? ? ?
WELL. Jet lag, excitement, et cetera. I fell asleep, head on arms, arms on picturesque metal table. I dreamed that my doctor and I were climbing to the dome of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, hand in hand, and every time we turned the corner, an endless new set of stairs appeared before us, and I knew we were never going to make it, stone stairs ad infinitum unto rigor mortis, but for some reason we kept trudging on. Hoping the sublime would open out before us.
When I awoke, a man stood before me in his shirtsleeves, large hands on narrow hips, shoulders like battleships on either side of his navy-blue tie. His cropped dark hair absorbed the overhead light. His brow cast his eyes in actual shadow, or maybe it was a trick of the light.
“I think this is the part where I ask to see a lawyer,” I said.
His left eyebrow scoffed at the very idea. The rest of his face remained serious as a heart attack. “Miss . . . Schuyler, I believe.”
“Ah. Mr. . . . Bond, I believe. James Bond.” I held out my hand. “A pleasure. I’m Vivian Schuyler, and I’m not going to sleep with you, no matter how bad a boy you are.”
He gave my hand the briefest of shakes, and his eyebrow lost its scofflaw kink. “So. They weren’t joking,” he said.
“Who?”
“My colleagues. Please sit. You must be exhausted.”
I sank gracefully into my seat and crossed the old legs. One of my stockings had developed a conspicuous ladder. I recrossed. “I was about to ask for coffee.”
He nodded and walked to the door. Pressed a button. Asked for coffee for Miss Schuyler, on the pip-pip. I liked the man already.
“Now, Miss Schuyler.”
“It’s Vivian.”
“Miss Schuyler. The documents hidden in the lining of your suitcase. Where and when did they come into your possession?”
“The irony here is that I don’t even know what these documents are.”
“Answer the question, please.”
“Ooh.” I shivered. “That was thrilling.”
“Thank you. I practice.”
“If you must know, they came into my possession at twelve sharp on October the fourteenth of this year, at the United States post office on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. Only I didn’t know about them until a few hours ago, when your charming friend Mr. Peach—”
“Mr. Peach?”
“The fellow at the airport. With, you know, the . . .” I made a circular motion in the rear center quadrant of my scalp. “The peach.”
A tiny flush marred the pallor of James’s cheekbones. He raised his left fist and coughed, ever so posh. “Go on.”
“Well, that’s all, really.”
“You must have received the suitcase from somewhere.”
“Oh, that. Yes, my mother forwarded it to me. It had been sent to her apartment on Fifth Avenue by mistake.” By mistake. Even as I said the words, their meaning struck me from a wholly new direction. Did anything ever really happen by mistake?
Particularly when secret compartments and leather envelopes were involved.
I was falling into a rabbit hole, had been falling since that first customs official pulled me aside, and another false bottom had just disintegrated below me.
James’s right hand fell to the edge of the table and began to tap tap tap against the metal surface. His navy eyes took on a reptilian flatness, which might unnerve the sort of girl whose nerves detached easily.
James pulled out the other chair in a prolonged scrape. He sat down. The coffee arrived in a utilitarian white cup and pot, with cream and sugar. I ignored the fixings and lifted the cup to my mouth, black and hot and unalloyed. I had the feeling my counterparty took note of every detail.
“Miss Schuyler,” he said, when the coffee lady departed for interrogation rooms unknown, “you strike me as a clever sort of girl. Why don’t you do the clever thing and start from the very beginning?”
I bounced my foot. “I might, if I were to receive something from you in return.”
“You’re really not in a position to bargain, Miss Schuyler.”
Bounce, bounce. Coffee. Smile.
Because I had nothing left in my bag but chutzpah.
“Oh, James. I think I really am.”
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JAMES—I still didn’t know his name—drove me to the Ritz himself, three hours later. Not in an Aston Martin, alas: he drove a smallish boxy thing, a Rover, I think, which fit around him like a birdcage over a bulldog. “Now, James, I’m trusting you’ll fulfill your end of the bargain,” I said, as we pulled up before the entrance and half a dozen doormen dashed to our assistance. “Don’t you dare disappoint me. The honor of the British intelligence community is at stake.”
“Do you know the hotel bar?”
“I’m planning to make its acquaintance as soon as possible.”
“I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock this evening.”