Rook

bowels of Heathrow, Ingrid gave me further details on my lunch date.
    “She was a close friend of Eva Perón and was briefly implicated in the Great Fire of Chicago. She may be in possession of a quail that lays golden eggs, and she is responsible for four earthquakes over the past two centuries.”
    We were ushered into the special reception room that important people go to so they won’t have to endure Customs. It’s luxurious and private, and you don’t have to mingle with the public. It’s the room that you wait in if you are very, very powerful and once got shitfaced with Joseph of Arimathea. Or if you are Mick Jagger.
    Naturally, the Greek was late. We arrived half an hour after her plane landed, but I suppose when you have all the time in the world, you can afford to wait for the other party to settle in. Also, you learn the art of making a good entrance. Ingrid was in the middle of describing the three modern cults dedicated to the worship of the woman when she came into the room.
    This chick had just arrived from Milan, where she’d been picking up designer outfits and lovers, and she was wearing one of each. Her arm was looped casually through the elbow of an Adonis type who looked to have the intelligence quotient of an ironing board, and behind them were two people, an elderly woman and a large Australian Aboriginal man.
    I had been expecting a glorious beauty, a goddess who carried herself with all the dignity and confidence of the ages. After all, this was a woman who’d dickered with lamas and dueled with a pope. So I was taken aback to see a woman of my height (which is not great, as you well know) with bouffant, peroxide-blond hair. Blood-red lipstick. Massive sunglasses. A cigarette in one hand. And long, crimson fingernails.
    Still, she looked like she was in her forties. No small feat when you’ve lived longer than Methuselah.
    “My darling Rook Thomas!” She swooped across the room, leaned down to me, and planted a kiss on each cheek, leaving massive lipstick smears. Her accent was liquid, sliding smoothly around Europe and South America. She wore enough rings on each finger to bludgeon Anthony to a standstill.
    “You are very pretty!” she lied to me. “I am so pleased to meet you! Did you know your skirt is on backward?” I muttered something inarticulate about how it was my honor to welcome her to the United Kingdom on the unknowing behalf of the monarch and also about Chevalier Gubbins sending his regrets. My tongue was completely tied, and I managed to turn my skirt only halfway around.
    “Oh, yes! Harry! I saw him in Kuala Lumpur a few years ago.”
    “Ten years,” said the elderly woman behind her with a sigh. The male model, who’d been jettisoned as soon as Lisa caught sight of me, shot her a dirty look. From the files, I knew that the elderly woman was Lisa’s personal secretary and that the Aborigine guy wasn’t her bodyguard but her IT expert.
    “Ten years?” repeated Lisa vaguely. “Really? Anyway, I hope he’s doing well, but I am quite confident that you and I will have a pleasant time.” Then, to my intense mortification, she added, “And I think we can quite definitely help you in the wardrobe department. Tell me, are all your clothes so… gray?” Behind me, Ingrid made a sort of muffled snorting sound. I can only assume she was choking on a breath mint. I shot her a look, hoping she hadn’t heard anything, and saw that she was wearing a poker face, which could only mean that she’d heard everything.
    Bugger.
    Lisa bustled through the hallways of Heathrow, a Rook of the Checquy and a cover boy flanking her. It was like hanging out with a woman who was simultaneously my grandmother and my personal shopper. She reeled off names of clothing stores and tailors we would have to visit. Her elderly secretary jotted them down, while behind them hustled Ingrid and Anthony, listening in increasing dismay as their schedule, meticulously created to ensure political correctness and impeccable security, was jettisoned in favor of a sort of supernatural makeover.
    I attempted to protest, citing variously my salary hindrances (a lie), Checquy policy (another lie), and the fact that I didn’t know any of my sizes(which was true, but I really didn’t like having to admit it). All these were swept aside when Lisa promised to pay for everything, assured me that nobody in the Checquy wanted to offend her, and informed me that when you pay the amount she was intending