by Stuart Woods
There came a disappointed roar through the phone.
“What was that?” Stone asked.
“Hang on, I’ll check,” Dino said. A moment later, he came back. “Somebody at Justice caught on; they’ve shut down the Web site. My detectives are crushed.”
“Excellent. Do not ever speak to me about this again. Goodbye.” Stone hung up and buried his face in his hands.
After a moment, he went upstairs and moved his mother’s picture to another spot in his bedroom.
30
STONE WENT DOWN to his office and sat at his desk, wondering if there were anything he could do to short-circuit the mess he was in. Joan buzzed him.
“Yes?”
“There’s somebody from Page Six at the New York Post on the phone for you. You want me to tell them to get lost?”
Worst thing he could do. “No, I’ll take it.” He picked up the phone, pressed the line one button and tried to sound bored. “Stone Barrington.”
“Mr. Barrington, this is Henry Stead, Page Six at the Post.”
“Good morning.”
“Have you visited the Justice Department Web site this morning?”
“Are you kidding? Who visits the Justice Department Web site?”
“A number of our readers, as it happens. Our phone is ringing off the hook.”
“What are you telling me? Have I been arrested and held without bail and deprived of legal counsel? I hadn’t noticed.”
“No, but there was a very interesting piece of video on the site this morning.”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me about it.”
“Are you acquainted with a Tiffany Baldwin, who is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York?”
“What, is there more than one Tiffany Baldwin who is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York? Yes, I know Ms. Baldwin.”
“Well, the video on the Web site features a woman who bears what some think is a striking resemblance to Ms. Baldwin.”
“Mr. Stead, I have a busy morning ahead of me. Do you have a point?”
“Well the woman in the video is naked and is apparently having sex with a man underneath her whose face is not visible.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t sound like the U.S. Attorney I know.”
“My question is, are you that man?”
“Mr. Stead, to the best of my knowledge, I have never been photographed having sex with anybody, let alone with the U.S. Attorney.”
“To the best of your knowledge, maybe. Could you have been videotaped having sex with Ms. Baldwin without your knowledge?”
“Certainly not.”
“So there has never been any video equipment present when you were having sex with Ms. Baldwin?”
“Mr. Stead, Ms. Baldwin has never been present when I was having sex. Are you beginning to get my drift?”
“Mr. Barrington, have you seen the video?”
“No, I have not. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.”
“So you think having sex with Tiffany Baldwin is not fun?”
“I would not be so ungallant as to characterize in that manner sex with a woman I have never had sex with.”
“But you and Ms. Baldwin have been seen in public together, having dinner at Elaine’s.”
“Mr. Stead, it is a very large leap from dining at Elaine’s to making sex videos for the Internet. Now you have my denial on record, and if you don’t already have Ms. Baldwin’s denial, I’m sure you soon will. Speaking as an attorney, I think you should consult with your newspaper’s legal counsel before printing any preposterous nonsense.”
“I will certainly do so, Mr. Barrington. Just one more question. Your mother was the painter, Matilda Stone, was she not?”
“Yes, all my life.”
“Do you have a painting of hers hanging in your bedroom? Because one appears in the video.”
“That’s two questions, Mr. Stead, but I should tell you that a number of my mother’s paintings have been reproduced and sold in the thousands in the shop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I imagine that they adorn many bedrooms. I bid you good morning.” He hung up, sweating again. He was getting tired of sweating.
Joan buzzed him again.
“Yes?”
“Lance Cabot has been holding on line two.”
“Great.” Stone pressed the button. “Lance, sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Stone, have you done anything to deal with the Internet video problem?”
“I’ve just denied everything, except knowing Tiffany Baldwin, to the New York Post, and I will continue to deny it to anyone who brings up the subject. I’ve also spoken to Tiffany, who denies it.”
“Good idea.”
“What is it, Lance? Am I somehow compromising the CIA’s reputation?”
“Not yet. Tell me, is there one of your mother’s paintings hanging on your bedroom wall?”
“I’ll tell you what I told the Post: My mother’s paintings have been reproduced and widely sold.”
“I’m going to send Sandy back over there to check out your alarm system.”
“Why?”
“Stone, there are, after all, publications that would stoop to sending photographers to surreptitiously enter your home and photograph your bedroom.”
“Oh, all right, send him over.”
“And, if I were you, I’d take that particular picture down, hide it, and hang a nice Keane portrait of a small child with big eyes in its place.”
“Thank you for the advice.”
“When you spoke to Ms. Baldwin, did you mention the matter of Billy Bob’s cell phone number?”
“As it happened, she mentioned it and took full credit.”
Joan buzzed and spoke on the intercom. “Stone, Tiffany Baldwin is on line one, and I think you’d better speak to her.”
“I’ll have to call you back, Lance.”
“Don’t bother.” Lance hung up.
Stone pressed the line one button. “Tiff?”
“You miserable sonofabitch,” she said. “Did you tell Page Six that I’m no fun in bed?”
“Absolutely not. Did they say that?”
“Yes, and a lot more.”
“I simply denied everything, as you asked, and as I would have done even if you hadn’t asked.”
“What about that picture on your bedroom wall?”
“That’s being dealt with.”
“Burn it.”
“My mother painted it.”
“All right, I’ll buy it from you.”
“It’s not for sale. Tiff, calm down. The video was taken off the Web site almost as soon as it appeared.”
“Yes, I saw to that.”
“Then there’s nothing to worry about. This will go away by tomorrow, and then . . .”
“And then nothing,” she said. “I never want to see you again.” She hung up.
“And just when it was going so well,” Stone said aloud to himself. He hung up the phone.
Joan buzzed again. “Stone?”
“Now what?”
“Someone to see you.”
“Who?” But his question was answered before she could speak. He looked up to find Arrington Carter Calder standing in the door to his office.
“Hello, Stone,” she said.
She stood there in a tight, short, brown dress, her hair golden, a sable coat over her shoulders, looking better than he had ever seen her. Something inside him melted, as it always did when she entered a room. She had not entered a room of his for more than two years, and a dinner they had had together in London a year before had ended disastrously. Involuntarily, as happened every time he saw her, he wondered whether he or the late movie star Vance Calder was the father of her son, Peter. And he wondered why she was here.
“Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?” she asked.
He got to his feet and walked around the desk to greet her. “Of course.” He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned so that their lips
met. “Come in and sit down. Would you like some coffee?”
She sat down on the sofa. “I’d like some lunch, but would you answer a question, first?”
“Sure.”
“This morning, on the Imus show, they were talking about something that seemed to involve you, something about your appearing in a sex video with the United States Attorney? Surely you aren’t gay, Stone, not you.”
31
THEY LUCKED INTO a table in the busy Grill Room of the Four Seasons, probably because Arrington was Vance Calder’s widow. When a bottle of Chardonnay had been brought and their lunch had been ordered, Stone began to explain.
“First of all, the U.S. Attorney is female; second, she has denied that the video is of her; third, I am not the person in bed with whoever the woman is.”
Arrington nodded. “All right, whatever you say.”
“Do I detect a note of disbelief in your voice?”
“Yes, you do. This is just the sort of trouble you’re always getting yourself into, Stone, and I know very well that there is one of your mother’s pictures on your bedroom wall.”
“I have done nothing whatever to get myself into trouble; it’s been done for me. And there are thousands of reproductions of my mother’s paintings on bedroom walls all over this city. They seem to have replaced Utrillo prints as the thing to exhibit one’s good taste in art.”
“Whatever you say.”
“While we’re speaking of my troubles, I’d like to take this opportunity, not having previously had one, to explain what happened when we were having dinner in London.”
“Are you referring to the occasion when you walked out of the Connaught Hotel’s restaurant and vanished into the night without a word?”
“I was arrested, sort of.”
“How do you get arrested, ‘sort of’?”
“The London police turned up at the Connaught and demanded to see me. They took me up to my suite and grilled me for more than an hour and would not allow me to leave or make phone calls. When I finally came back downstairs, you, quite understandably, were gone. All my efforts to contact you and apologize were fruitless.”
“Well, that’s a very entertaining story, even if I didn’t find it entertaining at the time. What were they grilling you about?”
“I can’t tell you; it’s a client confidentiality thing.”
“How convenient.”
“Oh, all right, I’ll tell you. The London police found a car with two dead Israeli Mossad agents in the trunk; one of them was wearing my raincoat.”
Arrington burst out laughing. “Stone, you should be writing novels, really you should. You’re able to come up with the most preposterous stories at the drop of a hat.”
“Arrington, have I ever lied to you?” This was a dangerous question, he knew.
“Of course you have.”
“On what occasion?” he demanded, trying to sound wounded.
“All right, all right, Stone,” she said, patting his hand, “I believe your story, even if it is preposterous, but may I ask a question? Just to see how quick you are?”
“What?”
“How did the dead Israeli agent end up wearing your raincoat?”
“He owned a nearly identical raincoat, and apparently, we had inadvertently exchanged them at a pub or a restaurant. Fortunately, I was able to show the police his raincoat, which was hanging in my closet.”
“You are a wonder, really you are.” She took his hand. “I’ve missed you.”
The melting inside him started again. “I’ve missed you, too,” he said, without missing a beat, and meaning it, even if she didn’t. “What brought you to New York?”
“You did, of course. I wanted to be near my New York friends—and you—again, so I’m looking at apartments.”
“If you really want to be near me, you needn’t buy an apartment; I have a perfectly good house.”
“I think it’s best if we don’t rush into things, don’t you? Our . . . distance, for want of a better word . . . has been a strain, at least on me, and . . .”
“On me, too.”
“Well, then, let’s take it slowly and see where it leads us. Anyway, I can’t be here all the time. Peter is starting school in the autumn, so I still have to be in Virginia much of the year.”
“It may surprise you to learn that there are very good schools in New York City.”
“I think the country life and the horses are better for him than adventure trips to Central Park. I’m not sure he’s the sort of boy who would thrive in the big city.”
“What sort of boy is he?”
“Sensitive, a bit shy. Happy to ride his pony, or spend the afternoon alone in the barn, grooming him.”
“He sounds a lot like me.”
“Now, let’s don’t start that again. As far as I’m concerned, Vance was his father.”
“Don’t you want to know for sure?”
“What would that solve?”
“It might supply him with a father. Don’t you think he needs one?”
“I don’t think he needs the confusion, and I would not look forward to explaining things to him. Now, let that be an end to it, please.”
“Whatever you wish.”
“Ah, just the words I long to hear from a man.”
“You’ve been manless for too long.”
“Oh? What makes you think so? There is an ample supply of men in Albemarle County.”
“Chinless wonders in baggy tweeds; wastrel trust-fund boys with no character.”
“Well, there is an element of that, but there are other types. Tell me, who have you been seeing?”
“Until this morning, the U.S. Attorney, but apparently, never again.”
“Are those the words she used?”
“That was a direct quote.”
“Well, you can hardly blame the woman, can you? What with all this unwanted notoriety.”
“I can’t be blamed, either, although she’s blaming me, anyway. It’s not my fault she has a doppelgänger disporting herself on the Internet.”
“But how did this get on the Justice Department Web site?”
“I’ve no idea, but it seems to have been done to embarrass her before her peers, and I certainly had no reason to do that. It seems the only thing I can do now is to try to stay out of federal court, lest I encounter her.”
“That would seem a good idea, in the circumstances.”
A young man in a bad suit with spiky hair stepped up to their table. “Hello, Mr. Barrington,” he said, “and Mrs. Calder.”
Stone looked at him, baffled. “Could you excuse us, please?”
“Well, yes, but the U.S. Attorney probably won’t. Do you have any comment for our viewing audience?”
“What viewing audience?” Stone asked, looking around.
The young man pointed to his lapel, to which was pinned a round object. “Right here,” he said. “Twenty million Americans watch us every night, right after the news. Our viewers want to know your side of the Internet sex scandal.”
The headwaiter suddenly appeared at their table, looking distastefully at the young man. “Is everything all right, Mr. Barrington?” He asked.
“This gentleman seems to be using a hidden camera to videotape your guests,” Stone said. “I think he needs your assistance in leaving.”
The headwaiter took the young man’s elbow and marched him toward the stairs. “My apologies, Mr. Barrington,” he called over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry about that,” Stone said to Arrington.
Arrington shook her head. “Not the way I wanted to reenter New York life,” she said, folding her napkin and laying it on the table. “I’d like to go now, and we’d better find another way out of the restaurant. I have a feeling there will be a knot of cameras at the front door.”
Stone waved for a check.
32
WHEN STONE GOT BACK to his house, after putting Arrington into a cab for the Carlyle Hotel, a thicket of seedy men with cameras surrou
nded his doorstep.
“What do you want?” Stone asked, playing the innocent.
A hail of questions swept over him. He held up his hands for silence. “Listen carefully; I’m going to give you a statement.”
They became suddenly rapt.
“This morning somebody called me about a videotape on a government Web site. I haven’t seen it; I had nothing to do with it; I’m sure it did not contain images of any government official. Sounds to me like you’ve all confused that image with some innocent person. Go away.” He elbowed his way through the crowd and let himself into the house, leaning on the door to catch his breath.
“Hi.”
Stone jumped about a foot. “Sandy, what are you doing here?”
“Lance sent me over to look at your alarm system, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot.”
“It had been disabled.”
“What?”
“Somebody had set it up so that it seemed to behave normally when you entered your code, either arriving or departing, but it was doing absolutely nothing. They could have kicked in the door, come upstairs and shot you in your bed, and the alarm would have been completely useless. I’m referring to video shooting, of course.”
“Did you fix it?”
“Yes, but—I’ve already told your secretary this—I would be very careful from now on about who you let into the house. Be suspicious of plumbers and, especially, electricians.”
“I will be suspicious of them. Thank you.”
“Call Lance if you need me again.”
“I certainly will. Maybe you’d better leave through the garden, unless you want to be on Hard Gossip tonight. I don’t think Lance would like that.”
“Right.”
Stone let him out into the garden and instructed him on how to reach the street, then he went to his office.
Joan came in. “Did Sandy tell you about the alarm?”
“Yes, he did.”
“What’s going on?”
“I wish I knew.”
She leaned against the doorjamb and grinned. “So, how’s Arrington?”