Shakeup

10

Stone awoke at seven, and Holly and her burka were gone. He had just sat up in bed and rung for breakfast when his cell phone rang. Blocked call. “Yes?”

“It is I. I’m sorry to dematerialize so soon, but I have a nine o’clock, and I can’t do that in a burka.”

“Understood. Tonight?”

“Let me see what I can do.” She hung up. Stone sighed.

She rang back after ten minutes. “I’ve just been told that I have an afternoon of appointments,” she said, “and a dinner.”

“Oh, well.”

“I think what I’ll have to do is plan further ahead and blank out a couple of days as vacation time.”

“Then the press will want to know where you’re going.”

“I’ll take a firm line on that. They’ll get used to it.”

“What happened to the man with the rifle?”

“They shot him, but not dead. Sounds like he’ll end up in a mental ward for a long rest.”

“You were safer in my arms,” he said.

“Don’t I know it! Gotta run.” She hung up.

Stone had just sat down at his desk when Joan buzzed him. “Dino on one.”

Stone pushed the button. “Good morning.”

“You obviously haven’t seen the early edition of the New York Post.”

“I try to spare myself that.”

“There’s what you might call a speculative, not to say a made-up, story that a woman in a burka was spotted leaving the Carlyle with a known Secret Service agent.”

“Oh, shit.”

“It’s okay, they think she had a Muslim visitor. They’re working that up into a brink-of-war-in-the-Middle-East story.”

“Whew!”

“Nice idea, though. Whose was it?”

“Hers, I think. I can’t remember.”

“I think you’re going to have to think up a better story, one that takes place in a less convenient place. How about Camp David?”

“Lots of staff around there.”

“Some other place where you have a house?”

“Too cold in Maine, too far to L.A., England, or France, unless there’s legit government business in one of those.”

“Problem is, after all that waltzing on inaugural night, you’re now officially on the radar, not to mention fair game.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Maybe what Holly needs is a beard.”

“That would be unattractive.”

“You know what I mean: a harmless male escort, preferably gay and out of the closet.”

“I don’t know how that would work. The problem is, eventually, we’re going to get busted. And it will be worse than if we had just made an announcement after the inauguration.”

“How about an engagement announcement in the Sunday Times?”

“Engaged for eight years?”

“Well, there is that. Plus, you’ll never get laid again, if people believe you are engaged to the president. Of course, there’s a certain kind of woman who would view that as a challenge.”

“Spare me that kind of woman,” Stone said.

“If we put our minds together, we could come up with something that would work. Dinner tonight?”

“Patroon, at seven,” Stone said, then hung up. He asked Joan to book the table.

He was halfway through a bourbon before Dino showed. Half a dozen people had complimented him on his waltzing.

Dino slid into the booth, just ahead of a Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks. “Did you come up with anything yet?” Stone asked.

“I haven’t given it a thought.”

“Me, either.”

“How about moving to another city?”

“It would have to be London or Paris. I can’t buy any more houses. And I’d never see Holly again.”

“Presidents visit London and Paris.”

“I don’t think I can conduct a sexual relationship while accompanied by a motorcycle escort,” Stone said.

“Yeah, I guess that kind of travel would entail an entourage.”

“Look who’s here,” Stone said, nodding toward the entrance.

Dino looked. “Well, as I live and breathe. Our Lieutenant Jacoby has found a restaurant table in New York.”

Jacoby was with an attractive brunette, Stone noted. “A table isn’t all he’s found.”

Jacoby saw them across the room and nodded. He ordered a drink, then excused himself from the brunette and crossed to their booth. Hands were shaken.

“I want to ask your advice,” he said.

“Which one of us?” Dino asked.

“Both of you. I had a visit this afternoon from Donald Clark.”

Stone threw up a hand. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me. He wants you to conduct an investigation of his wife’s murder and find him innocent.”

“You, too?”

“Everybody in town,” Stone said.

“Did you give him any advice?”

“Yes, I told him to go back to D.C., hire a top criminal lawyer from a top firm, and have him issue a statement that he’s innocent.”

“I guess that’s cheaper than an investigation,” Jacoby said.

“I guess so. What advice did you give him?”

“I told him it was ethically inappropriate for him to seek my advice, since I’m still listed as an investigating officer on the case.”

“I like it,” Stone said.

“Enjoy your dinner,” Jacoby said. “Any recommendations?”

“The chateaubriand or the Dover sole,” Stone said. “Or anything else. It’s all good.”

Jacoby gave him a little salute and returned to his brunette. “I wonder who else is on the list,” Stone said.

“Sherlock Holmes,” Dino replied.