His phone rang again. “Hello?”
“It’s Herb Fisher.”
“Hey, Herb, how are you?”
“I’m just fine, thanks. What’s this about your moving to Paris?”
“Nobody said anything about moving here—I just found a place I liked, so I bought it.”
“I spoke to an Yves Carrier in our Paris office, and he’s on it. He’s doubtful about as quick a transaction as you want.”
“I just want to get Lance Cabot’s signature on a suitable document and to pay him before he has second thoughts.”
“We can do that, but there may be other formalities that will have to be dealt with before you’ll own it in the eyes of the French. They have a large bureaucracy there, and they have to give them work to do.”
“Tell M’sieur Carrier to take as long as it takes for that stuff—just the transaction done in the eyes of the CIA. Joan’s already getting a cashier’s check that will be on his desk when he gets the e-mailed document. All he has to do is print it and sign it, then deposit the check, and we’re done, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Are you still at l’Arrington?”
“No, I’m in the house, but keep that to yourself. I had to leave l’Arrington because people were looking for me there, so tell M’sieur Carrier to keep his lip buttoned.”
“Okay. When are you coming back?”
“Later this week, after the grand opening of the hotel.”
“See you then.”
They both hung up.
“What are we doing about dinner?” Stone asked.
“I stopped by Fauchon on the way here and got us some prepared dishes. All we have to do is nuke them.”
Stone got a leg over. “First, I have to nuke you.”
49
Ann Keaton called the unruly meeting to order. “Hey! Shut up!” Reluctantly, they did. “And cut those phones off and put them away!” Resentfully, they did.
“We’ve got a new poll, and Tom Alpert is here to explain it.” There was a collective groan.
Tom Alpert was a skinny man in a black suit; he looked like an undertaker. “I’ve been told I look like an undertaker,” he said. “That may be appropriate for this meeting.”
Now everybody was really, really quiet and attentive.
“I want to stress that this wasn’t done on the fly. We have a sample of twelve thousand independent, likely voters in seventeen swing states, and here’s how it breaks down: if the election were held today, fifty-four percent of them would vote for Honk, excuse me, Henry Carson. Forty-four percent would vote for Kate Lee, with two percent undecided. That is a very small number of undecideds at this stage. If Kate won all of them, we could lose the election by as much as eight points.”
There were expressions around the table ranging from disbelief to near tears.
“Wait a minute,” somebody said. “Between Democrats and Republicans we’re holding at fifty-five percent Dems to forty-six percent Reps, aren’t we?”
“Not anymore,” Alpert said. “The numbers won’t be in until the day after tomorrow, but we know the margin is narrowing. What I’m saying is, we’re on the knife’s edge of losing, and the personal conduct of the candidates could throw it either way. If either of them does or says something stupid in the next few days, it could make the difference.”