The Short Forever(62)
She was gone. Dancing had begun, and he spotted her on the floor with a man from their table. He took a cocktail napkin, drew a circle, and wrote on it, Table Twelve. He marked the bald man’s position and gave it to a waiter. “Please take this to Mr. Hedger, at table sixteen; he’s the one with the mustache.”
The waiter departed, and Stone followed him with his gaze to Hedger’s table. He saw Hedger read the note, then tuck it into a pocket. He didn’t immediately look at table twelve, but a moment later he let his gaze run in that direction. Then he looked toward Stone and shrugged.
Stone looked back at table twelve, but the man was no longer there. He noticed a door to the garden open, near the table. Stone looked back at Hedger and shrugged.
Arrington came back to the table and took Stone’s hand. “Come dance with me,” she said. She led him to the floor, and the band was playing something romantic.
Stone held her in his arms, something he had always loved doing, and moved them around the floor.
“You were always a wonderful dancer,” she said. “Vertically or horizontally.” She kissed him on the neck.
“Let’s get out of here,” Stone said.
“I can’t; I’m a guest of the ambassador, and it would be rude.”
“Dinner tomorrow night?”
“Where?”
“The Connaught restaurant, at nine?”
“You’re on.”
She put her head on his shoulder, and he whirled her happily around the floor.
Stone looked back at table twelve; the man was still not there. “If you jiggled the place cards, you must have access to tonight’s guest list,” he said to Arrington.
“I suppose,” she replied.
“Do you think you could get me a list of the people at table twelve, with their positions marked?”
“I suppose so, but not tonight.”
“Will you bring it with you tomorrow evening? It’s important.”
“Anything for you,” she said, and let her tongue play lightly over his ear.
Stone didn’t complain.
Chapter 37
STONE WAS ALREADY AT AN ALCOVE table in the Connaught grill when Stanford Hedger arrived for lunch. Hedger sat down and ordered a pink gin, something Stone had never heard an American do.
“What is a pink gin, anyway?”
“Gin with a dash of Angostura bitters,” Hedger replied. “I doubt if you’d like it.”
“I doubt it, too,” Stone replied, sipping his Chardonnay.
“Did you enjoy your evening?” Hedger asked. “I saw you and Mrs. Carter dancing.”
“Yes, thank you, and thank you, too, for the use of the ambassador’s car.”
“Any time,” Hedger replied. “When the ambassador’s not using it, I use it myself, sometimes. Tell me, is it hard to dance with someone’s tongue in your ear?”
“On the contrary,” Stone replied. “It helps.”
Hedger laughed. “I never saw your little bald man, you know; are you sure he wasn’t a figment of your imagination?”
“Isn’t his presence why you had me invited?”
“Well, yes; but I fully expected to see him, if you did.”
“Why did you think he’d be there?”
“Just a hunch. Last night’s dinner, if you didn’t know, was for the foreign diplomatic corps. I reckoned if he was anybody important in an embassy, he’d be there.”
“Good guess,” Stone replied. “And why did you think he’d be somebody important in an embassy?”
“His accents, as you described them, one overlaid on the other. Eton is a very exclusive school, you know, and everybody who spends his youth there comes out with that accent, even the foreigners. Remember Abba Eban, the Israeli ambassador to the UN?”
“Yes.”
“Same accent.”
“Now that you mention it.”
Hedger looked at the menu. “I’ll have half a dozen oysters and the Dover sole,” he said to the waiter, “off the bone, and I’d prefer a female, if there’s one available.”
“I’ll have the cold soup and the sole,” Stone said. “Should I order the female, too?”
“If you enjoy roe,” Hedger replied.
Stone nodded to the waiter.
“And bring us a bottle of that lovely Sancerre,” Hedger said. He turned to Stone. “Now, what’s up? Why did you want to see me?”
“Things have taken a rather ominous turn,” Stone said, “and I thought you might have some advice on how I should proceed.”
“Tell me.”
“I followed Lance Cabot yesterday from his house to an antiques market in Chelsea. Do you know his friends Ali and Sheila?”