“Call me Linda,” she said, waving him to a sofa and taking a seat at the other end.
“Linda, it is.” He sat. “And I’m Stone.”
“I’ve heard good words about you from the president and the first lady.”
“They have always been kind to me.”
“I witnessed the effects of what I heard was your influence at the convention,” she said. “To hear some tell it, you were instrumental in Kate’s getting the nomination.”
“Reports of my influence are exaggerated. I was happy to help where I could. I would very much like to see Kate win the presidency.”
“So would I,” she said. “I’m having a good time in Paris, and I wouldn’t mind being reappointed.”
“You’ve been here, what, a year?”
“Fourteen months. Not long enough. Tell me, Stone, why is everybody trying to kill you?”
“I hope not everybody, but I seem to have run afoul of a bunch of mad Russians.”
“So I hear. What do they have to gain by your death?”
“They want the Arrington hotels, but they won’t get them, no matter what they do to me. There’s an element of revenge involved, too.”
“Revenge for what?”
“They think I was somehow involved in the death of a man named Yuri Majorov, who, apparently, was their leader.”
“Him I know about. I heard it was of natural causes, aboard his own airplane.”
“I heard that, too, but apparently Yuri’s brother, Yevgeny, is a suspicious man, and he needs someone to be suspicious of. I seem to fill the bill.”
“All right, I won’t dig any more deeply into this with you, but I’m not getting a lot of answers out of the Agency’s Rick LaRose, either.”
“Rick may be as confused as I am, but he is doing his best to keep my hair from being mussed.”
“I throw a lot of dinner parties around here,” she said. “They’re good business, and I can always use a spare man. May I invite you to something?”
“That would be an honor.”
“You may have to put up with some boring women.”
“Women are rarely boring,” Stone said. “On the whole, I prefer their company to that of men, who are often boring.”
“Tomorrow evening at eight, at my residence?”
“I’d be delighted.”
“I hear it won’t be necessary to send a car for you.”
“Rick has seen to that.”
“Lance Cabot spends money on the oddest things and seems to get away with it.”
“I’m not surprised.”
She stood. “Until tomorrow evening, then?”
“Until then. May I ask, what is the occasion?”
“I forget,” she said. “The dinners all run together. Someone will hand me a one-page memo and a guest list a quarter of an hour before my entrance, so I’ll know whom I’m talking to and why.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll look forward to it,” Stone said. He shook her hand again and made his exit.
13
Mirabelle arrived at l’Arrington on time. “May I have a martini before we go?” she asked. “It will make the ride go faster.”
“Of course.” Stone went to the ice maker where he had stored the bottle of pre-mixed martinis and poured one into a crystal glass. He handed it to her and poured himself a Knob Creek.
“You should pack a toothbrush,” she said, sipping her drink. “We won’t be back tonight.”
“What sort of restaurant is this?” he asked.
“You’ll see.”
He went and threw some things into a small duffel—a favor of the hotel—and returned. She knocked off the last sip of her martini. “We’re off,” she said.
—
THEY GOT into the waiting van, Mirabelle spoke to the driver in rapid French, and he tapped an address into the GPS navigator. “Saves me having to give him directions,” she said, leaning back into the comfortable seat.
“Tell me where we’re going,” he said.
“No.” She looked out the window. “I promise you a good dinner and, if you play your cards right, as you Americans say, perhaps me.”
“What more could I ask?” he said. He watched the city change into forest. “We’re in the Bois de Boulogne, aren’t we?”
“Shut up.”
They had been driving for only half an hour when the van turned into a narrow, winding lane with thickly planted trees on each side. They stopped in front of an old cottage with a thatched roof and window boxes filled with flowers.
Mirabelle spoke to the driver again and got an argument back. “We’ll be at the other end of the lane,” he said in English.
She swore under her breath and got out of the van.
Stone grabbed his duffel and followed her. The van drove back down the lane. “What was the argument about?”
“He didn’t want to leave us alone. I told him we weren’t going back tonight, but it didn’t seem to matter to him.”
She opened the unlocked front door, and they walked into a cozy living room, where a small fire blazed in the hearth. There didn’t seem to be a right angle in the room, but somehow, it looked like home.
“Hallo!” a woman’s voice called from another room, then a plump, motherly woman came into the room and conducted a brief conversation with Mirabelle in their native tongue, and she left again.
“Was that your mother?” Stone asked.
“No, but she thinks she is. That was Marie, who has been the family cook for centuries.”
“So this is a family cottage?”
“It is my cottage, bought with my money. My family has never been here, just Marie, and she is sworn to secrecy. It is my hideaway.”
“Why do you need a hideaway?”
“My life is frenetic. Here is peace.” She went to a corner bar and came back with a martini and a glass of bourbon for Stone. They sipped.
“This is Knob Creek,” he said. “How did you know, and where did you get it?”
“I’ve seen you drink it, and I know a spirits shop that stocks it.”
“You are good to me,” he said, and kissed her.
“Tomorrow night I will take you to a grand restaurant.”
“Tomorrow night, I’m afraid, I have to have dinner at the residence of our ambassador, and I was asked to come alone.”
“Ah,” she said, “the odd man.”
“Exactly.”
“She wants you for herself.”
“No, she just wants an odd man. We met only today, in her office at the embassy.”
“You wait—you will find yourself seated next to her, and there will be hanky-panky.”
Stone laughed.
“This is an American expression, is it not?”
“It is a universal expression, I think.”
“You will see, the woman has a reputation. She consumes men.”
“I am shocked, shocked that you would speak of our top diplomat in France in such a way.”
“And you are easy,” she said. “Madame Flournoy will have her way with you.”
“You make me sound helpless.”
“She will render you helpless. She knows what she is doing.”
“Where do you hear these things?”
“I’ve told you—my clients tell me everything. The ambassador is my client. She has spent much money with me and had many fittings. Women need to talk when they are being fitted.”
“And it is men who have the reputation of talking about their affairs. Women are much worse.”
“I will give you that, because it has been my experience. She will have your virtue, you will see.”
Stone laughed loudly. “My virtue! Am I so maidenly?”
Mirabelle reached over and squeezed his crotch. “Before dessert, she will have this in her hand.”
“I tend to be a one-woman-at-a-time man,” he said.
“Why? You should have as many women as you want, who want you.”
“I tire easily.”
“Hah! You tire me, and that is not easy.”
Marie entered the room as Mirabelle withdrew her hand. “Dinner,” she said.
They got up and went into a kitchen, where a big La Cornue range rested against a wall. A table was set before another fireplace, and candles burned on the table.
“Bon soir,” Marie said, and left the room.
“Where is she going?” Stone asked.