by Stuart Woods
“Of course, baby.”
“The girl will order you some lunch.”
“I’m famished. Does she have any bourbon?”
“We’ll see what we can do.”
Marie-Thérèse submitted to half a day of pampering, then reported to Mr. Fekkai at the end of it.
“Now, what shall we do with your hair?” he asked.
“I want it fairly short,” she said, running her fingers through it, “and I want a nice blond color, with some streaks.”
“I think that will suit you perfectly,” he replied. “The colorist is waiting for you, and I’ll see you next.”
At four o’clock, she left the establishment, quite literally, a new woman. All her identification had been arranged to support the effect. She went into Bergdorf’s and bought some clothes, then allowed herself to be fitted for two wigs, charging everything to an American Express card in Mrs. King’s name, which would be paid automatically from a bank account in the Cayman Islands. At six o’clock, she stood on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, took out her cell phone, and made the call.
Stone stood, gazing down at the skaters, one in particular—a pretty blonde in a red outfit with a short skirt, who was far better than anyone else on the ice. He looked around him for a woman alone who might be La Biche. His cell phone vibrated.
“Hello?”
“Good afternoon,” she said. “I want you to walk—not ride—to Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library. You should be there in ten minutes. Walk on the west side of Fifth to Forty-fourth Street, then down the east side of the street to Forty-second, then cross again. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call you when you’re there.” She hung up.
Stone walked to Fifth Avenue and headed toward the library.
She walked over to Madison Avenue, crossed the street, turned left, and entered an electronics shop specializing in spy-type equipment, where she made a quick purchase. She caught a cab and headed downtown, then made another call.
“Hello?” he said.
“Listen very carefully,” she said. “I want you to walk west on the south side of Forty-second Street, turn left at the next corner and walk south to Thirty-seventh Street and make another left. There’s a bar on the south side of the street called O’Coineen’s. Go in there and take a seat in the last of the row of booths on your left. There’ll be a reserved sign on the table; ignore it. If anyone questions you, say you’re meeting Maeve. Got all that?”
“Yes.”
“Be there in ten minutes.” She hung up. “Turn right here,” she said, “and stop in the middle of the block.” She got out of the cab, went into O’Coineen’s and then into the ladies’ room. She peed, then went into her shopping bag for a wig. She chose an auburn one, very straight, with bangs. She glanced at her watch.
Stone found the bar. The place was busy with after-work customers, but the last booth was empty.
A waiter approached. “Sorry, that booth is reserved,” he said.
“I’m meeting Maeve,” Stone replied.
“It’s all right, Sean,” said a woman’s voice with a very attractive Irish accent.
Stone turned to find a redhead with very straight hair and bangs, beautifully made up. It was not the woman he had seen at the Nineteenth Precinct.
“Stand up, Mr. Barrington,” she said.
Stone got out of the booth. “Good evening,” he said.
“Hold your arms away from your sides,” she said.
Stone complied.
She frisked him in a professional manner, not omitting his crotch, then produced a small black object and ran it over him, head to toe. “Have a seat,” she said, pointing to the side of the booth with its back to the street.
“Thank you for coming,” Stone said, sitting down.
She slid into the opposite side of the booth, facing the street, and set a Bergdorf’s shopping bag on the seat beside her, then she placed a medium-sized handbag on the table, with the open end toward her. She looked around the bar carefully, then at the front windows. Finally, she turned to him. “What’ll y’have?”
“A beer will be fine,” Stone said.
“Two Harps,” she said to the waiter.
“Right,” he said, and went to get them.
“Well, isn’t this nice?” she said, keeping the Irish accent.
Stone wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“Come on, Mr. Barrington, I’m here. What d’ya want?”
Stone started to speak, but the waiter came with the drinks, and he waited for him to leave.
She picked up her beer, poured some into a glass, and clinked it against his. “So? Yer not very talkative, Mr. Barrington.”
Stone sipped his beer. “I think you should leave New York immediately.”
“Oh? And why’s that, if you’d be so kind as to tell me?”
“I don’t think you should believe that your release from police custody has made you immune,” he said.
“Immune to what?”
“To . . . further action.”
She glanced at the door, then leaned back into her seat and sipped her beer. “You said on the phone you knew something about me,” she said. “Exactly what?”
“It’s my understanding that, when you were younger, your parents were killed in an ambush that was meant for someone else, and that after that, you underwent some rather specialized training, then began assassinating various people, with an emphasis on those who were inadvertently responsible for your parents’ death.”
“My, you are well informed, aren’t you?”
“Moderately.”
“ ‘Inadvertently’? Is that what they told you?”
“Who?”
“Whoever told you this rubbish.”
“I think it’s pretty good information, though it may not entirely conform to your view of things.”
She laughed. “Yes, my view of things is somewhat different. I know for a fact that my mother was the target, and killing her husband and daughter, as well, didn’t faze them in the least.”
Stone said nothing.
“You see, there’s two sides to every story.”
“Perhaps so. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re going to hunt you down and kill you,” Stone said.
She looked amused. “Oh? Well, that’d take some doing, wouldn’t it?”
“They have no legal recourse, so they’re going to use other means.”
“And how do you know this?”
“I hear things,” Stone said.
She reached into her handbag.
Stone sat up straight.
She came out with a hundred-dollar bill and shoved it across the table. “Put that in your pocket,” she said.
Stone put it in his pocket.
“Now you’re my lawyer, right? You’ve been paid for legal advice, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And this conversation is privileged. You can’t disclose it to anyone else.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, Mr. Stone Barrington, what is your advice?”
“I’d advise you not to spend another night in New York City. I’d advise you not to leave by airline, train, or bus, but to leave by car, and, if you want to leave the country, do that by car, too, or on foot. I’d advise you not to come back for a long time.”
“Anything else?”
“I’d advise you to go to ground, establish an identity you can keep permanently, and find a more productive way to live out your life. And to never, ever again identify yourself to anyone as Marie-Thérèse du Bois.”
“Well, that’s very sound advice, Mr. Barrington,” she said. “I’ll think it over.”
“Don’t think too long,” Stone said. “And since I’ll deny that this conversation ever took place, I’d be grateful if you’d do the same, because it’s very dangerous for me to be associated with you in any way.”
“Well, I think I can promise
you that,” she said. She gathered up her handbag and shopping bag. “I’m going to be leaving you now, and I don’t expect we’ll be meeting again. You finish your beer. Finish mine, too, and take at least fifteen minutes to do it.” She stood up.
“Goodbye, then.”
Her voice changed to something mid-Atlantic. “Goodbye, Mr. Barrington, and thank you for your concern. I’m very grateful to you.”
She walked to the rear of the room and disappeared through the kitchen door.
Stone finished his beer, and hers. He knew from her attitude that he’d set out on a fool’s errand. She was going to do exactly what she’d intended to do all along.
38
Stone and Carpenter met at the Box Tree, a small, romantic restaurant near his house. They settled at a table, and Stone ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame, his favorite champagne.
“What’s the occasion?” Carpenter asked, when they had clinked glasses and sipped their wine.
“An entire evening, just the two of us, free of the cares of work. What we in America call a ‘date.” ’
She laughed. “And what were we having before?”
“What we in America call ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” ’
“I didn’t think American men objected to that sort of relationship.”
“It’s not a relationship, it’s just carnal fun—not that I have any objection to carnal fun.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
They looked at the menu and ordered. The waiter poured them more champagne.
“Tell me about yourself,” Stone said.
Carpenter laughed again. “Isn’t that my line? Why is it that our roles seem to be reversed?”
“Roles are reversible, in certain circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
“When the male has an interest in the female deeper than carnal fun.” Stone thought he caught a blush in her cheeks. “Tell me about yourself,” he said.
“What you mean is, why do I do what I do. Isn’t that right?”
“What people do is often the most important thing about them.”
“What I do is not the most important thing about me,” she said.
“What is?”
“Who I am.”
“And who are you?”
She looked at the table, then around the room for a long moment. “All right, what I do is the most important thing about me. It’s who I am.”
“Imagine that, through no fault of your own, you were unable to continue in your career. Who would you be, then?”
She took a deep draught of her champagne. “That is an unthinkable thought.”
“Surely you’ve seen people sacked from your service, turned out into the cold.”
“Occasionally.”
“Do you think they were what they did?”
“Some of them, I suppose.”
“And what did they do when they could no longer be what they wanted to be?”
“One or two of them . . . did themselves in.”
“Would you do yourself in?”
“Certainly not,” she replied quickly.
“Then what? What would you do? Who would you be?”
“I might ask you the same question.”
“You may, after you’ve answered mine.”
“I’d be a barrister,” she said. “I read law at Oxford, you know. I could very easily qualify.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight,” she said without hesitation.
“Are there jobs for brand-new thirty-eight-year-old barristers in London?”
“I’d have to go to a smaller town, I suppose.”
“Are there jobs for brand-new, thirty-eight-year-old barristers in smaller towns?”
She shrugged. “I’m not without friends of influence.”
“That always helps.”
“I don’t understand your line of questioning,” she said. “What is it you really want to know?”
“I suppose I’m wondering if you and I could have a more permanent relationship—”
“In New York?”
“Of course.”
“Why ‘of course’? Why couldn’t you move to London?”
“Because I couldn’t get a job as a barrister anywhere in England, and I doubt if they’d offer me anything at Scotland Yard. And those are the only things I know how to do. I suppose what I really want to know is if you could be happy in an existence where secrets and routine violence—even murder—don’t play a part.”
“Is that how you see my life?”
“Isn’t it how you see it? Don’t you ever think about what your work does to you as a human being?”
“There is a long tradition in my family, going back at least five hundred years, of service to one’s country.”
“No matter what one’s country asks one to do?”
“I have always been equal to what my country has asked of me.”
“That’s what worries me,” Stone said.
“That I’m a loyalist?”
“That, where your country is concerned, you’re capable of anything.”
She blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Marie-Thérèse’s parents weren’t killed by accident, were they?”
“I told you they were. I was there.”
“The target was her mother. Isn’t that true? Collateral damage didn’t matter.”
Carpenter set down her glass. “Who have you been talking to?”
“Someone who was there.”
“I am the only person still alive who was there.”
“No,” Stone said, “you’re not.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her face expressionless. “Good God,” she said softly.
Stone said nothing, just looked at her.
“I think you’d better stop lying to me,” he said finally. “It isn’t good for the relationship.”
“How did you find her?”
“I’m a good detective. The NYPD trained me well.”
“We can’t find her, but you could?”
“That seems to be the reality.”
“Did you meet her face to face?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t the face we saw at the Nineteenth Precinct. I don’t know how she changes, but she does.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
“It seemed to me more dangerous not to meet with her. She knew who I was and that I had played a part. . .”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Where did you meet her?”
“In a bar. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, before she would talk to me, she insisted on paying me a retainer. I’m now her attorney.”
“That was very clever of her. Can you contact her again?”
“Perhaps.”
“You’re not sure?”
“No.”
Carpenter pushed back from the table. “I have to leave,” she said.
“To report to your superiors?”
“Thank you for the champagne,” she said. Then she got up and left.
39
Stone’s phone rang early the next morning.
“It’s Carpenter,” she said.
“Good morning.”
“Are you free for lunch today?”
“Yes.”
“Twelve-thirty at the Four Seasons. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
“Who?”
“I’ll see you at twelve-thirty.” She hung up.
Stone was on time, and Carpenter, with a companion, was already seated at a table in the Grill. The man rose to greet Stone.
“This is Sir Edward Fieldstone,” Carpenter said. “Sir Edward, may I introduce Stone Barrington.”
The man was six feet, slender, rather distinguished-looking, with thick, gray hair that needed cutting, hair visible in his ears and nose, and a well-cut if elderly suit that could have used a pressing. “Ho
w do you do, Mr. Barrington,” he said, his voice deep and smooth, his accent very upper-class. “Won’t you sit down? Would you like a drink?”
Stone glanced at the bottle on the table: Chateau Palmer, 1966. “That will do nicely,” he said.
Sir Edward nodded, and a waiter appeared and poured the wine.
“Thank you so much for coming on such short notice,” Sir Edward said. “Let’s order some lunch, shall we?”
They looked at the menu, and Stone ordered a small steak, while Carpenter and Sir Edward both ordered the Dover sole, not seeming to care that it might not be the best thing with the wine.
“Lovely weather,” Sir Edward said. “We’re not used to it. London is always so dreary.”
“It can be dreary in New York, too,” Stone said, wondering exactly who Sir Edward was. He seemed to be in his mid-sixties, and very un-spylike.
They chatted about nothing until their food came. Stone waited for somebody to tell him why he was there.
“Is there anything you’d like to know?” Sir Edward asked. It seemed a non sequitur.
Stone looked at Carpenter, who kept her mouth shut. “Perhaps you could begin by telling me who you are,” he said.
“Of course, of course,” Sir Edward said, sounding apologetic. “I’m a British civil servant. Perhaps I shouldn’t go any further than that.”
“Are you Carpenter’s immediate superior?” Stone asked.
“Perhaps a notch or two upwards.”
“Are you the head of Carpenter’s service?” Stone asked.
“One might say so. Pass the salt, please.”
Carpenter passed the salt.
“MI Five or MI Six?” Stone asked.
“Oh, those lines seem so blurred these days,” Sir Edward replied. “Let’s not be too specific.”
“Perhaps I should explain, sir,” Carpenter said.
Sir Edward gave her the faintest of nods.
“It is very unusual for . . . a person in Sir Edward’s position to meet, in his official capacity, with a person outside his service. In fact, very few outsiders are even aware of his name.”
