Unintended Consequences - By Stuart Woods

8





LaRose was being measured by the tailor while Stone flipped through fabric swatches. At Rick’s insistence, he chose six suit patterns, two tweeds for jackets, cavalry twills for odd trousers, cashmere for a blue blazer, and a lightweight Italian worsted for a tuxedo. Then he turned to shirt swatches, picking Sea Island cotton for the whites, and Egyptian cotton for the stripes and checks. A dozen neckties, then, their business done at Charvet, they stopped into Berluti for shoes, then went back to Rick’s car.

“Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” Stone said. “Do you know it?”

“Yes, I think,” Rick replied, slipping the car into gear.

“How long have you been in Paris, Rick?” Stone asked.

“Not quite a month.”

“And before that?”

“Postings in Africa and the Middle East.”

“That would explain your need for better apparel.”

“It would, and I managed to combine the clothing allowances for three postings with some poker winnings, just managing to cover the Charvet bill. The shoes came out of my pay.”

“The clothes should last you for many years, if you don’t wear them for black bag jobs.”

“What do you know about black bag jobs?” Rick asked. “You’re a corporate lawyer.”

“Surely you read my file more closely than that.”

“All right, you were a cop, but you didn’t do black bag jobs, did you?”

“No, I caught people who did.”

“Sometimes I think I’d rather hold that end of the stick,” Rick said.

“There, grab that parking spot,” Stone said, pointing.

Rick swung into it, then they got out and walked fifty yards down the boulevard to Brasserie Lipp.

“What is this place?” Rick asked.

“Alsatian food and a slick clientele,” Stone replied. He was surprised that the headwaiter recognized him after a three-year absence and gave them a favored table on the ground floor instead of sending them upstairs with the tourists. Stone introduced Rick to the headwaiter, explaining that he was an American diplomat. The man gave Rick his card, and they sat down, Stone with his back to the wall at Rick’s insistence.

“For many years I hung out at a restaurant called Elaine’s in New York.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Lipp is the closest thing Paris has to Elaine’s. You’ll want to try the choucroute, and beer is good with it.”

“Order for me,” Rick said.

“Is ‘commercial attaché’ your usual handle when you’re out and about?” Stone asked.

“It is if I’m to be with businesspeople. If I’m with the artsier types, then I’m the cultural attaché. Whatever works.”

“That could be the Agency’s motto,” Stone observed.

“And a good one at that.” Rick’s eyes flicked to the mirror above Stone’s head. He was sitting with his back to the room.

“See someone you know?”

“Someone I’d like not to see me. The man in the pin-striped suit.”

Stone glanced across the room. “Who is he?”

“Opposition.”

Stone offered his sunglasses. “Will these help?”

“Thanks,” Rick said, slipping them on. “You don’t want him to see me with you—that might cause unwanted attention to be paid to you.”

“You’ve been here less than a month, and already you know the opposition and they know you?”

“I read the files on all of them as soon as I hit Paris,” Rick said, “and I expect they’ve had a look at my file, too. It’s par for the course. It’s also interesting that that guy is frequenting this particular place—the headwaiter seemed to know him. I’ll put that in my report.”

“You write a lot of reports, do you?”

“It’s a big part of what I do.”

“Try and keep me out of them, will you?”

“Are you kidding? You float in over our transom in a drug-induced coma, and you don’t want anybody to notice?”

Stone shrugged. “I guess that was naive of me.”

“It was.”

The choucroutes arrived—a bed of sauerkraut covered with slices of pork and veal.

“Very, very good,” Rick said after a couple of bites.

“Don’t eat it all, you’ll sleep through the afternoon.”

“Good advice.”

“Rick, can you run a name through your computers for me?”

“Does it relate to this trip?”

“Yes. The name is Amanda Hurley.”

“Who is she?”

“I’ve no idea. She called the hotel and said we met on the airplane and invited me to dinner. I can’t even give you a description, except of her accent, which was mid-Atlantic.”

Rick produced a smartphone and typed for thirty seconds, then put it away. “Soon,” he said.

“How’d you get into this racket?” Stone asked.

“I had a misspent youth,” Rick said. “I left home at sixteen and got into all sorts of trouble, did a little local time, nothing felonious. A guy came to see me, said his name was Jim. I got the impression that a detective who had busted me a couple of times had said something to him about me. He asked me if I spoke Spanish—asked me in Spanish—so I conversed with him in that language. He knew that I’d just barely gotten through high school and asked where I’d picked up the tongue. I told him on the street, and he seemed impressed.”

“He was Agency?”

“He must have bailed me out, because when I hit the street he was waiting for me. He bought me some clothes—even then I dressed unsuitably—and took me to dinner at a big-time steak house, where the conversation ranged over everything I had ever done—crimes, sports, hobbies, whatever—then it turned to what I was going to do with my life.”

“How old were you at the time?”

“Nineteen, going on forty-five.”

“Did he make you an offer?”

“He asked me if I’d give him a few weeks of my time, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I said sure. I figured I owed him. He asked me if there was anything in my rented room that I couldn’t walk away from, and I thought about it and told him no.”

“What happened then?”

“When we left the restaurant there was a car and driver waiting for us. We were driven to JFK, and Jim gave me some cash and a ticket, said I’d be met at the other end. Next morning I found myself in Monterey, California, at a language school, learning Russian. I aced that, and after a couple of weeks they tried me with Arabic. Turns out I had a gift. I was there for fourteen months and left conversant in half a dozen languages, including Swedish and French.

“During my time there, people came to see me, people with only first names. I filled out a lot of forms, wrote my biography, and was given three polygraph exams. On my last day, when I had no idea where I’d go next, I was offered a trainee’s position with the Agency. I flew to D.C., where somebody met me and delivered me to Fort Peary, Virginia.”

“The Farm.”

“That’s the place. I learned enough new skills there to make a very fine living as a burglar, a safecracker, a con man, or an assassin, and then I found myself in Africa, never mind where. I loved it. Four years of that, then two Middle Eastern postings, where my Arabic was an advantage, then I think they decided I was getting a little too wild and woolly, so they sent me here to get me civilized. One of the things they’d been after me about was clothes, so I appreciate your guidance this morning. I think I could learn a lot from you.”

“I’m at your disposal while I’m in Paris,” Stone said. “In the daytime, anyway.”

Rick fished his smartphone from his pocket and read an e-mail. “Your Amanda Hurley is interesting,” he said, then his eyes flicked at the mirror behind Stone. “What’s that passage to my left?”

Stone looked at it. “Men’s room,” he said.

“My man just went in there, and I don’t want to be here when he gets back. Thanks for a terrific lunch.” He got up and started out.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Stone called after him. “What about Ms. Hurley?”

“Later,” Rick said, and he was gone.