by Stuart Woods
“Mirabelle is taking me to some restaurant in the country.”
Dino looked at his watch. “Gotta run, there’s a car waiting for me.”
“What’s Viv doing with her time?”
“Sitting at Mike Freeman’s elbow at all the meetings, absorbing knowledge.” Dino grabbed his briefcase, gave a little wave, and departed.
Stone got up and dressed—he wasn’t sure what he was dressing for. The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Rick. The ambassador would like to meet you.”
“What on earth for?”
“I think she’s curious about you. She doesn’t really understand your relationship to the Agency.”
“Neither do I,” Stone said. “When?”
“How about right now? Your tank awaits.”
“I’ll go right down.” He hung up, got into his suit jacket, went downstairs, and got into the waiting van. Twenty minutes later he was being escorted into the ambassador’s office.
Her name was Linda Flournoy, he knew, and she was a billionaire’s widow who had given a lot of money to the Democratic Party. About all else he knew about her was that she was said to throw great dinners and was fluent in French. She was already on her feet when he walked in.
“Good morning,” she said, extending a hand. She was tall, elegantly dressed and coifed, and looked ten years younger than her fifty-five years.
Stone shook the hand. “Madame Ambassador, how do you do?”
“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 a
lone.”
“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.
“Home. She will come back tomorrow. I will serve us.” She pointed at a chair. “Sit.”
Stone sat. There was an open bottle of Château Palmer 1978, a favorite of Stone’s, on the table.
“Decant the wine, please.”
The cork had already been withdrawn. Stone stood, took the bottle and held it near one of the candles; as he poured, the neck of the bottle was backlit, and he could see when the dregs began to creep up the side of the bottle, so he could stop in time.
“Done,” he said.
She took their plates to the stove and served them from the pots, then sat down. “Did you taste the wine?”
Stone poured himself a little and tasted it.
“Yes? No?”
“We’ll drink it,” Stone said. He poured them both a glass and they tucked into a dinner of boeuf bourguignon.
—
AN HOUR LATER they were upstairs in a feather bed, sated and a little drunk.
“I will wear you out,” she said, “so there will be nothing left for the ambassador.”
And she did.
14
Stone was wakened by a puff of chilly air; he got up groggily and closed the bedroom window. He was halfway back to the bed before he realized that Mirabelle was not there. She was not in the bathroom, either. A weak light from below was showing on the stairs, so, curious, he walked to the top of the stairway and looked down. The light was coming from the kitchen, and he could hear Mirabelle’s voice, though he could not understand her French.
Still groggy from the dinner, the wine, and sleep, he tiptoed down the stairs and peeked into the kitchen. Mirabelle was standing there, naked, holding what appeared to be an antique shotgun, engraved, with exposed hammers. Both were cocked, and the shotgun was pointed at someone out of his view. He approached the door and peeked around the jamb. A man wearing black clothes and a black mask pulled over his head stood, his arms raised from his sides. Mirabelle was speaking to him in French that sounded hostile.
“What is going on?” Stone asked, stepping into the kitchen, and as he spoke he remembered that he, too, was naked. A low chuckle came from behind the man’s mask.
Mirabelle took her eyes off her captured prey and looked at Stone. “I have him,” she said.
Stone’s eyes flicked toward the man, and he saw him reach behind his back for something. “No!” Stone said to him, holding up a hand. Everything then switched to slow motion. The man’s hand emerged from behind him holding a semiautomatic pistol; Mirabelle turned toward him and pulled the shotgun trigger. The man’s hand and his gun parted company; the gun was thrown toward the fireplace by the centrifugal force of his swinging arm; his chest exploded and his body flew backward and landed, flat, on the wooden kitchen floor with a loud thump. Only then did Stone hear the blast of the shotgun.
“Merde!” Mirabelle spat, at no one in particular.
“Well, yes,” Stone said, recovering himself. He knew that much French. He was aware of the ridiculous appearance of two naked people, a shotgun, and what was rapidly becoming a corpse on the kitchen floor. Stone walked to her, took the shotgun from her hands, lowered the remaining cocked hammer, and set it on the kitchen table. He walked over to the man on the floor, pulled the mask from his head, and checked his pupils. Blown. He felt for a pulse at the carotid artery in the neck. None. “I think you’d better call the police,” he said. “Tell them to bring an ambulance and a medical examiner, as well as a crime-scene team.”
Mirabelle had begun to shake violently. Stone went to her and held her against him, and gradually she stopped trembling. She pulled away, then went and stood in front of the dying embers of the fire. “I can’t call the police,” she said.
Stone went and sat at the kitchen table. “You don’t really have a choice.”
“You don’t understand,” Mirabelle said. “If I call the police, my brother will be summoned as soon as they hear my name. He does not know about this cottage, and I don’t want him to.”
“The consequences of your brother’s knowing about this cottage are small compared to those of not summoning the police immediately,” Stone said. “Inevitably, your father will become involved, then someone at the police station or in his office will leak the story to someone in the press, and big headlines will be made. Very likely a criminal trial will result. Did you think we would just bury him in the Bois?”
She thought about it. “You are right,” she said finally.
“Go and look at him,” Stone said. “We have to know if you know him.”
She went and stood over the man, staring into his inert face. “No, I don’t know him.”
“Is there any reason why anyone might send an armed man to your house?”
She nodded. “For you.”
He nodded. “You have a point.” He walked out of the kitchen into the living room, checking everything. No ransacking. He found the front door open and scratches on the lock. Outside, on the doormat, was a canvas satchel. He returned to the kitchen. “Very likely he was a burglar—his tools are outside. But nothing has been disturbed. I had better make a phone call before you call the police.” He took her by the hand and led her upstairs. “Get dressed,” he said, then found his cell phone and called a number on his Favorites page.
One ring. “LaRose.”
“Rick, it’s Stone. I’m at the cottage of a woman named Mirabelle Chance.”
“The daughter of the prefect of police?”
“And the sister of his son, who is in charge of criminal investigations in Paris.”
“What’s happened?”
“She’s shot an apparent burglar, as he was preparing to shoot her. I’m a witness.”
“Where are you?”
“What is the
address here?” he asked Mirabelle. She told him, and he told LaRose.
“Don’t call the police,” Rick said. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Rick, we don’t want the corpse to get much colder, and it’s not a good idea to cover this up. We’ll call the police in fifteen minutes. You get here as fast as you can, and I’ll see what I can learn in the meantime.”
“I’m on my way.” He hung up.
“You stay here,” Stone said to Mirabelle, “while I go downstairs and do some things. In fifteen minutes call the police, not your brother. After the first call, then your brother. He’ll want everything to have been done by the book.”
She nodded, pulled a sweater over her head, then sat down on the bed.
“It might do you good to lie down until they get here, but don’t fall asleep. When they arrive, answer their questions truthfully.”
“All right.” She glanced at the bedside clock, then stretched out on the bed.
Stone pulled on some clothes and went downstairs. He turned on all the lights he could find in the room, including the one over the stove, then he looked under the kitchen sink and found some rubber dishwashing gloves and put them on. He walked over to the corpse and stood astride it, staring at the face. He hadn’t seen the man before. He appeared to be in his mid-to-late thirties. No scars. He pulled up the black sweatshirt and checked the abdomen. Flat, no scars or tattoos. He pushed back the lips and looked at the teeth. All of them were white, even, very handsome. He bent over and felt the pockets of his trousers: empty. He reached under the corpse and felt the hip pockets: still nothing. He found an empty holster on the belt in the small of the back. He looked at the man’s hands: no rings or tattoos. A cheap wristwatch on the right wrist. Nothing hanging around the neck. No ID of any kind. The man was a pro; the question was: What kind of a pro? Burglar? Assassin?
Stone returned the gloves to the cabinet under the sink, then went back upstairs. Mirabelle seemed to be sleeping. He stroked her pale face, and she jerked awake. “Time to call the police,” he said.
15
Rick LaRose, amazingly, got there first, wearing jeans and a sweater, looking interested, but unflustered. He took off his shoes and walked around the corpse in his stocking feet. “He’s a beauty, isn’t he? What have you learned?” he asked Stone.
