by Stuart Woods
“Who’s this?”
“Don’t give me a hard time. I’m in a car on the way to Elaine’s; that’s where you are, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll be there shortly.” She punched off.
“Was that Felicity?” Elaine asked.
“It was Carpenter,” he replied.
“Her last name is Devonshire,” Elaine said. “Why do you call her Carpenter?”
“It was how she introduced herself at our first encounter,” Stone said.
“I don’t get it.”
“She had an associate named Mason and another named Plumber.”
“What is she, an English cop?”
“Elaine, if I told you any more, she’d have to kill you.”
“Enough said,” Elaine said, throwing up her hands. “And here she is,” she said, looking toward the door.
Carpenter walked in and came to the table. “Dino will be here in a minute,” she said, pecking him on the cheek.
“How do you know that?” Stone asked.
“Because we came here in his car.”
Dino came in, a newspaper tucked under his arm, and sat down. “Evening, all,” he said.
Elaine reached over and patted his cheek affectionately.
“Wait a minute,” Stone said. “What were you and Dino doing in the same car?”
Carpenter smiled. “You’re beautiful when you’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“No?” she said, frowning.
After his session with Elena Marks, Stone was glad she could still frown. “I’m just curious.”
“Should we tell him, Dino?” Carpenter asked.
“Nah,” Dino said. “Let him sweat.”
“I’m not sweating,” Stone said.
“Sure you are,” Dino replied.
“He’s sweating,” Carpenter agreed.
“Yeah,” Elaine said.
“Okay, don’t tell me,” he said to Carpenter. “You want a drink and some dinner?”
“Yes, please. I’ll start with one of those bourbon whiskies.”
Stone flagged down a waiter. “Bring her what I’m having,” he said.
“And what are you having?” Carpenter asked.
“Unborn calf,” Stone replied. “With a very nice sauce.”
“Sounds yummy,” she replied. “Okay, Dino and I were in the same meeting.”
“About what?” Stone asked, puzzled.
“If we told you, we’d have to kill you,” Dino said.
Elaine roared with laughter, then she got up and hopped to another table.
“You know,” Carpenter said, “your Herbie Fisher character wasn’t entirely useless.”
“That’s right,” Dino said, flipping idly through the Post.
“You mean, because of the picture he took?”
“Can you think of any other way he wasn’t entirely useless?” Dino asked.
“Now that you mention it, no.” He turned to Carpenter. “You said it was the only one in existence. What did you mean by that?”
“I meant it’s the only one in existence.”
“Thank you for the clarification. Why is it the only one in existence?”
“Because she has scrupulously avoided ever being photographed.”
“In her entire life?”
“Since she was about twelve, in school.”
“Why?”
“Because she doesn’t want anybody to know what she looks like.”
“All right,” Stone said. “Who is she?”
“She’s a woman who goes around assassinating people,” Carpenter said. “And the luckiest thing in your life is that she doesn’t know you’re responsible for the only photograph ever taken of her.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Dino said, handing Carpenter the Post and tapping an item on Page Six.
Carpenter read aloud. “ ‘Rumor has it that the strange death of Lawrence Fortescue (Mr. Elena Marks), caused by a peeper photographer who fell through a skylight while taking candid snaps of Mr. M. and a certain young lady doing disgusting things to each other, was organized by a fairly sleazy Gotham “lawyer,” with a very “hard” name, who hired the falling photog. Any guesses? We’ll bet he’s supping tonight at Elaine’s.” ’
Carpenter put the paper down. “Oh, shit,” she said.
“Oh, yeah,” Dino agreed.
14
Stone looked at Dino and Carpenter narrowly. “I hope this is some kind of joke.”
“I’m afraid not,” Carpenter said seriously. “My people are very interested in finding her, and they asked me to liaise with the NYPD. That’s why Dino and I were in the same meeting. Since we were already acquainted, I picked him to liaise with.”
“Who is this woman?” Stone asked.
“I’ll tell you all we know about her, and believe me, it won’t take long. She was born Marie-Thérèse du Bois, in Zurich, of a Swiss father and an Egyptian mother, but she doesn’t use that name anymore, because if she did, she might get caught.”
“Tell me all of it.”
“Little Marie-Thérèse grew up in Switzerland and in Egypt, and she was something of a whiz with languages, being exposed to four—the usual Swiss three, plus her mother’s Arabic—while growing up. Even as a girl, her hobby was studying languages. In addition to her native tongues, she picked up Farsi, Urdu, and some Hindi. Her father imported Middle Eastern products to Switzerland—rugs, olive oil, dates, pottery—whatever he could turn a profit on, and he was very prosperous, ended up rich, in fact. She traveled with him often around the Mediterranean basin, picking up Spanish and Greek along the way. She’d sit in hotel rooms, watching local television and conjugating verbs.”
“Good God, how many languages does she speak?”
“Nobody knows, but I’d guess at least a dozen, and with perfect accents in various dialects.”
“So, why does she go around killing people?”
“When she was twenty, my firm and the CIA were pursuing the members of a terrorist organization in Cairo who had been killing foreign tourists. We received a tip that half a dozen members of the group would be traveling in a white Renault van along a major boulevard, en route to planting some explosives. Cooperating with Egyptian intelligence, our people set up an elaborate trap for them at an intersection. There wasn’t supposed to be any traffic to speak of. Unfortunately, Marie-Thérèse and her parents were driving home from a very late party in another white van, and someone fired a rocket launcher at the wrong vehicle. Her parents were both killed instantly, but Marie-Thérèse, who was asleep in the third seat, was blown clear and survived with only scratches.
“She retreated to her Cairo home and became reclusive, but she was bitter about her parents’ death. She refused compensation from all three governments, but then she was a wealthy young woman, having inherited two large houses and her father’s considerable fortune.
“She had a boyfriend, an Irani, whose politics extended to extreme violence, and we think she was recruited by the boy and sent to a terrorist training camp in Libya, where she made contacts among others of her kind from Ireland, Japan, Germany, and God knows where else.
“She was trained in firearms, explosives, and chemical weapons, but her handlers, when they learned of her language skills, thought her meant for better things. They taught her assassination skills, document forging, and just about anything else a budding terrorist could possibly want to know, keeping her interest by telling her they would help her find the people responsible for her parents’ death so she could kill them. She also became very physically fit in the desert, and she’s known to work out almost obsessively, wherever she goes.
“When she finished her schooling in Libya, she returned to Cairo, then Zurich, selling her two houses and secreting the money in accounts around the world. Some say her holdings ran to several tens of millions of dollars. She returned to Cairo and, in effect, ceased to exist. The little we know of her since then comes from rumors and a couple of very aggressi
ve interrogations of people who knew her.
“She seems to have assassinated two Egyptian politicians who held views unpopular with her terrorist friends. She shot one in the head while he waited in his car at a traffic signal, then calmly boarded a bus and rode away. That evening, she dropped cyanide, or something like it, in the other’s drink in a crowded restaurant, then climbed out the ladies’-room window while he was still in his death throes. We think she performed half a dozen other such jobs over the next couple of years. Her handlers realized that they had a very valuable commodity on their hands, and they strung her along by telling her they were making progress in learning the names and locations of her parents’ killers. They were lying, of course.
“Finally, she became impatient. She kidnapped the head of our Cairo station and tortured him until he gave the names of everyone involved in the operation,” Carpenter said calmly. “Then she cut his throat and watched him bleed to death. The body, naked and very damaged, was deposited on the steps of the British embassy.”
“Then she started hunting them?” Stone asked.
“Yes. The Americans were the first and easiest target. They were husband and wife. Both worked in their embassy in Cairo, and she fire-bombed their apartment while they slept.
“The British contingent, four of them, took longer. She garotted one in a railway station men’s room in Bonn. The other, she stabbed with a poisoned umbrella tip as he walked across Chelsea Bridge, in London.” Carpenter started to continue, but stopped.
“Go on,” Stone said.
“She murdered Lawrence Fortescue the night before last,” Carpenter said quietly.
“Larry Fortescue was a member of your service?”
“He was the man I told you about, the one I had a relationship with who decided to work abroad. He came here two years ago, married Elena Marks, and resigned from the firm.”
“So she got them all,” Stone said. “One by one.”
“No,” Carpenter said, “not all. She hasn’t gotten me yet.”
“You?”
“It was my first assignment abroad,” she said. “I went along merely as an observer.”
Stone gulped. “Does she know you’re in New York?”
“I don’t know,” Carpenter replied. “But I’m moving out of your house tonight, and into a hotel.”
“But why? You’re safe with me.”
“Stone,” Dino said, tapping the newspaper on the table, “if little Marie-Thérèse, or one of her friends, happens to read today’s Post, she’ll know that the taking of her picture was instigated by a certain lawyer with a ‘hard’ name.”
“But that’s not enough to identify me, surely.”
“And,” Dino said, “she knows where you’re dining tonight.”
Stone looked slowly around Elaine’s. He saw half a dozen women who could have been the woman in the photograph.
“Do you think this Marie . . . what’s her name . . .”
Carpenter spoke up. “She picked up a sobriquet in Paris, after murdering a member of the French cabinet. Interpol calls her ‘La Biche.’ And yes, she could be here tonight.”
Stone pushed back his chair. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
15
Dino’s driver took them to Stone’s house, where Carpenter packed her bags, then they were driven to the Lowell, a small, elegant hotel on East Sixty-third Street, off Madison Avenue.
They were met at the door by the night manager, who, without bothering to register Carpenter, took them directly to a suite on the top floor.
“Are you known here?” Stone asked when the manager had gone and the bellman had deposited her luggage in the bedroom.
“My firm is,” she said. “We’ve used the hotel often. We missed out on dinner; should we order something?”
They dined in the room on Dover sole and a good bottle of California Chardonnay, and without much conversation.
“So Dino,” Stone said when the dishes had been cleared, “I guess you’ve put out an APB for this woman.”
“Pretty tough, putting out an APB without a description,” Dino replied, looking at the dessert menu.
“Description? You’ve got a photograph of her!”
“Yeah, well,” Dino replied.
Carpenter went to her purse and brought back a sheet of paper. “Here’s what the CIA’s photo people were able to come up with,” she said, handing it to Stone.
He opened the paper to see a rather bland face, framed by long, dark hair—straight nose, big eyes.
“The photograph Herbie took was of her looking up, so only her hair, forehead, eyes, and nose were visible, no jaw, and the hair was a wig.”
“This could be nearly anybody,” Stone said.
“Exactly. La Biche’s stock-in-trade is looking like anybody. She can walk through the toughest airport security and pass herself off as an American businesswoman or a French fashion designer, an Italian countess, or a Spanish nun.”
“I thought, what with electronics, it was getting harder to use false passports. Every time I’ve used mine, it gets swiped through a reader, and my information pops up on a screen.”
“All true, but over the years there have been numerous thefts of blank passports from embassies and consulates all over the world, which solves the problem of paper authenticity, and if such thefts can be concealed for a few days or weeks, the numbers don’t come up as stolen when going through immigration. It’s very, very tough to catch somebody when your suspect is using real paper.”
“I would imagine,” Stone said.
The phone rang, and Carpenter went to answer it. “Yes? No, absolutely not. It would attract the attention of anybody who knew what to look for. Are you trying to make me a marked woman?” She paused and listened. “Well, that makes sense, I suppose, though the thought doesn’t really appeal. Oh, all right, send them over.” She hung up and returned to the table.
“What was that?” Stone asked.
“First, they wanted to put a team on me, which I thought was a bad idea. Even if they’re very good, they can be spotted.”
“But you agreed to something,” Stone pointed out.
“The CIA is sending somebody over to see me.”
The doorbell rang.
“That was quick,” Stone said.
“Too quick,” Dino said, shoving his chair away from the table.
“Go into the bedroom,” Stone said to Carpenter. He went to the door, while Dino took up a position beside it, gun drawn. He looked through the peephole and saw a young woman—light brown hair, medium height, slim. “It’s a woman,” he said. “Ready?”
Dino nodded.
Stone put the chain on the door and opened it. “Yes?” he said.
“Carpenter,” the woman replied.
“I don’t understand,” Stone said. “If you need a carpenter, see the manager.”
The woman produced an ID. “I’m here on official business.”
“It’s all right,” Carpenter said from behind Stone. “I know her. Come on in, Arlene.”
Stone unhooked the door and admitted the woman, who was carrying a small suitcase.
“Stone, Dino, this is Arlene,” Carpenter said.
Arlene nodded. “Let’s go into the bathroom,” she said to Carpenter.
Stone and Dino watched CNN while water ran and a hair dryer made noise behind the door. Forty-five minutes later, Arlene emerged from the bathroom. “May I introduce my friend, Susan Kinsolving?”
Carpenter emerged, nearly unrecognizable. Her brown hair was now a pronounced auburn, and though she usually wore little makeup, she was now pretty much a painted woman.
“Hi, there,” Carpenter said in a Midwestern American accent.
“Hate the accent,” Stone said.
“Get used to it, buddy,” Carpenter replied.
“Let’s get you outfitted with some ID,” Arlene said, opening her suitcase. “Have a seat.”
Carpenter pulled up a chair.
“Okay, here’s y
our American passport. It was issued three years ago and has a dozen stamps from Europe and the Caribbean. We’ve already changed the hair color. You’re a marketing executive with a computer company in San Francisco. Here are your business cards and some stationery. The company knows your name, and if anyone calls there, you have a secretary and voice mail. You were born in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, thirty-four years ago, educated in the public schools there and at Mount Holyoke College, in western Massachusetts. You have, in your wallet, in addition to your California driver’s license and credit cards—all valid—an alumni association membership card. You’re registered at the hotel under the Kinsolving name.” She pulled out half a dozen sheets of paper, stapled together. “Here’s your legend. Memorize it.”
Carpenter flipped through the sheets. “Very thorough.” She turned to Stone. “What do you think?” she asked, tossing her hair.
“Very nice, Susan. You want to have dinner sometime?”
Stone and Dino sat in the back of Dino’s car, rolling down Park Avenue.
“Dino, a favor?”
“What do you need?”
“Since Larry Fortescue’s death has been established as murder, would you feel comfortable calling the DA’s office and letting them know that? I’d like to get the charges dismissed, and then I can plead Herbie down to a misdemeanor and get him probation.”
“Sure, I’ll call down there first thing. You know who the ADA is?”
“Call the deputy DA and do it through him. It’ll be faster.”
“Okay.”
They pulled into Stone’s block.
“Slow down,” Dino said, checking both sides of the street. “Stop here.” The car rolled to a stop in front of Stone’s house. Dino got out and looked around. “Okay,” he said, waving Stone out of the car.
“Come on, Dino,” Stone said, “you’re creeping me out.”
But Dino stood by the car, his gun in his hand, until Stone was inside.
16
Florence Tyler left the brownstone on West Tenth Street and strolled slowly through Greenwich Village, looking into bars and restaurants and, occasionally, checking a menu posted in a window. It was nearly six o’clock, and she was dressed in a business suit and carried a Fendi purse. Then she saw what she was looking for.