Paris Match(65)

            Holly was dazzled. “It’s so interesting to put faces to all these names,” she said. Lance towed them around the room, adding another dozen names and faces to the introductions. He seemed to be an old friend of each of them.

            Helen Frank sidled up to Stone at the first opportunity. “Are you the Stone Barrington?” she asked.

            “The only one, as far as I know,” Stone replied cordially.

            “The, ah, friend of Katharine Lee?”

            “The just good friend of same. I’ve already released a statement to that effect, and I have nothing to add.”

            “How disappointing, I was hoping for a scoop,” she said, feigning petulance.

            “Nothing exists to be scooped, I’m afraid.”

            “Tell me,” she said, leaning in close. “Has the ambassador made a move on your crotch this evening? I’ve heard rumors.”

            “Not this evening,” Stone said. “Holly, here, is running interference.”

            “And what a lovely interference she is,” the woman said, drifting away.

            Holly pulled Lance a step away from the others. “Is he here?”

            “Is who here?” Lance asked innocently.

            “Howard Axelrod.”

            “Oh, yes, he is present, and we’ve already had our little chat.”

            “Introduce me.”

            “You may have already met him,” Lance said, then the ambassador pulled him away to meet someone else.

            Shortly, they were called to dinner in a room full of tables of six, and Holly spent the rest of the evening speculating on which of the guests was the dreaded Howard Axelrod.

            As the party broke up, Stone encountered Lance, lingering with a group. “May we offer you a lift?” he asked.

            “Thank you, no,” Lance replied. “I’m staying for a little while to have a brandy with the ambassador.”

            “Watch yourself,” Stone said.

            “I intend to,” Lance said with his little smile.

            “What was that brief conversation with Lance about?” Holly asked, when they were safely in the van.

            “I’m not sure,” Stone replied, “but Lance is either very innocent or very knowing—I’m not sure which.”

            “Probably both,” Holly said.





                     35


            The van hummed along for a while then made a turn, heading for a bridge over the Seine. “Oh, God,” Stone said, rubbing his face vigorously.

            “What’s wrong?” Holly asked.

            “I’m having a very intense déjà vu,” he said.

            “What’s it about?”

            “I’m driving along like this, Lance and Rick and me, and as we enter this intersection ahead, we’re broadsided by a concrete-mixer truck. That actually happened last year, and I’m reliving it.”

            “Do you survive?” Holly said.

            “Of course, I’m here, right?”

            “It could never happen twice,” she said.