Don’t overcook it.
Jojo Matta felt his cheeks color as he watched Coluzzi go down the hall. He stamped out his cigarette and marched to the kitchen, angrier than he could remember. The nerve. As if he’d forgotten all about how Coluzzi had cheated him.
Jojo tied on his apron and began the evening prep. He had two specials planned, grilled swordfish with steamed vegetables and mussels with garlic sauce. He opened the refrigerator and removed the fish, dropping it on the chopping block. He found his filleting knife and set to work cutting the slab into steaks. He could have purchased his fish precut, or even prepackaged, but he preferred to do it himself. It was a question of respect. If he charged thirty euros for a meal, he wanted to give his customers their money’s worth. It was how he did things. He wasn’t a cheat like Coluzzi.
Jojo looked down and saw that his hand was shaking. He drew a calming breath and set to work chopping the potatoes and carrots, the razor-sharp blade moving in a blur. He liked to go to the farmers’ market every morning and pick out the produce himself. It was another way he showed his customers respect. The best ingredients at a fair price.
The mere thought of fairness brought Coluzzi back to mind. How long had they known each other? Fifteen years? Twenty? Even if they weren’t family, they were friends.
And friends didn’t steal from friends.
The blade jumped. Jojo felt a nick and looked down to see a sliver of his thumb lying on the cutting board. The blood came a second later. He put his thumb under cold water for a minute, then rubbed it with a styptic pencil and bandaged it.
He’d been cooking since he was fourteen and was forced to take a class in meal preparation at a reform school near Perpignan. The school believed that learning the rudiments of French cooking offered their unruly charges a career path while channeling the anger and lack of discipline that had led them to commit crimes in the first place. The first part was true enough. Jojo had worked as a chef on and off for the past forty years. The second part less so. It wasn’t always a good idea to put sociopathic teenagers in proximity to sharp knives and boiling water. Jojo had left school with his leg scarred by scalding water and missing half an index finger. The upside was that he knew how to prepare a world-class coq au vin.
And that, he decided, was Tino Coluzzi’s problem. He didn’t respect anyone. Not friends. Not family. No one.
It was at a party last year that Jojo had run into Massimo Forte, the biggest jewelry fence this side of the Italian border. After a few drinks, Forte had let slip what he’d paid Coluzzi for the take from Harry Winston. The figure was double what Coluzzi had told them.
Not ten percent more.
Not twenty percent more.
Double.
One hundred percent more.
Jojo wasn’t averse to a little padding here and there. It had been Tino who’d cased the boutique, rounded up the crew, and jacked the truck they’d used to drive through the window. Likewise, his planning and execution had been top-notch. Tino ran a tight ship. No question he deserved a fatter share.
But padding was one thing. Gouging, another.
Jojo went back to work. He dumped the bloodied vegetables in the garbage, washed off the chopping block, and started again. He’d tried to put Coluzzi’s double-dealing out of his mind, but that was no longer possible.
The man was here.
In Marseille.
It was a question of pride.
Jojo had to make things right.
Dropping the knife, he went to his office and closed the door behind him. He wiped his hands before making the call.
“Hey,” he said. “You’ll never guess who just walked into the club? And he’s coming back for dinner. I’m thinking we should give him a special welcome.”
An hour later, Tino Coluzzi sat alone outdoors at the Café la Samaritaine, drinking an espresso and watching traffic trawl through the Vieux-Port. Skiffs bringing in the second catch of the day. Tourist boats returning from Les Calanques. Day sailors mooring motor yachts.
Coluzzi looked past them and out to sea. In the distance, the walls of the Château d’If sparkled as if laced with gold. Though he’d lived in and around Marseille for twenty years, he’d never visited the castle and one-time fortress where the Count of Monte Cristo had been imprisoned. Right now he was thinking that prison might be a safer alternative, all things considered.
He dipped a biscuit into his coffee and stirred it. He was dumb. There was no other explanation. Dipping his feet into water far too deep for him. Not for a second had he considered who he must contact to offer the Russians the letter. The lure of a quick fortune had blinded him to the impracticality of his situation. He’d made a fool of himself calling the consulate, pretending to have industrial secrets to peddle. Now what was he supposed to do? Call back the American and say it had all been a mistake? Hide the letter under a rock and run away?
Coluzzi shook his head. There was no going back. He’d compromised his life the moment he read the letter.
Nearby a car honked. Two policemen walked past, eyes scanning all those seated around him. Suddenly, he felt exposed and vulnerable. He finished his espresso and left a five-euro note on the table. It was foolish to show himself at such a public location, he thought as he crossed to the promenade. His recent haircut and change of attire lent him a superficial anonymity, but it only went so far. Were anyone to take a closer look, they’d recognize him in no time.
He felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He stopped near a fish stand and answered. “Yeah?”
“You called us.”
“Who is this?” asked Coluzzi.
“Who is this?”
And then he placed the accent. It was the Russians.
“Stevcek? Is that you?”
“Yes, I am Boris.” The voice was high-pitched and wavering. Stevcek sounded more nervous than he.
“When can we meet?” asked the Russian. “Please tell me. I’m happy to come to your home.”
Coluzzi held the phone away from him. His home? He was proposing to hand over sensitive materials that he had more or less admitted to stealing and the Russian thought it prudent to come to his home.
“Hello?” said the Russian. “Are you there?”
At that moment, a ship’s horn sounded. Coluzzi looked to the mouth of the harbor and spotted the bow of a very large luxury motor yacht nosing into the harbor. Two hundred feet. Three-story superstructure. Helicopter lashed to an aft landing platform.
A superyacht.
The boat was moving rapidly, and from its size, profile, and navy-blue hull, he recognized it as the Solange, the largest yacht moored in Marseille harbor. A tattered black-and-white flag fluttered from the mast. The skull and crossbones.
The yacht belonged to Alexei Ren, the fifty-year-old Russian billionaire and owner of the Olympique de Marseille football club.
Coluzzi realized then that he was making an error trying to barter the letter through a minor diplomat posted to a second-rate consulate who sounded as if he’d gone through puberty the week before. A man who couldn’t even afford a blow job at Jojo’s.
Boris Stevcek had as much chance of reaching Vassily Borodin as Coluzzi did the president of France.
“Hello? Sir? Sir?”
Disgusted with himself, Coluzzi ended the call and walked toward the imposing yacht. Music blared from the top deck, where a party was in full swing. He was not the only man on the docks staring at the bevy of topless women dancing energetically, champagne flutes in hand. The yacht drew closer and soon passed.
A lone figure sat in the shade of the aft deck, studying a laptop. He had dark hair and a thick beard—a pirate in appearance, too—his white linen shirt billowing in the wind.
Alexei Ren.
Coluzzi stared at the figure, transfixed.
He had his answer.