Clasping his hands together, the diminutive jeweler hopped up and down like a small child in need of the bathroom and looked pleadingly at Tracy with his twinkling, impish eyes.
Tracy did not share his enthusiasm. “When was Jeff here?”
“He came to see me a few days ago, bless him. And my goodness he did look handsome! The man is ageless. You both are.”
Tracy looked murderous.
Let’s work together. It’ll be just like the old days. So much for that baloney! Jeff was doing this on his own. Or worse, he was still acting as Frank Dorrien’s lapdog. Well, two could play at that game.
Tracy felt a rush of righteous anger, conveniently forgetting that she, too, had sought out Guy on her own and had just agreed to report everything she learned back to the CIA.
The problem with using her old contacts to help Greg Walton was that they were Jeff’s contacts too.
“So Jeff asked you for leads on the same man?”
“He did.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I sent him to Madame Dubonnet, of course.” Guy smiled. “I understand your quarry is a gambler?”
“Among other things,” Tracy said.
“Any serious poker players in Paris end up at Dubonnet’s. Didn’t Jeff mention it?”
Tracy said through gritted teeth, “It must have slipped his mind.”
MADAME DUBONNET WAS A toothless old hag who wore too much rouge, smelled of eau de violettes and Gitanes, and wore her blouse unbuttoned low enough to reveal a large expanse of crêpey cleavage. She had a deep, gravelly voice and a raucous laugh, and her gnarled, veiny hands were encrusted with diamonds as big as barnacles.
Despite her advanced years, however, she clearly considered herself to be sexually alluring. Tracy could instantly picture her being charmed by Jeff. And, no doubt, by the handsome Hunter Drexel, if Guy was right and he really had shown up here.
“Your friend told me you’d be coming.” Madame Dubonnet talked down her long nose at Tracy. She was clearly not fond of the company of younger, more attractive women.
“My friend? You mean Guy?”
“Guy? Who is Guy? No! The American. Monsieur Bowers.”
Mr. Bowers. Tracy smiled to herself. Jeff hadn’t used that one in a long time.
“Lovely man.” Madame Dubonnet’s eyes positively glowed.
“When did Mr. Bowers stop by here, out of interest?” Tracy asked.
“None of your business,” the old woman said tersely. “The point is that he warned me. ‘She will come here asking questions about her lover,’ he told me. And now you ’ave.”
Tracy frowned. “My lover?”
“Bah, oui! Of course, your lover! Monsieur Graham. Not that you are ’is only girlfriend, of course. Any man rich enough to play at Albert Dumas’s table keeps women like a beekeeper keeps bees. Buzz buzz buzz.”
Madame Dubonnet’s wrinkled mouth puckered up grotesquely as she made the buzzing bee sound.
“Naturally I make no judgment,” she added, looking at Tracy as a chef might look at a rat that had wandered into his kitchen. “But there are conventions here in Paris, even for the mistresses.”
Tracy pieced things together. Jeff had guessed Tracy would go to Guy, and that eventually she would follow him here. So he’d pumped Madame Dubonnet for information on Hunter, then convinced the old hag that Tracy was some sort of bunny-boiling bit on the side, here to cause Harry Graham trouble.
“Madame,” Tracy said firmly. “My friend Monsieur Bowers is mistaken. I am not Monsieur Graham’s mistress. Or anyone else’s mistress for that matter.”
Ignoring Tracy’s protests, Madame Dubonnet wagged an arthritic finger in her face, almost blinding Tracy with a five-carat sparkler.