Stuart Woods - Two-Dollar Bill

"As it happened, she mentioned it and took full credit."

Joan buzzed and spoke on the intercom. "Stone, Tiffany Baldwin is on line one, and I think you'd better speak to her."

"I'll have to call you back, Lance."

"Don't bother." Lance hung up.

Stone pressed the line one button. "Tiff?"

"You miserable sonofabitch," she said. "Did you tell Page Six that I'm no fun in bed?"

"Absolutely not. Did they say that?"

"Yes, and a lot more."

"I simply denied everything, as you asked, and as I would have done even if you hadn't asked."

"What about that picture on your bedroom wall?"

"That's being dealt with."

"Burn it."

"My mother painted it."

"All right, I'll buy it from you."

"It's not for sale. Tiff, calm down. The video was taken off the Web site almost as soon as it appeared."

"Yes, I saw to that."

"Then there's nothing to worry about. This will go away by tomorrow, and then…"

"And then nothing," she said. "I never want to see you again." She hung up.

"And just when it was going so well," Stone said aloud to himself. He hung up the phone.

Joan buzzed again. "Stone?"

"Now what?"

"Someone to see you."

"Who?" But his question was answered before she could speak. He looked up to find Arrington Carter Calder standing in the door to his office.

"Hello, Stone," she said.

She stood there in a tight, short, brown dress, her hair golden, a sable coat over her shoulders, looking better than he had ever seen her. Something inside him melted, as it always did when she entered a room. She had not entered a room of his for more than two years, and a dinner they had had together in London a year before had ended disastrously. Involuntarily, as happened every time he saw her, he wondered whether he or the late movie star Vance Calder was the father of her son, Peter. And he wondered why she was here.

"Well, aren't you going to invite me in?" she asked.

He got to his feet and walked around the desk to greet her. "Of course." He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned so that their lips met. "Come in and sit down. Would you like some coffee?"

She sat down on the sofa. "I'd like some lunch, but would you answer a question, first?"

"Sure."

"This morning, on the Imus show, they were talking about something that seemed to involve you, something about your appearing in a sex video with the United States Attorney? Surely you aren't gay, Stone, not you."

THEY LUCKED INTO a table in the busy Grill Room of the Four Seasons, probably because Arrington was Vance Calder's widow. When a bottle of Chardonnay had been brought and their lunch had been ordered, Stone began to explain.

"First of all, the U.S. Attorney is female; second, she has denied that the video is of her; third, I am not the person in bed with whoever the woman is."

Arrington nodded. "All right, whatever you say."

"Do I detect a note of disbelief in your voice?"

"Yes, you do. This is just the sort of trouble you're always getting yourself into, Stone, and I know very well that there is one of your mother's pictures on your bedroom wall."

"I have done nothing whatever to get myself into trouble; it's been done for me. And there are thousands of reproductions of my mother's paintings on bedroom walls all over this city. They seem to have replaced Utrillo prints as the thing to exhibit one's good taste in art."

"Whatever you say."

"While we're speaking of my troubles, I'd like to take this opportunity, not having previously had one, to explain what happened when we were having dinner in London."

"Are you referring to the occasion when you walked out of the Connaught Hotel's restaurant and vanished into the night without a word?"

"I was arrested, sort of."

"How do you get arrested, 'sort of?"

"The London police turned up at the Connaught and demanded to see me. They took me up to my suite and grilled me for more than an hour and would not allow me to leave or make phone calls. When I finally came back downstairs, you, quite understandably, were gone. All my efforts to contact you and apologize were fruitless."

"Well, that's a very entertaining story, even if I didn't find it entertaining at the time. What were they grilling you about?"

"I can't tell you; it's a client confidentiality thing."

"How convenient."

"Oh, all right, I'll tell you. The London police found a car with two dead Israeli Mossad agents in the trunk; one of them was wearing my raincoat."

Arrington burst out laughing. "Stone, you should be writing novels, really you should. You're able to come up with the most preposterous stories at the drop of a hat."

"Arrington, have I ever lied to you?" This was a dangerous question, he knew.

"Of course you have."

"On what occasion?" he demanded, trying to sound wounded.

"All right, all right, Stone," she said, patting his hand, "I believe your story, even if it is preposterous, but may I ask a question? Just to see how quick you are?"

"What?"

"How did the dead Israeli agent end up wearing your raincoat?"

"He owned a nearly identical raincoat, and apparently, we had inadvertently exchanged them at a pub or a restaurant. Fortunately, I was able to show the police his raincoat, which was hanging in my closet."

"You are a wonder, really you are." She took his hand. "I've missed you."

The melting inside him started again. "I've missed you, too," he said, without missing a beat, and meaning it, even if she didn't. "What brought you to New York?"

"You did, of course. I wanted to be near my New York friends- and you-again, so I'm looking at apartments."

"If you really want to be near me, you needn't buy an apartment; I have a perfectly good house."

"I think it's best if we don't rush into things, don't you? Our… distance, for want of a better word… has been a strain, at least on me, and…"

"On me, too."

"Well, then, let's take it slowly and see where it leads us. Anyway, I can't be here all the time. Peter is starting school in the autumn, so I still have to be in Virginia much of the year."

"It may surprise you to learn that there are very good schools in New York City."

"I think the country life and the horses are better for him than adventure trips to Central Park. I'm not sure he's the sort of boy who would thrive in the big city."

"What sort of boy is he?"

"Sensitive, a bit shy. Happy to ride his pony, or spend the afternoon alone in the barn, grooming him."

"He sounds a lot like me."

"Now, let's don't start that again. As far as I'm concerned, Vance was his father."

"Don't you want to know for sure?"

"What would that solve?"

"It might supply him with a father. Don't you think he needs one?"

"I don't think he needs the confusion, and I would not look forward to explaining things to him. Now, let that be an end to it, please."

"Whatever you wish."

"Ah, just the words I long to hear from a man."

"You've been manless for too long."

"Oh? What makes you think so? There is an ample supply of men in Albemarle County."

"Chinless wonders in baggy tweeds; wastrel trust-fund boys with no character."

"Well, there is an element of that, but there are other types. Tell me, who have you been seeing?"

"Until this morning, the U.S. Attorney, but apparently, never again."

"Are those the words she used?"

"That was a direct quote."

"Well, you can hardly blame the woman, can you? What with all this unwanted notoriety."

"I can't be blamed, either, although she's blaming me, anyway. It's not my fault she has a doppelganger disporting herself on the Internet."

"But how did this get on the Justice Department Web site?"