The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  Touched by the correspondent’s abject apology, Brennan said firmly, “Jay, whether you had stayed in Washington or not wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference. No one on earth could have helped me except Madlock or Varney or Rostov, and Madlock was dead, and Varney was gone and so was Rostov. You can put it out of your mind. We were friends, and we are friends still.”

  “I appreciate that, Matt.” Relieved, Doyle grabbed one of the sandwiches and began to munch on it. “Hey, what in the devil are you doing here! Have you turned reporter?”

  Brennan chuckled. “Never. I can’t even spell my name.

  No, it’s a subterfuge.” He glanced around. Then he said in an undertone, “Neely got me in. I told you Rostov was one of the persons who could fully vindicate me. Well, he’s in Paris—”

  “I didn’t know that. I thought he was dead.”

  “A lot of people thought so, dead or in Siberia. But he’s here all right. I guess he was pardoned for good behavior. Premier Talansky needed experts on China, and so Rostov is in the Palais Rose right now as Assistant Minister for Far Eastern Affairs, no less. Quite a promotion. Anyway, I’m having trouble connecting with him. Neely thought that I might bump into Rostov at the Russians’ first-day press briefing. I hope so. Americans can attend, can’t they?”

  “Absolutely. The Russians are going to stage their daily briefings in one of their offices on this floor, in what used to be the white-and-gold bedroom in the left wing. There’s a big U.S.S.R. sign over it.” He cocked his head sideways. “Look, Matt, I’m Earnshaw’s alter ego here and that packs a little weight. If there’s anything I can do—?”

  “Thanks, Jay, but no. If Earnshaw found out you were doing anything for me, he’d fire you. No, I’ll manage.”

  “He wouldn’t fire me, but if he did, so what? I don’t need the job. Really, Matt, I mean it. I’d like to help you. Information, even. Anything.”

  Brennan considered the offer more seriously. “We-ll, to be truthful, I’ve got to find out the places where I might accidentally-on-purpose come across Rostov. For example, this press briefing. I’d like to know if Rostov will be there. Of course, that’s something no one—”

  Doyle snapped his fingers. “I can find out. Of course, I can. I’ve got a pretty good friend in the Russian press crowd. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. Igor Novik of Pravda. We’ve crossed paths at these conferences for years. The minute we first set eyes on each other, rapport was established. He calls me Henry VIII and I call him Balzac. Except he’s really fatter than I am. Nothing so effectively dissolves the Iron Curtain as having a Chateaubriand with sauce Bearnaise in common. In fact—you’ve heard of the great French gourmand, Claude Goupil, haven’t you?—well, he’s invited both Igor and me to be honored guests at the next dinner of the Société des Gastronomes—we’re always invited when we’re in Paris. Igor and I were talking about it just before I saw you. He’s in the other room. Let me ask him if Rostov’ll be at the Russian briefing.”

  Brennan watched Doyle go through the door. Then he finished his drink and he began to read the press releases. Other correspondents, mostly British, were gathering at the snack bar, and Brennan sidled away, waiting near the entrance to the smoking room, trying to absorb himself in the releases but praying that Doyle would bring some favorable news.

  He had finished reading the first release when Doyle loomed massively before him.

  “Apparently, nothing here for you today, Matt,” he said, shaking his head. “According to Igor, the Russians won’t have any press briefing until tomorrow. There’ll only be a canned statement from Premier Talansky. But I did ask if Rostov was around. Made up I wanted some background stuff for Earnshaw. No go. None of the Russian delegates will be available for formal interviews this week. As for Rostov, he’s not even here. He wound up his preliminary work and took off for the Russian Embassy. Know where that is? A couple of blocks off the Boulevard St.-Germain—79 Rue de Grenelle.”

  “I doubt if they’d let me in. I suppose I could try to phone Rostov there. Maybe set up an appointment.”

  “No harm trying.” Doyle was thoughtful. “Something else occurred to me. I’m having dinner with the—the lady I told you about—Hazel Smith.”

  “Good luck.”

  Doyle returned a sickly smile. “I’ll need it in spades. Anyway, it’s a step. But what occurred to me is that she’s been covering the Moscow beat for years. She must know most of the Russian delegates. I could explain your problem and find out if she knows where you might—”

  Brennan silenced him with a gesture. “Don’t bother, Jay. I’m a four-letter word to your Miss Smith.”

  “I don’t have to mention your name.”

  “Forget it. You have enough to talk to her about already.”

  “There must be something I can do,” Doyle pleaded. He seemed to think of something. “Wait. Let me see if I’ve got it right. What you really want to know about is places in Paris where you might run into Rostov. Is that it?”

  Brennan nodded. “That would be useful. Yes.”

  “When I leave here, I’ll be going to ANA to do some research on Premier Talansky and Chairman Kuo. While I’m at it, I’ll look up the latest clips on Nikolai Rostov. There might be material about his schedule of activities. Then I’ll ask some of the smart young Paris hands in the office what they know. If I come up with any good leads, I’ll drop them at—the Hotel California, isn’t it?”

  “Across the street from your office.” Brennan offered his hand and Doyle took it warmly. Brennan smiled. ‘Thanks, Jay.”

  “Let’s have dinner one night this week. We can exchange progress reports. I’ll phone you.”

  Doyle’s promise to phone him reminded Brennan that he himself had a telephone call to make. When he had stopped briefly at the hotel for his press pass, there had been a hastily scrawled note from Lisa asking him to be sure to check the hotel in the next few hours for further messages from her. Now he wondered about her cryptic note and wondered what possible messages she could have for him.

  Leaving the Palais Rose, he felt discouraged by his inability to contact Nikolai Rostov. Making his way through the courtyard, Brennan realized that he had expected too much of his visit to Paris. Somehow, the very discovery of Rostov alive, of Rostov in Paris, had made success seem a foregone conclusion. Despite a natural cynicism that usually deflated all quick hopes, Brennan had secretly assumed that the mere existence of Rostov within reach would automatically solve his problem and change his life. Until now he had not completely faced the fact that Rostov, because of his high post, because of his busy schedule, because of his commitment to Russian security, might be unavailable or elusive. Above all, Brennan had not fully faced one more fact—that Nikolai Rostov might not want to see him.

  On the Avenue Malakoff, he surveyed the neighborhood in search of a public phone. Before deciding how he could best approach Rostov through the Russian Embassy, he must comply with Lisa’s wish.

  At last, he came upon a restaurant, Le Berlioz, which he recalled having frequented in better days. He entered it, found the telephone, and reached the Hotel California. What surprised him was not that the concierge, M. Dupont, had a message from Miss Collins, but that the message was an urgent one.

  Through the static on the line he listened closely to M. Dupont’s careful reading of Lisa’s message:

  “‘Matt, if you possibly can, try to meet me at Maison Legrande by noon. It is the fashion house in the Avenue Montaigne. I’ll leave word for them to let you in. I will be waiting at the boutique counter. If you’re late, I will be in the showroom and be watching for you. This could be important. It has to do with you-know-who. Lisa.’”

  Brennan heard his heartbeat quicken, as he hung up the receiver. Her message had said that she wanted to see him about you-know-who, and that could only mean Rostov. Yet, it made no sense. Rostov and Legrande were incongruous. Puzzled, he hurried out of the restaurant to find a taxi.

  Fifteen minutes later, Brennan sto
od before the turbaned and sashed African doorman guarding the towering pale green entrance to Maison Legrande. On either side of the doorway, a glass showcase displayed a kneaded and elongated sculpture of a bronze Giacometti nude, which had been draped across the bosom with a swath of silk.

  Giving his name, hastening inside, Brennan was assailed by a dazzling hall of glass prisms and brocade drapes, and then, beyond a cluster of shrill women surrounding a bean pole of a man, he saw Lisa waiting at the boutique. Approaching her across the thick flower-patterned carpet, he again enjoyed her glossy dark hair and Grecian profile, and the symmetry of her figure in the simple short sheath, and the long perfect legs, and again he marveled at his luck.

  She moved toward him and quickly offered her white-gloved hand, drawing him away from the chattering cluster of women.

  “I’m so glad you made it, darling,” she whispered. “Listen, this is a long shot, but it could be a break. I mean, about getting to you-know-who.” She paused, and met his eyes with sudden hope. “Unless you’ve seen him already. Have you?”

  “I called his hotel. They’d never heard of him. I went there. For 100 francs, they’d heard of him. But he’d left already. I got into the Palais Rose. He was gone. He’s supposed to be in his Embassy now. That’s like trying to get to see the Kaaba in Mecca. Only harder. There you are. Zero minus for today.”

  She squeezed his hand sympathetically. “Then maybe this’ll add up, or maybe it’s foolish. A little while ago, I found out that Premier Talansky’s wife, Tania, and—guess who?—Rostov’s wife, Natasha—Natasha Rostov—are attending Legrande’s showing. They should be here any minute. And I arranged to get you a spare ticket to go inside. I’m not sure if that can be helpful, but—”

  “It’s interesting,” Brennan said slowly. “Let me think.”

  “I’ll tell you what came to my mind. Maybe at the intermission I could get Legrande to introduce you to Natasha Rostov as—as an old, old friend of her husband. Then you could tell her you’d like to meet her husband. Maybe that can work better than anything else.”

  “Yes. Maybe it can, Lisa.”

  She began to pull him toward the center of the room. “I think it’s important that you meet Legrande first. I’ve known him since his last trip to New York. We’re quite friendly. Come on.”

  She led him to the border of the circle that still enclosed Legrande. As the renowned designer addressed the women—members of the fashion press and several buyers—airy and flowing gestures accompanied his extravagant, rococo, sometimes chiding, sometimes calculatedly shocking monologue. His listeners, even the veterans from Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Women’s Wear Daily, clung to every lilting word, enchanted.

  Observing him, Brennan saw a reincarnation of Aubrey Beardsley, illustrator of Oscar Wilde’s Salome and fey genius of The Yellow Book. Yet, for all Legrande’s matchstick thinness, his effeminate grace, he appeared as supple and muscular as a young Nijinsky. Beneath the bangs and long hair, the boyish visage was shrewd and clever. Neither the bracelet on one wrist nor the loose-fitting silk shirt deceived Brennan. The young French designer was tough at the core.

  Fragments of what Brennan had read about Legrande, or had heard about him from Lisa in Venice, floated back. Legrande had been an apprentice, first under Balmain, then under Balenciaga, until a great perfume corporation offered to put him in business for himself. With the opening of his maison, from the showing of his first collection at a cost of $300,000, his daring, his instinct for reminding all women that as long as they were women they were young, had made him the darling of the press and his couture house the favorite of American buyers and wealthy international customers alike. And now this man, the symbol of modern luxury and decadence, would be the host to the mate of the leader of proletarian Russia, and her companion, Rostov’s wife. Incredible.

  Brennan edged forward to hear what Legrande was saying. He was saying, “Yes, my dears, I’m accenting the bust this year, because it is the staunchest stronghold of feminine beauty. The face, the torso, the limbs may show their years, but the breast preserves youth and attractiveness the longest. You remember the exquisite paean from sweet Keats? ‘Breasts of beauty that plucked out mine eye.’ Concepts of beauty vary from age to age. Note the varying ideals of the Flemish painter, the Italian Renaissance painter, the French expressionist painter—and then note that the one object they’ve worshiped in common, in all times, has been the female bosom. They are my masters. Today, Legrande returns femininity to all females.”

  Amused, Brennan watched Legrande adjust his soft shirt cuffs, revealing miniature gold scissors as cuff links, and then he heard Legrande resume.

  “Now to answer your question, my dears. Why have Madame Tania Talansky and Madame Natasha Rostov—actually Rostova, in the Russian feminine, if one is a purist, which I am not, so no matter—why have these estimable ladies decided to honor my collection? Perhaps there are two reasons. For one, their motherland has emerged from behind the steppes to join hands with those of us in the West, and the Russian woman’s femininity and fashion have emerged apace. For another, I took a modest collection to Moscow two years ago, and showed it in the auditorium of GUM, the mammoth department store in Red Square. Madame Talansky was there, and we had a charming conversation afterward. She was quite taken by my fashion designs. And impressed by my utter honesty. I had attended several Russian designer collections at the Dom Modeley—the House of Fashion—there are three dozen of them about Russia—and I told Madame, well, my dears, quite frankly, I told her that Russian fashion and design were abominable. I mean, dears, Communism is absolutely Christlike, despite everyone breathing on everyone else, but Presidiums and Politburos and workers’ committees simply cannot design dresses. I told Madame that you simply couldn’t design properly for women if you pretended that they were still in coveralls steering cranes or pitching wheat or directing traffic. I warned her that the birthrate of the Soviet Union would simply crumble unless their women were dressed as women for dinner and parties and bed. And I added that those stout matrons they use as mannequins, along with younger slender girls, were perfectly all right, but it was wrong—and I was fierce about this—it was wrong to dress them in gunnysacks and babushkas. I hadn’t seen the slightest hint of female breasts during my entire stay in Moscow. Udders, yes, but enticing breasts, not at all. Today, I hope to change that sorry state of Bolshevik affairs. We shall see, we shall see! But I do believe Madame Talansky is coming here to be convinced. And after today, my dears, romance in Mother Russia shall be revived and the birthrate shall soar!”

  The circle of women giggled and twittered, and quickly Legrande dispersed them. “To the salon, my dears, hurry. The showing begins in mere minutes. I must linger to receive my special guests.”

  As the others left, Lisa brought Brennan forward to introduce him to Legrande and the stern middle-aged woman in dark glasses beside him, who was handing the designer a lace-trimmed handkerchief. Legrande dabbed at his forehead, suddenly recognized Lisa, beamed, quickly brought her hand to his lips, then stood back appreciatively.

  “Lisa, my dear!” he exclaimed. “More divine than ever. So they’ve allowed you to fly on your own, at last.”

  “Yes, Legrande—”

  His fingers nipped at a seam of her dress. “Fine. A fine Legrande copy. But it is not for the new season.” He traced a long V from her shoulder blades to her waist. “We remove this. No more will your magnificent breasts be hidden. Henceforth, we shall have all of Lisa Collins.” He grinned crookedly. “An ungallant Italian journalist once said that an undressed woman is like a plucked chicken. I believe the opposite. I believe, as Courrèges would often say, that a woman is never more beautiful than when she is naked. The task of the couturier is to make a woman decently naked. So that is why we must have all of Lisa Collins.”

  “I’ll try to cooperate,” said Lisa. She had Brennan by the arm. “Legrande, I want you to meet my friend, Mr. Matthew Brennan. And Mr. Brennan, Legrande’s directrice, Madame De
maillot.” As the three acknowledged the introductions, Lisa added, “Legrande, I insisted that Mr. Brennan accompany me to the show. He’s an old friend of Madame Natasha Rostov’s husband, the—”

  The directrice had tugged at Legrande’s sleeve, and he looked off at a vendeuse who was signaling from across the room. Quickly, he said to Lisa, “Inside you go. The show begins.”

  Desperately, Lisa said, “I thought it would be fun if you could introduce Mr. Brennan to Madame Rostov.”

  Legrande was entirely distracted now. “Yes, yes, Lisa. See you later.”

  Hurrying after the beckoning vendeuse, Lisa and Brennan entered Legrande’s main salon. Brennan had expected a showroom and audience orderly and staid, but instead he found himself in a stifling, churning hall crammed with humanity. Everywhere, the vendeuses in their black smocks were settling fashion writers, department store buyers, celebrated private customers in small gold chairs around an elevated carpeted runway.