Unintended Consequences

M’sieur duBois was as impressed with our American wines as he pretended to be.”
    “Perhaps not, sir. By the way, I am aware that my accent is impenetrable to many Americans. I can quite easily speak in BBC English or, if you wish, with more of an upper-class accent. Which would you prefer?”
    “About halfway between your Cockney and your BBC, I should think.”
    “As you wish, sir.”
    Joan appeared at the door, apparently having been listening outside. “Fred, if you will come with me, we’ll get started.”
    “Joan,” Stone said, “you can put Fred in the room at the rear of the fourth floor, overlooking the garden. Assuming we successfully complete the purchase of the house next door, you can arrange an apartment for him there.”
    “What a good idea,” Joan said, “since the seller has already accepted your offer, which was fifteen percent below the asking price. We close on the fifteenth.”
    “Very good,” Stone said.
    Fred stood up. “You may keep my credentials and read them at your leisure,” he said to Stone, then he and Joan left the room.
    Stone slowly finished his bourbon. “Dino,” he said aloud, to himself, “you are not going to believe this one.”
    Then Joan appeared in the doorway, holding a package wrapped in brown paper, which seemed to be leaking. “Another gift arrived for you,” she said.
    “What on earth is that?” Stone asked.
    “Fifteen pounds of moose meat.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE
    I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
    However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my website at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
    If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is probably because you are among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.
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    Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of
Writer’s Market
at any bookstore; that will tell you how.
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    A list of my published works appears in the front of this book and on my website. All the novels are still in print in paperback and can be found at or ordered from any bookstore. If