Unintended Consequences

I?”
    “Hang on,” Stone said. He had stopped in front of a gallery window and was staring at a painting inside. “Let’s go in,” he said. He led her into the shop and asked the woman inside if she could remove the painting from the window. She did so, and he looked closely at it and inquired of the price. A little haggling ensued, and Stone handed her his American Express card and his address.
    “I don’t get it,” Amanda said as they waited for the transaction to be completed.
    “Don’t get what?”
    “You’re walking around Paris with an expert, and you don’t even ask my advice. Or my opinion, for that matter.”
    “You might have disagreed with me,” he replied, “and my only criterion when buying art is whether I like it enough to want it in my home. But now that I’ve bought it, what do you think of it?”
    She smiled. “If you hadn’t bought it I would have bought it myself for one of the collections I curate. You got a good price, too. Where did you learn about art?”
    “From my mother, by osmosis. She was a painter.”
    “Wait a minute, I’ve got it! Your mother was Matilda Stone?”
    “She was.”
    “Her work is on my permanent to-buy list, whenever it becomes available, not that it does very often.”
    “In that case, you’re very smart. She’s on my permanent to-buy list, too. I’ve picked up two small paintings in the last year. I hope I won’t have to start competing with you.”
    “You may have to,” she said.
    “Tell you what: I’ll give you a generous reward for every picture of hers you lead me to.”
    “My arrangement with my clients allows me to freelance,” she said. “You’re on.”
    Stone signed the bill, and they left the shop. “You know,” he said as they strolled down the street, “I can see why you’re no longer a spook.”
    “And why is that?”
    “You can’t have been very good at it.”
    “That’s a terrible thing to say. Why did you say it?”
    “Because the bald guy from Lipp has been following us since we left. He’s across the street in a doorway now, pretending to look at a piece of sculpture.”
    “Well, shit,” she said. “On the other hand, why do you think he’s following
me
?”
    “You’re the ex-spook. Why would he follow me?”
    “Maybe because he’s seen you at Lipp on two consecutive days, in the company of people he believes to be CIA?”
    “Well,” Stone said, “I’m going to have to start hanging out with a better class of people.”

15
    S tone got back to the Plaza Athénée and checked his messages: Holly had called. He went upstairs to his suite, and as he opened the door he found the place dark. That surprised him, because the maids always threw open the curtains to his terrace. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he started. A man was sitting in one of the comfortable chairs across the room. Stone felt for a light switch and turned it on. Lance Cabot was sitting in the chair, his chin on his chest, apparently dead.
    Stone went to the windows and pulled the curtains open.
    The corpse moved a little, then opened its eyes. “Hello, Stone,” it said.
    “Lance, what the hell are you doing here? Aren’t you in the middle of Senate hearings on your appointment as director?”
    “The hearings are over,” Lance replied, stretching. “We expect a favorable result in a couple of days.”
    “Why are you in Paris, then? Shouldn’t you be getting sworn in or something?”
    “Yes, I should, but until I am sworn in I’m still deputy director for operations, and I have to deal with the unbelievable mess you’ve made in Paris.” He stood up and began pacing.
    “What the fuck are you talking about?”
    “You managed to get yourself drugged on an airplane, and you’ve thrown my Paris station into a frenzy.”
    “Well, your first statement is apparently true, but how have I thrown your station into a frenzy?”
    “Let’s see,” Lance said, holding up a finger. “First, you turn up semiconscious at the embassy and cause my medical officer to have to save your life, instead of doing what he’s supposed to be doing. Then you’ve got my station head worrying about your activities in Paris instead of confounding his country’s enemies. You’re taking up most of the time of one of my best officers, who has apparently adopted you as a role model and has stuck me with a forty-thousand-dollar bill at Charvet. You’ve interfered with his approach to Marcel duBois, whom I had hoped he could make into