“Perfect, Dr. Don. We’ll look forward to seeing them aboard. They’ll have two pilots and a flight attendant.”
“Thank you.” Calhoun hung up and went back to the kitchen, where Cheree was putting their breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. “We’re on for eight AM tomorrow,” he said.
“How long is the flight?”
“Two legs, about four hours each, plus one fuel stop.”
“Why can’t we go nonstop?”
“Because we’d need a Gulfstream 550. We’ve got a very nice new airplane called a Latitude, and it’s half the money. That’s good motivation for a fuel stop.”
“I guess so.”
“You don’t sound very happy about this.”
“What, about fleeing the country ahead of the cops?”
“We’re not fleeing the country ahead of the cops. We’re not about to be arrested.”
“That’s not what the News said this morning.”
“Fuck the News,” he said angrily. “What do they know?”
“The charter company has to report our names to the Feds. What if they stop us?”
“We’re using different passports, a couple of people who work for me, who look enough like us for their photographs to work. They were chosen for the resemblance.”
“And what is the apartment like?”
“You’re going to love it. I bought the place right after the Olympics at a great price. Seven rooms and a view of Rio that won’t quit.”
“Does it have furniture?”
“Completely furnished by the best decorator in Brazil, and there’s a Mercedes in the garage.”
Cheree sighed. “Well, I guess it’ll have to do.”
53
Stone and Susan lay in bed, panting and sweating. It was shortly after dawn, and that is very early at the latitude at which Britain exists. She had waked him and quite easily seduced him.
“That was marvelous,” Susan said.
“Bit of British overstatement?”
She laughed. “Take your compliments where you find them, sir.”
“Thank you very much. Just for comparison’s sake, I thought it was bloody marvelous — from my point of view.”
“And thank you very much.”
“You’re very welcome.”
She sighed. “I wish this could go on and on, but it can’t. And it’s all your fault.”
Stone turned toward her. “There were two statements in that sentence, and I didn’t understand either of them.”
“It can’t go on, because I’ve gotten so fucking busy,” she said. “I’ve gotten to the point where I can hand over Curtis House to one of my new deputies, albeit with qualms, and now I have to go and make some sense of what’s happening in London, and that’s the part that’s all your fault.”
“Busy, I understand. I can work with that, but what’s all my fault?”
“Busy is all your fault. You’ve given me so much good business advice that my workload has increased markedly. Before, when I was just a successful interior designer, I could do pretty much as I pleased with my day. Now, suddenly, I’m a design tycoon, and I have to drive back to London at the crack of dawn and learn to delegate authority, something I’m entirely unaccustomed to and very uncomfortable with.”
“Delegating authority was supposed to give you more free time.”
“And maybe it will, once I learn to do it. Just look at the Curtis House project. I have this wonderful opportunity — one that you engineered — to have my work on movie screens all over the world, and just when I’m at the point where I can start to enjoy it, I have to hand it over to somebody I hardly know and go back to London so I can begin doing it all over again. What I keep asking myself is, how does Ralph Lauren do it?”
“By delegating authority, I should think.”
“There’s that expression again! I’m learning to hate it!”
“Embrace it. It will give you time to embrace me.”
“Oh, I’ll have to delegate someone to do that, while I embrace a new client or a new project.”
“Oh. Whom did you have in mind for the task?”
She pummeled his shoulder with her fists. “Dammit, I don’t want to delegate you, just as I don’t want to delegate anything else. I’d rather do everything myself, including you.”
“You’ll wear yourself out doing that.”
“Yes, but it would be such fun. The only fun I have now is watching my bank balance — and my debt — climb.”
“Don’t worry, your bank balance will outrun your debt.”
“I know it will, and so does my bank manager. He used to be just a nice man who occasionally gave me an overdraft. Now he’s turned into a fawning, drooling sycophant who can’t do enough for me and wants to take me to lunch!”
“Well, that’s the kind of bank manager to have, isn’t it?”
“I suppose I’ll just have to get used to it,” she said.
“That’s the way to handle it.”
“I went through my appointment book last night, and I don’t have a single hour free for the next twelve days. It’s all taken up with appointments with new clients and new projects and new assistants, and I have the feeling that when the twelve days are up I’ll be faced with twelve weeks without an hour for myself or you. My analyst is worried for me.”
“You have an analyst?”
“I do now!”
“You don’t seem like the type to need an analyst.”
“I didn’t used to need an analyst, but now I need a shoulder to cry on. That’s all she’s for, really — she never gives me any useful advice. She just says thing like, ‘Go somewhere for a holiday,’ and I don’t have time for a holiday.”
“Then blow the whole thing,” Stone said. “Sell your business and come live with me.”
“But I love my business,” she wailed. “I love you, too, of course, but now I have to choose between you and my wonderful new business, and I’m choosing the business!”
“You are?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last ten minutes. You, sir, are toast, and I can’t do a thing about it. I’m a complete captive of my own success, and that, of course, is all your fault!”
“Oh, we’re back to that?”
“We are. You are the victim of your own success in advising me. You are the architect of your own dumping.”
Stone rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “This is such a nice ceiling,” he said. “I love what you’ve done with it.”
“Everybody loves what I’ve done with everything! That is my cross to bear.” She got out of bed and began throwing things into a suitcase. “And now I have to go back to London and bear it.” She came over to the bed, sat down, and gave him a big, wet kiss. “Goodbye, you lovely man, and thank you for this fresh, new hell.” Then she grabbed her suitcase and walked out of the room.
Stone continued staring at the ceiling. “What have I done?” he asked himself.
54
Billy sat on the steps of the hermitage, huddled inside his coat against the chill of the English dawn. It was time to greet his stalker.
He picked up the deer rifle, worked the bolt to pump a round into the chamber, set the safety, tucked it under an arm, and began walking, watching his footsteps carefully to avoid the crunch of a twig or some other noise that might announce his presence sooner than he wished it to be known. He had timed it better than he had thought.
As he reached the edge of the wood, just short of the stone wall along the road, he heard from a distance the crunch of tire on gravel as the bicycle rounded the bend in the road. It was, perhaps, fifty yards away. He melted back into the trees and concealed himself, maintaining a view of the wall, remembering the spot of green paint on the stones. Billy pulled up his muffler to cover his mouth and nose, as his breath turned to mist as it was exhaled. The bicyclist was making mist as he approached.