by Stuart Woods
“Describe her.”
Amanda closed her eyes. “Fiftyish, but she’d had work done, so she could have been sixty, fashionably dressed: Chanel pantsuit, hair so good it might have been a wig, bright red lipstick.” She opened her eyes. “That’s all I remember.”
“That was very good,” Stone said. “I apologize, I don’t really think you drugged me.”
“But somebody did?”
“I have no recollection of even being on the airplane, I don’t know why I’m in Paris, and I don’t remember meeting you.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“Because I thought you might tell me something. And you have. I’m grateful to you.”
“Then I’m no longer under suspicion?”
“You’re off the hook.”
She clinked her glass against his. “Then let’s start over.”
10
By the time they were on dessert, most of the previous tension between them had passed, and they were chatting amiably.
“Tell me,” Stone said, “why did you buy the book?”
“I’d read something about it on Page Six of the Post.” She held up a hand as if to ward him off. “Yes, I confess, I’m a regular reader. I didn’t know I would be sitting across the aisle from one of the subjects, not until I opened the book and saw the photographs.”
“There are photographs?”
“Quite a few, including some taken at the Virginia house where . . .”
“Where Arrington was murdered.”
“Yes. It’s a very beautiful house. Do you still own it?”
“No. After a feature about the house appeared in Architectural Digest, it began attracting interest. I accepted an offer on behalf of my son’s trust a few months later.”
“Your son’s story was the one part of the book that wasn’t very clear.”
“It’s best that way. I don’t want him bothered.”
“Where is he now?”
“At the Yale School of Drama. He’ll be graduating this winter.”
“Winter?”
“He’s on an accelerated course, ahead of most of his class. He and two friends are on a parallel track, and they’ll graduate with him.”
“Is one of them his girlfriend, the pianist?”
“Yes, she’s studying composition. The other is his friend Ben Bacchetti, who’s majoring in theater production and business.”
“Do they all have plans together?”
“They do. They want to make films together—Peter writing and directing, Ben producing, and Hattie scoring.”
“Sounds like quite a team. Do you think they’ll get anything produced?”
Stone smiled. “You’ll recall from the book that Peter’s stepfather was the actor Vance Calder. As a result, Peter’s trust is the largest stockholder in Centurion Studios.”
She laughed. “Well, I guess they’ll get produced.”
“Yes, and they’ll make their artistic home at Centurion.”
Stone paid the bill and they left the restaurant. “Is it too cold out, or would you like to walk a bit?” he asked.
“Let’s do that.”
They wandered down the Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt, took a right, and strolled aimlessly into a neighborhood of small shops and houses.
“Tell me,” Stone said, “is there anything mysterious about your life?”
“Mysterious?”
“Enigmatic, surreptitious, cloaked.”
“That’s an odd question,” she said. “Why did you ask it?”
“Why didn’t you answer it?”
“I asked you first.”
“All right: a man in a car has been following us with his headlights off since we left Lasserre. Don’t look back, check the reflection in the shop window coming up.”
She did so. “And you think he’s following me?”
“Tell me what you think.”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Do you have any reason to fear for your safety?”
“Not until just a moment ago. I see the car now.”
“Anyone you know?”
“I can’t see the driver—glare on the windscreen.”
“Do you think we should run for it?”
“I’ve a better idea: my hotel, the San Régis, is a few yards ahead. You can drop me there and take your chances with the assassin, if that’s what he is.”
“You would deny me shelter from an assassin?”
“I would deny you my bed, at least for the moment. I have a prejudice against first-date performances. You can wait in the lobby until he moves on.”
They reached the hotel. “Good night,” he said. “I hope to live to see you again.”
She laughed. “Somehow, I think you’ll manage.” She pecked him on the cheek and went inside.
Stone left the hotel and walked back in the direction he had come. The car sat idling, its lights off. Stone grasped the front passenger door handle, opened the door, and got in. “You’re a very clumsy surveillant,” he said to Rick LaRose. “Your trainers at the Farm would be ashamed of you.”
“Promise not to tell them,” Rick replied, putting the car in gear and driving away.
“Why are you following me?”
“What makes you think I’m following you?” Rick asked.
“Is there something about Ms. Hurley that I don’t know?”
“A great deal,” Rick replied. “Almost everything, in fact.”
“Tell me.”
“Tell me what she told you.”
“Small-town girl, Harvard, the Met, Sotheby’s, art world, curator.”
“That’s all true, as far as it goes.”
“What did she leave out?”
“The part about her recruitment in college, her extensive training, her clandestine service in the art worlds of London and Paris.”
“Recruitment by whom?”
“Us.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh. If she didn’t mention that, then she certainly didn’t mention the suspicions that arose about her—that she was fucking a member of the opposition and might have been turned.”
“Was she booted out of the Agency?”
“You might say she resigned under a cloud after failing two polygraphs. Charges were never brought, either administrative or criminal. She is, however, on the watch list of every airport security team and major intelligence service in the world, and she will never again go anywhere or do anything that a lot of people won’t know about.”
“Is she dangerous?”
“Only to your reputation.”
“Is she in danger?”
“Only from you.”
“Why from me?”
“Because we’re not the only ones keeping track of you. Twice I’ve spotted a tail. And you will have made them interested in her.”
“By whom am I being tailed? Apart from you, I mean.”
“We were never able to make an ID. But I expect we’ll have other opportunities.”
“Am I a threat to someone?”
“That remains to be seen.” The car came to a halt outside the Plaza Athénée. “Good night, sleep tight,” Rick said.
Stone got out of the car. “Should I look over my shoulder?” he asked through the open window.
“Never look over your shoulder. Look at the reflections in the shop windows. Elementary tradecraft.”
He drove away.
11
Stone had finished his breakfast and was working on the International Herald Tribune crossword, which is to say the New York Times crossword, when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“I’m relieved to find that you are still alive,” Amanda Hurley said.
“So am I.”
“Di
d you have any further trouble?”
“The car was gone when I left the hotel.”
“Good. Thank you for a lovely dinner. I haven’t been to Lasserre in years, and it’s good to find that it hasn’t changed. Everything else has.”
“I am in complete agreement with both your points.”
“Do you enjoy art?”
“I do.”
“If you’d like to see some, I’ll buy you lunch and we’ll visit some galleries.”
“Sounds good.”
“Do you know Brasserie Lipp?”
“I do.”
“There at one o’clock?”
“You’re on.”
“Bye.” She hung up. His cell phone began ringing.
“Hello?”
“It’s Holly.” Something was strange in her voice.
“Hi. Is something wrong?”
“I just read a cable from our station in St. Marks.” This was a Caribbean island where she and Stone had spent some time a few years back.
“Yes?”
“There was a crash at the St. Barts airport late yesterday afternoon. Our station head’s name was on the passenger list. No survivors.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You knew him. You met him when we were in St. Marks.”
“I remember. I recall that there’s a very short runway at St. Barts.”
“There’s more,” she said. “The names of Mr. and Mrs. D. Bacchetti were also on the passenger list.”
Stone froze, unable to speak.
“They were in St. Barts on their honeymoon, weren’t they?”
“Yes,” Stone said. “Do you have any way of confirming this?”
“I’ve dispatched someone from our station in St. Marks to St. Barts to make an identification of our man, and I’ve asked him to confirm the other names, too.”
“Will you let me know?” Stone asked.
“Of course I will. I’m not going to believe any of this until our officer has investigated thoroughly.”
“Thank you for calling,” Stone said. They both hung up.
This was impossible, Stone thought; this couldn’t be happening. He thought about what he should do, and he knew that Dino’s son, Ben, would have to be told. But not yet. Not until the confirmation came in. He called the concierge.
“Concierge desk.”
“This is Mr. Barrington.”
“Yes, Mr. Barrington. How may I serve you?”
“I need a seat on the next flight to St. Barts, in the Caribbean.”
“Of course. There is a flight in the early afternoon. May I call you back?”
“Yes, please.”
Stone was experiencing tiny flashbacks of his friendship with Dino—their time together as partners on the NYPD, their travel together, their hundreds of nights at Elaine’s. It couldn’t end like this.
The phone rang. “Yes?”
“Mr. Barrington, it’s the concierge. The daily Air France flight to St. Martin is fully booked, and there is a considerable waiting list. I took the liberty of booking you on tomorrow’s flight. It departs de Gaulle at two P.M. and arrives in St. Martin at five P.M. You have to take a short flight from there to St. Barts, and I have you a tentative reservation on the first flight the day after tomorrow.”
“Tentative?”
“Apparently, the regular flight to St. Barts crashed yesterday, and the service has been temporarily disrupted because of a shortage of aircraft to cover all their flights. Their spare airplane is out of service.”
“You’d better get me a hotel room in St. Martin, then.”
“I have already taken the liberty of doing that. Will you be returning to Paris?”
Stone thought for a second. “I don’t know yet.” He still didn’t know why he was in Paris, and he wanted to know.
He went and stood in the shower for a long time.
12
Stone got dressed and sat on the edge of his bed for a few minutes, trying to think of every way this news could be wrong. He knew Dino and Viv were in St. Barts; their names were on the passenger manifest. But why? They should have arrived in St. Barts days ago. Could they have gone to another island for some reason, then returned? He could not get his mind off what he was going to have to say to Ben Bacchetti.
He called Amanda Hurley’s hotel to break their luncheon date: no answer at her room, and he didn’t have her cell number. There was a strange buzzing noise, and he suddenly realized that his cell phone was dancing across the glass desktop. He ran for it; had to be Holly, maybe with good news.
“Hello?” He was short of breath.
“Stone?” A man’s voice.
“Yes?” Why didn’t he hurry up and talk?
“It’s Dino.”
“What?”
“It’s Dino. What’s the matter, do we have a bad connection?”
His brain thrashed through the gears of recognizing the voice. “Dino?”
“I told you twice.”
That was Dino. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“And Viv?”
“Just fine. Did somebody call you?”
“Holly called, said you were on the passenger manifest of the airplane that crashed yesterday.”
“I heard about that. It was a Mr. and Mrs. David Bacchetti, of Denver, Colorado, no relation that I know of.”
“There are two Bacchettis?”
“There are lots of them, but mostly in Italy.”
“Then you’re alive?”
“Do I sound dead?”
“No more than usual.”
“Somebody called our hotel and told me to call you. Are you in New York?”
“I’m in Paris.”
“Why the fuck are you in Paris?”
“I have no idea.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, and it’s too early in the day for you to be drunk. I mean, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“I was hoping you could tell me what happened after your wedding.”
“Stone, I haven’t talked with you since the wedding. How would I know why you’re in Paris?”
“I lost four days.”
“What did you do with them?”
“All I know is that I spent one night on a flight to Paris. The rest is a blank.”
“Are you feeling all right, Stone?”
“I am now, but I was drugged when I got to Paris.”
“Who would want to drug you in Paris?”
“I mean, on the airplane. Somebody drugged me then. I apparently managed to get through the airport and into a cab under my own steam, then I passed out, and the driver went through my pockets, then took me to the American Embassy, where Holly’s people took care of me.”
“You need me to come to Paris?”
“Hell, no! I want you to enjoy your honeymoon!”
“Okay, I’ll be sure and do that. What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to try to find out what happened during those four lost days.”
“And you think sleeping with a few Parisiennes is going to make that happen?”
“Come on, Dino.”
“Well, that’s your usual solution to any problem. What’s the matter, aren’t there enough women in Paris?”
“More than enough.”
“Well, eventually one of them will enlighten you.”
“Funny you should mention that, it’s what I hoped would happen.”
“How many have you tried so far?”
“Only two.”
“You’d better get your ass in gear, then.”
“I’ll do that. I’m glad you’re not dead, Dino. I already had a plane to St. Barts boo
ked.”
“That’s sweet of you, kiddo, but what I’m doing here, I don’t need any help. Call me if you need me.”
“Will do.” They hung up. Stone couldn’t seem to get enough air in his lungs. He walked around the room taking deep breaths, swinging his arms and mopping his sweaty face on his sleeve. He looked at his watch: a quarter to one.
He went downstairs and asked the concierge to cancel his travel plans, then he got a cab to Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Before he entered Brasserie Lipp, he leaned against a streetlamp, pressing his forehead against the cool metal, then he took a few more deep breaths and went inside.
13
Amanda was already sitting at a good table. Stone sat down, his back to the room, and patted his forehead with his napkin.
“I saw you outside leaning against the pole,” she said. “You looked as though you were screwing up your courage to come in here. Is it me?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“What was that, then?”
“I just got some good news.”
“That’s how you react to good news? I’m glad it wasn’t bad news.”
“I got the bad news earlier and had to sweat it out until I got the good news.”
“What was the good news?”
“That the bad news wasn’t true.”
“What was the bad news?”
“That a friend of mine—no, my best friend in the world—and his new wife were killed in an airplane crash in St. Barts on their honeymoon.”
“But the good news fixed that?”
“Yes, the couple killed had the same surname.”
“And how did you hear about this?”
“A friend called me from the States.”
“So everything is all right now?”
“Yes, everything.”
“I gave the maître d’ your name, and he didn’t put me upstairs with the tourists. I’m impressed. How long since you were here?”
“Yesterday.”
“Oh. I should have suggested someplace else.”
“This is just fine—in fact, it’s my favorite place in Paris.”
“And you have a high tolerance for choucroute?”
“I do.” Stone flagged down a waiter and ordered the dish for both of them. “And a beer?” he asked Amanda.