caught my attention. That made it sound more like an aircraft carrier than a punt.

      I said, “This is Jamie Haddon we’re discussing, young blond guy?”

      “For sure.”

      “He bought a sixty-foot boat?”

      “Hatteras.”

      “Cash money Jamie paid?”

      “What else? Two guys go with the boat, crew. One guy is the captain. Other guy we call the mate, but he serves the drinks, you know, different things you ask him.”

      “Big cash money, I’m getting the impression.”

      “Very big. For sure.”

      Mike stretched the “very” into two long syllables.

      “Well, this is gratifying to us here in Toronto to hear how splendidly Jamie’s doing overseas.”

      “Jamie be big man in Monaco, you wait, and Monaco, honest to God, this is a place where we got a lot of big men.”

      “He’s only been there twelve days.”

      “Spend the money, you get to be big man fast.”

      “Really spreading it around, is he?”

      “You know the American bar at the Hôtel de Paris?”

      “Can’t say I do.”

      “This is where I meet Jamie. Most beautiful bar in entire world. Jamie, the night I meet him, he buys drinks for everyone. For me, for this Spanish guy who is a count, for an American guy with his wife who is in the music business. Own a record company, I think. Jamie says to all these rich guys, your money no good here. They love him, new young guy in Monaco, handsome, lot of charm. Everybody think Jamie the greatest.”

      “A vodka on the rocks, how much would that set me back at the American bar of the Hôtel de Paris?”

      Mike shook his head.

      “You have to ask,” he said, “you never go there.”

      “I’m curious. Polish vodka.”

      “Thirty dollars, probably.”

      “You’re right. I don’t qualify.”

      “Can I ask you, my friend Crang,” Mike said, “why you drop in? In this apartment?”

      “Request of the landlady,” I said. “She wants me to keep an eye on the place.”

      While Mike digested my improvised answer, I grabbed the initiative.

      “What about you?” I asked.

      “Me?”

      “Why are you here?”

      Mike didn’t miss a beat.

      “Shirts,” he said, broadcasting the word with so much power I thought I felt the wind of his voice ruffle my hair.

      “You looking for something in silver, Mike?” I said.

      “Shirts for Jamie,” Mike said. “He tell me, long as you be in Canada, why not you please stop at my apartment and get me some more shirts.”

      “The sort of chips Jamie seems to be in,” I said, “he could probably buy out every Hugo Boss outlet along the Mediterranean.”

      Mike shifted his shoulders in what I took to be a shrug native to Monaco. It was less Gallic than Annie’s, less Anglo than mine.

      “Jamie’s favourites,” Mike said. His eyes were steady on my face. “He wants his favourite shirts he left behind. Funny guy, Jamie.”

      As a liar, Mike had a flawless delivery. But the shirt story didn’t hold water. Didn’t wash either.

      “Well, Mike,” I said, “Why don’t I give you a hand?”

      “Huh?”

      “Round up the favourites.”

      “Oh, for sure.”

      We went down the darkened hall off the living room, Mike in front. The hall branched to the right at the far end. There were two rooms opening off the stretch we were in, one room on either side. I poked my head into the room on the right.

      “No, no, my friend Crang.” Mike spoke quickly as well as loudly. “That is not the room for the shirts.”

      Mike was right. A lamp was on in the room, and in the seconds I had for a fast glance, I’d say the room was Jamie’s den.

      Mike ran his hand up and down the wall inside the room on the left side of the hall. He found the overhead light switch and turned it on. The room was a bedroom. A hell of a bedroom.

      The bed was king-sized, set high off the floor. It had a frilly white canopy. The carpeting was white too. Mike and I stood in it up to our