Last Resort A Moroccan Mystery

A Lunch Date At Drones they had given him a table shoved into a corner by the staircase, shrouded in a profusion of greenery. When he leaned to the left, the branch of a kentia tree lightly caressed the nape of his neck as a motley assortment of aromaschile con carne, gnocchi with four-cheese sauce, mandarin soufflewafted up the shaft of the spiral staircase. At least they had not condemned him to the arctic zone, the downstairs dining room, or, in other words, the shadowy underworld where the maitre d' normally sends pariahs. Molinet leaned back a bit in his chair. He had arrived ten minutes early, as was his habit, and he allowed his eyes to wander about the restaurant in search of a familiar face. There wasn't a single one. It had been years since he'd last lunched at Drones, and he was pleased at how little the place had changed. The same black-and-white-tiled floor, the same red chairs, even the maitre d' seemed familiaran old waiter. The walls were the same as ever, which was just as well, since they were, after all, the main attraction at Drones. Years earlier, when David Niven, Jr., had taken over the restaurant, he had decided to decorate it with a rather curious collection of photographs. The photographs' subjects looked like nothing more than a bunch of anonymous children, but the waiters were quick to explain that the youthful faces were actually those of actors, star- lets, well-known beautiful people, and many of old Mr. Niven's Hollywood colleagues and cronies. There were large photos, small photos, color photos, and black-and-white photos, and they all served as entertainment for the neophytes, who would either study them and try to guess who was who or else use them as conversation fillers when the chitchat waned. Molinet gracefully unfolded his napkin. He had never fallen prey to that temptation, not even with the dullest of companions. He considered himself a sterling conversationalist, and even when desperate, he never permitted himself to stop something so trite. Now it was different, however, for he was alone, and so he decided to take a look at the photographs closest to him. He couldn't identify a single person in them until, finally, he thought he could make out . . . was that Sophia Loren in her First Communion dress? Yes, that just might be her, a homely little girl whose lovely eyes were not quite able to distract the viewer's attention from her rather disproportionate-size mouth. Seven years. Seven long years away from this world, thought Molinet. Too long, he thought, to have been so far removed from all this. It was a relief to see that all these worldly things had remained more or less the samepleasures, after all, change very little. That was precisely what he admired about London: A man could really believe in a city where five, ten, even fifteen years could go by and the same restaurant would still be in fashion. This thought, however, was just a momentary digression, and Molinet immediately decided to abandon this line of thinking. The last few years had been a parenthesis, a black hole to which he did not wish to dedicate even five minutes of his luncheon, for he had returned to the land of the livingin fact, he had even organized a little excursion to celebrate his return, and right then his only concern was Fernanda and her imminent arrival. It was one-thirty on the dot and he was beginning to get hungry. He realized that at least twenty years had gone by since he'd last heard from his niece. He had been quite surprised when she had called him. Could this possibly be Fernanda's first trip to London, in all this time? Probably not, but it might very well be her first trip without her husband, which would explain why she had come to call upon her old uncle. [read more]