Unintended Consequences (3 page)

Stone chatted idly with other guests but contrived to stay near Helga. She seemed comfortable with that.

“Are you here alone?” Stone asked her when he got the chance.

“No, I am with you,” Helga replied. “I believe that Marcel has . . . how do you say? ‘Fixed us up.’”

“How very kind of Marcel,” Stone said.

She gave him her most dazzling smile. “Yes,” she said, “how very kind of him.”

A man taller than both Helga and Stone, Mediterranean-looking, with black, slicked-back hair, approached them. “
Buona sera
,” he said. “Good evening.”

Italian, Stone assumed, and he watched as the man expertly began to divert Helga’s attention from Stone to him. Helga did not respond as he perhaps would have liked and pointedly included Stone in their conversation. Soon, he wandered in search of more amenable prey.

“Italians!” Helga said with a snort. “Unstoppable!”

“And yet,” Stone said, “you stopped him.”

“Discouraged, perhaps,” she replied. “I think you will be better company.”

“I’ll do my best,” Stone replied.

Then from behind him the butler announced half a dozen other people, and for Stone, one name stood out, one he had heard earlier in the day.

“M’sieur Richard LaRose,” the butler said.

5

L
aRose’s eyes passed slowly over the crowd, not pausing to recognize Stone. His appearance was distinctly different from the other men in the room: his tuxedo was not custom-made, but perhaps rented, draped on his thin frame as if on a hanger; his shirt collar was half an inch too big; his bow tie a clip-on; and his haircut of barber-college quality. Still, he seemed oddly at ease in the group, chatting easily with whoever came to hand.

Stone took LaRose’s lack of attention to him as deliberate and did not go out of his way to greet the man. He thought he must surely be here in his professional capacity.

Finally, LaRose was handed off by an uninterested knot of people to Stone and Helga. Stone introduced them both; LaRose spoke a few words to Helga in a language he did not recognize, then returned to English.

“Your Swedish is very good, Mr. LaRose,” Helga said.

“Thank you. I spent some time in our embassy there.”

“Are you a diplomat?”

“I am the commercial attaché at our Paris embassy,” he replied, glancing at Stone as if to see if he caught his drift.

“What does that mean?” Stone asked, as if he were really interested.

“It means that I work to promote commerce between the United States and the country in which I am serving,” LaRose replied smoothly.

Helga looked across the room and spotted a woman waving at her. “Please excuse me for a moment,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Richard,” Stone said quietly, “if you’re going to mix with this crowd, ostensibly on embassy business, you should find yourself a good tailor at once.”

“You have a point,” LaRose said. “I was unprepared for the invitation and had to rent this suit. Can you recommend a tailor?”

“Charvet is very good, if your employer is paying.”

“They’ve offered me a clothing allowance, but I haven’t taken advantage of it.”

“Tomorrow would be a good time,” Stone said. “European tailors work at a deliberate pace. Charvet makes shirts and ties, as well.”

“The people with whom I mixed at my previous postings were not so demanding,” he said. “What clothing should I have made? It’s a serious question.”

“Half a dozen suits, a dozen shirts, not all of them white, and, by all means, a tuxedo. Then a navy blazer and a couple of tweed jackets for less formal occasions.” He looked down. “And shoes, though they need not be custom-made. Try Berluti.”

LaRose was taking notes on a jotter. “I’m grateful to you,” he said. “My only other avenue of advice would be the ambassador, but he’s too far above my pay grade.”

“And find somebody who has a good haircut and ask him where he got it.”

“Good idea,” LaRose said, making a note. “I’ve been cutting it myself.”

“What are you doing here, Richard, if I may ask?”

“It’s Rick, and I’m here on business.”

The butler’s voice rang out. “Ladies and gentlemen, my lords and ladies, dinner is served.”

The group began streaming out the doors and across the hallway to the dining room, where a long table had been elegantly set. Stone estimated twenty-four chairs. He found his place card near the center, next to his host, and a moment later, Helga took his other side. “I’m sorry to have stuck you with that rather strange gentleman,” she said. “There was someone I just had to speak to. Who was that man?”

“Richard LaRose, commercial attaché at our embassy. He was more interesting than you might have thought.”

“He was dressed rather oddly.”

“His luggage was lost, and he had to make do.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “His Swedish was commendable, though. I don’t think he could have learned it simply by working in the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm.”

“I imagine he went to a rather good language school,” Stone said.

“I suppose the State Department has such a school,” Helga said. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”

It hadn’t occurred to Stone that Helga was Swedish, not German.

“Are you from Stockholm?”

She shook her head. “From a small town north of there, on the Baltic.”

“Do you live permanently in Paris?”

“My legal residence is in Monaco, for tax reasons, but I keep a flat here in a hotel.”

“What do you do, Helga?”

“I was married for a living for some years. Now I’m divorced for a living.”

Stone smiled. “Congratulations.”

She shrugged, emphasizing her cleavage. “The work suits me.”

The waiter poured Stone some white wine, and he caught sight of the label: Le Montrachet, with ten years in the bottle. He sipped it, rolled it on his tongue.

“Do you like the wine?” Marcel duBois asked.

“As we say in New York, ‘What’s not to like?’ Le Montrachet would be my favorite white, if I had it often enough to remember.”

“The secret to drinking good wine is to buy it on release, or in futures, then lay it down until it’s ready to drink. You can save hundreds of dollars a bottle by doing that.”

“Very good advice,” Stone replied. “I have a cellar in my house, but I’m a bit slapdash about stocking it on any regular basis.”

“Then you are condemned to drink wines of the second and third rank,” duBois said. “Find yourself a good wine merchant in New York and place some standing orders with him.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I’ll mend my ways.”

DuBois laughed. “I hope so for your sake.”

“Marcel, I’d like to thank you for seating me with Helga. She’s absolutely spectacular.”

“There was a time when I would have thought it dangerous to introduce you to her, but now she’s happily and profitably divorced, so she’s no longer a threat to your net worth, though perhaps to your liquidity.”

Stone laughed. “Was she really so predatory?”

“She arrived in Stockholm from some rural village and knocked the town on its ass, as you Americans would say. She attracted the industrialist son of a very big industrialist father, who had the grace to die in his sixties and leave the boy a very large fortune, comfortably tucked away in various tax havens. When she’d had enough of him and requested a divorce, he was reportedly so grateful to her for establishing his reputation as a ladies’ man that he wrote her a very large check as a farewell gift—rumor has it for forty million euros, which hardly dented his fortune.”

“An enterprising woman,” Stone said. There was a tap on his shoulder, and Stone turned to find Helga looking at him curiously. “Are you two talking about me?”

“Only in the most admiring terms,” Stone replied.

A waiter heaped a large portion of beluga caviar on their plates, ending their conversation. Stone observed that the table was much quieter while the diners contemplated their good fortune.

6

T
hey were served three more courses after the caviar, and Stone had to restrain himself. Then, just when he thought the dining was over, footmen with large trays of cheeses appeared. He accepted a chunk of Pont l’Évêque and found it to be
à point
. A decanter of port was passed from his right; he poured himself a glass and passed the decanter on to his host. He sniffed and sipped. “Mmmm,” he said to duBois, “what is it?”

“A Quinta do Noval, 1972,” duBois replied. “It has been waiting patiently in my cellars for forty years just to please you.”

“I’m much easier to please than this,” Stone said. “I’m more in the line of overwhelmed.”

“You have a good palate,” duBois said. “Look at others around the table—most of them haven’t even noticed that they have been given something wonderful.”

“If I begin to buy vintage ports now,” Stone said, “I’ll be a very old man when they’re ready.”

“Fortunately, I bought well when port was out of fashion,” duBois said, “and I bought enough to keep me for all of my life.” He raised his glass. “I hope to drink the last bottle of this on my deathbed.”

Stone smiled. “I hope God gives you that favor.”

“Would you like to experience something else beautiful?” duBois asked. “You may bring your port with you.” He stood and rapped a knife against a wineglass. “My friends, please bring your glass with you and adjourn with me to my forecourt. I have more beauty to offer you.”

Stone gave Helga his arm and followed duBois through some French doors and out of the house. On the way, he brushed past Rick LaRose. “See if you can find out why I’m at this party,” he whispered to the man.

Then there before him, gorgeously lit, Stone saw perhaps the most beautiful automobile he had ever seen. It was somewhat larger than a Porsche or Ferrari, but smaller than the usual sports sedan, like the Panamera or the Maserati. It was a gleaming black, and as Stone and Helga approached an open door, he looked inside and saw an interior of soft, glowing leather, so perfectly cut and stitched that it might have been the inside of an Hermès handbag. There was much oohing and aahing among the guests.

DuBois reached past them, flipped a lever, and pulled the front passenger seat forward. “Helga, I would be grateful if you would assist me in making a point. Please climb in.”

A footman took her port glass. Helga put a foot inside, turned, and was swallowed by the seat. DuBois allowed the front seat to slide back into place. “Are you quite comfortable?” he asked.

“
Very
comfortable,” she replied. “I even have plenty of legroom.”

“So you see, my friends, that the rear seat of the Blaise can accommodate even so statuesque a person as the lovely Helga. Stone, take the driver’s seat, please.”

Stone gave the footman his glass, walked around the car, and lowered himself into the bucket seat, even as duBois got in on the passenger side.

“Wait a moment,” duBois said. “The seat will accommodate itself to you.”

Stone felt the seat move in all sorts of ways for perhaps two seconds. He put his hands on the wheel. “Perfect,” he said.

“Press the start button, here,” duBois said, pointing. “The key is in my pocket.”

Stone pressed the button and the engine came alive; he had not even heard the starter button. The headlights came on, as well.

“Now,” duBois said, “drive to the end of my road and turn right.”

Stone did so.

“Now just follow your nose and drive,” duBois said. “At this time of night there will be little traffic.”

Stone goosed the accelerator, and the car pressed him into his seat as it leaped forward, making a noise like a distant Ferrari. Stone took a very sharp curve without touching the brakes, then gained more speed. For a moment he was at 180 kph, with effortless acceleration. “It’s so quiet and smooth,” he said.

“The windows and windscreen are double-glazed,” duBois replied, “and we have paid close attention to noise abatement. What you are experiencing is active noise cancellation, as if you were wearing a noise-canceling headset. Except the whole interior of the car is like a headset.” DuBois touched the instrument panel and symphonic music flooded the cabin. “The electronics also have the effect of enhancing the music.”

“I can hear nothing from outside the car,” Stone said, “except the muted sound of the engine.”

DuBois pressed another button on the dash, and suddenly the vehicle sounded like a race car, and there was road noise from the tires. “If you want the pleasure of hearing the car perform, there you are,” duBois said. He pressed the button again, and serenity was restored.

“What’s under the bonnet?” Stone asked.

“A twin-turbocharged V12-producing six hundred and fifty horsepower,” duBois said. “Top speed, two hundred ten miles per hour, zero to sixty in two-point-nine seconds.”

“I’ve never felt anything quite like this,” Stone said.

“Neither has anyone else. It has taken me six years to bring it from a clean sheet of paper to production.”

“What sort of price will you put on it?”

“In New York, with various taxes and dealer fees included, the MSRP would be about three hundred and fifty thousand,” duBois said. “However, if you would like one I will give it to you for, say, two hundred twenty-five thousand? I would like it to be seen being driven in New York.”

“And when would you be able to deliver one?”

“This is the first production model, which I have reserved for myself, so that I can test-drive it every day. We have thirty completed cars at the factory now, waiting to be shipped to various dealers in Europe and the States. One of them has your name on it, if you like. They are all metallic black and equipped exactly like this one. There are no options, so you have no other decisions to make.”

“I’ll send you a check tomorrow,” Stone said. “I have just enough room in my garage for it.”

“Turn right here, and we’ll go back to the house,” duBois said. “I have abandoned my guests, and I imagine some of them would like to have a turn in the car. Your car will be delivered to your home in a week or ten days,” he said to Stone. “The cars for the U.S. are being flown over.”