Two-Dollar Bill

6

TIFFANY BALDWIN pressed a button, and a glass partition between them and the driver slid up. "Okay," she said, "it's not a coincidence."

"Oh?"

"Nope. I'm new in town, and I needed a date for this party, and I once saw you across a crowded room, and I figured, what the hell?"

"I'm flattered. And is this Rodney Peeples fiction?"

"Nope, he's real, but elusive. We heard a rumor that you were involved with him, so it was a good excuse to call you."

They pulled up in front of the Four Seasons, and the doorman got the door.

"Let's leave our coats in the car," Tiffany said. "Then we won't have to stand in line for the coat-check room when we leave."

Stone tossed both coats and his hat into the rear seat and hustled her into the building, his teeth chattering. They climbed the big staircase and emerged into the Grill Room, which had been mostly cleared of tables so those present could drink and pump each other's hands without bumping into the furniture. A string quartet was sawing away at some Mozart in a corner, and great quantities of food and drink were being consumed.

Stone snagged two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter, and they waded into the crowd.

"Well," Tiffany said, "this is a good introduction to New York City. I recognize a lot of faces here; how many of them do you know?"

"Hardly any, except for the lawyers I run into in the hallowed halls of Woodman and Weld, but I recognize the same faces you do." They were former cabinet members, politicians, a couple of United States senators, the mayor, the police commissioner and enough city councilmen, CEOs and movers and shakers that if laid end to end would reach somewhere into the northern regions of Central Park.

Bill Eggers elbowed his way through the mob and, ignoring Stone, gave Tiffany a big hug and kiss. "Welcome home, kiddo," he said.

"Home?" Stone asked.

"I interned at Woodman and Weld for two summers during law school," she said.

Eggers took her by the hand and led her up some stairs to a level overlooking the party. Somebody rang a silver bell, and the crowed quieted a bit.

"Good evening, everyone," Eggers said. "On behalf of Woodman and Weld I want to welcome you all here to our annual profit-draining salute to our clients and friends. I will keep you long enough only to introduce you to the newest member of the New York legal fraternity, who has just been appointed the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Formerly, as a law student, she worked summers at Woodman and Weld, and I firmly intend to use that connection every chance I get on behalf of our clients. May I introduce Ms. Tiffany Baldwin!" There was loud applause. Tiffany raised a glass to the crowd and mouthed a thank you, but said nothing. She descended the stairs with Eggers, and Stone could not get near her for an hour, such was the press to meet her.

It was not until he had been swept into the main dining room for dinner that he found her again, his place card opposite hers.

"I assume you met everyone in the place," he said, sitting down.

"Twice," she said, fanning herself with her hands. "What happened to you?"

"I was flotsam in the tide, but you were right, this event is an excellent introduction for you. Now half the movers and shakers in the city can say they know you when their friends say, 'Who the hell is Tiffany Baldwin?'"

"Call me Tiff," she said. "It takes some of the sting away."

"What were your parents thinking?"

"Louis Comfort Tiffany was a distant relative by marriage," she said, "and giving me his name gave my mother an excuse to tell people about the kinship every time she introduced me to someone. Never mind that trailer trash from Maine to California were naming their daughters Tiffany, even if they didn't always spell it correctly. You'd be astonished at the number of ways the name can be misspelled."

"What were you doing before your new appointment?"

"Well, until this morning I was an assistant attorney general."

"So, you're a Republican?"

"No, but the AG doesn't know that, and my father is a major contributor to the party and a friend of the First Family, and that passes for political credentials."

"You must have won a lot of cases for the Justice Department," Stone said.

"Yes, indeed, and always the tough ones that the boys didn't want to try. They were mostly during the Clinton years, though. The boys began to catch on that the tough cases got them noticed."

"So, now you're the one who's going to try to put that nice Martha Stewart in jail?"

She raised her hands as if fending off the remark. "Nope, that one belongs to my predecessor and his chosen people. I wouldn't touch it with a very long pole. I take it, from your view of the AG, that you're a Democrat?"

"A Yellow Dog Democrat."

"What's that?"

"That's somebody who would vote for a Yellow Dog before he'd vote for a Republican."

"I wouldn't say that too loudly," she said, looking around. "This is a very Republican-looking crowd to me."

"Nah, they're mostly rich Democrats, though in a setting like this it can be hard to tell the difference."

Her eyes were fixed on the entrance. "Well, it's real hard to tell what that is."

Stone looked over his shoulder to see Billy Bob entering the room. He was wearing a western-cut tuxedo that seemed to be sprinkled with Stardust, and on his arm was a six-foot-tall woman who looked like a stripper who had been redone by Frederic Fekkai and Versace. "Oh, that's my newest client, one Billy Bob Barnstormer."

"You're kidding," she said.

"I am not."

"Where did he get that suit? It looks like he's playing Vegas."

"Texans have places to get things like that," Stone said. "They keep them from the rest of us."

"Thank God for that. Who is he? What does he do?"

"It's hard to say, exactly. He goes out into the world and gathers money from trees. He flew into Teterboro in a GIV last night and stayed at my house, leaving many pieces of alligator luggage behind as a house gift. And he got a phone call this morning from Warren Buffett."

"I should have such house guests," she said.

"Do you have a house, yet?"

"They're putting me up in a government suite at the Waldorf Towers until either I find a place or they need it for somebody more important, whichever comes first."

"I would extend your residence there as long as possible."

She shook her head. "No, I have to pay my own room service and laundry bills. Do you have any idea what they charge for dry cleaning a silk blouse?"

"A week's pay?"

"Very nearly, and breakfast this morning was forty-five bucks."

"I hope you ate well."

"Better than I intended to. I felt I had to finish it."

"I know how you feel. Billy Bob cooked me breakfast this morning- a strip steak and half a dozen eggs. I couldn't eat lunch, and I'm not very hungry now."

He looked back at Billy Bob and his date, posing for a photograph with the mayor, whose head hovered at about the height of the date's nipples, which were threatening to become visible. They all seemed the best of friends.

Stone was still thinking about that phone call that morning. "Excuse me a second," he said. He walked out of the dining room and into the hallway, next to the huge Picasso weaving and called Bob Cantor, who did all sorts of technical investigations for him.

"Hello?"

"Bob, it's Stone; are you near your computer?"

"Always."

"Can you do your magic and tell me the origin of a phone call that came to my house about nine-fifteen this morning?" Stone could hear the tapping noises from Bob's keyboard.

"Did you get a lot of calls this morning?"

"That was the only long-distance call before about ten."

"Here we go: It came from the residence of somebody named Warren Buffett, in Omaha, Nebraska. Holy shit, are you getting calls from Warren Buffett?"

"It would appear so. Thanks, Bob." He hung up and returned to his table.

"Everything all right?" Tiff asked.

"Seems to be," Stone replied. He was going to have to start taking Billy Bob Barnstormer seriously.

WHEN THE DINNER was over, they went back to her waiting car.

"I'll give you a lift home," she said. She lowered the partition window slightly and gave the driver the address.

"You know my address?"

"You'd be amazed at what I know about you."

Shortly, they stopped in front of his house. "How about dinner tomorrow night?"

"Let me call you when I see how my first day is going," she said. "Will you take me to Elaine's? I've never been."

"Sure." He gave her his card. "The cell-phone number is on there, too, if I'm not in my office. But then, you probably already know my cell-phone number."

"Of course I do," she said, pecking him on the cheek. "Thanks for squiring me tonight; I'd have felt awkward alone."

"I doubt if you've ever felt awkward in your life," Stone said. He slid out of the car and ran up the front steps, carrying his coat.