Fear No Evil

Chapter 36

Paris

Bree entered Canard de Flaque at eight thirty p.m. on the dot, still wearing her business attire but now back to carrying the pistol in her purse. Henri smiled and said, “It appears you make powerful friends easily, Madame St. Lucie.”

“It’s never happened before, Henri,” she said.

“Somehow I doubt this. But come, he is waiting for you.”

As she followed him toward the booth where it appeared Philippe Abelmar took most of his evening meals, she glanced over at the bar and saw Valentina sitting with Luc L’Argent, who raised his drink to her as she passed. Valentina smiled and gave her a slight wave.

Bree wanted to figure out a way to get the personal assistant alone and warn her of what might await her in the coming days if her boss held to his pattern of nurturing young female aides for six months and then debasing them and blackmailing them for the next six months.

The billionaire wore another blue blazer and crisp white shirt. He rose to meet Bree, smiled as he made a slight bow, and gestured her into the booth, where flutes of champagne awaited.

Abelmar picked up his champagne glass and raised it to her. “You appear to be a rare find, Madame St. Lucie.”

Bree picked up her flute and clicked it against his. “Is that so?”

“It’s rare to meet someone by chance who has skills and contacts that I and my company and contacts lack. Which is why we find you intriguing.”

Before she could reply, the waitress appeared. “Shall I tell you our specials?”

Abelmar said, “I’ll be having the duck.”

“And I am going to have the veal dish that Carole the bartender raves about.”

“The veal?” Abelmar said, surprised.

“The duck three nights in a row?”

“I have done it too many times to count.”

She laughed. “I’m going to stick with the veal just the same.”

The waitress nodded and left them.

The billionaire said, “May I ask you a few hypothetical questions?”

“If I can give you hypothetical answers,” she said and took a sip of champagne.

“I’d prefer practical answers, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll try,” Bree said and set the drink aside.

Abelmar asked her several hypothetical questions regarding the establishment of shell companies and bank accounts in Saint Martin. Then he asked if it would be possible to set this up as a network throughout the Caribbean that was overseen and managed from Saint Martin.

“Of course it’s possible,” Bree said. “But will you excuse me one moment before I explain?”

“Bien sûr,” he said.

Bree took her purse and went to the ladies’ room. In a stall, she turned on her phone’s voice-activated recording app and slipped the phone into the purse’s outside pocket, zipper open, microphone facing up. From the first hypothetical question on, she had suspected Abelmar was looking to move money out of France to avoid taxes. Or to move the hundreds of millions of dollars he was suspected of siphoning out of Pegasus. In either case, she wanted to get him talking particulars if she could.

Having Abelmar actively discussing questionable financial activities would likely be enough for the Pegasus board to make its decision regarding the billionaire’s continued involvement in the company he’d founded. And if she got lucky, she might get enough to turn over to Marianne Le Tour’s contacts inside French law enforcement.

When Bree returned to Abelmar’s booth, their entrées were being served. She slid into the booth after the waitress left, noticed the bottle of burgundy he’d ordered and smelled the veal in thin mushroom sauce with leeks.

“Does it look good?” he asked.

“I have no doubt it will be excellent,” she said. “But I’m having trouble not gazing at your duck with longing.”

“I understand completely. As I always say, it’s an addiction.”

They ate. The veal was excellent, though not as extraordinary as the duck. The amazing wine was from a Grand Cru vineyard in southern France that Abelmar told her he’d recently purchased.

Bree took small bites of her food and smaller sips of the amazing wine while trying to steer the conversation back to Saint Martin. But the billionaire was unable to stop talking about the vineyard and how he was considering moving to the estate for part of the year, although he’d need to figure out what to do with his yacht in Nice.

She wanted to say, Problems of the mega-rich, but she held her tongue.

Finally, after they’d finished dessert and were sipping espresso, Abelmar said, “We — Pegasus — are looking to increase our involvement with a group of wealthy investors from Mexico and Central and South America. These people need a way to diversify and protect their portfolios by spreading out not only what they invest in but the locations where their wealth is held. Does this make sense?”

“Perfect sense,” she said. “So you’d be moving money into these accounts to do what, exactly? Invest in real estate or businesses in the Caribbean?”

“Among other things, yes,” he said. “They are looking to do this all over the world, as a matter of fact. And, frankly, they were not looking at the Caribbean because their advisers warned them of the threat of climate change to any investment there. But you know, meeting you, I am now thinking we should move money there precisely because no one else will.”

Bree nodded. “Sounds smart to me. People from the States and Europe are still going to want a warm-weather vacation during the winter for the foreseeable future.”

“Exactly,” Abelmar said. “Shall we continue this discussion at my apartment? It’s just up the street. Walkable.”