Alain des Baux announced as he held the door of the taxi for Sam. “Take your pick.” They had left the Lamborghini valet-parked at Maxim’s and taken a taxicab to Montmartre, and now Sam could see why. No one in their right mind would leave a $150,000 sports car on the street in the Place Pigalle even if one could find a parking place. Paris’s nightclub area was just as garish and neon-filled, just as tough-looking as New York’s Forty-second Street and Times Square. The sidewalks were full of milling crowds on a hot spring night and, she noticed as Alain took her by the arm and steered her across the street, there were plenty of loitering night people watching the tourists from the doorways. Pigalle’s thoroughfare was jammed with Americans. From the way heads turned, Sam had the uncomfortable feeling she and Alain were a little too conspicuously dressed, especially since the man with her was wearing an impeccable Caraceni charcoal silk suit and a massive Cartier gold wristwatch.
