John Abbott - Scimitar

A telephone number was written on it in pencil:

And under that:

Well, well, he thought.

The Baroque Room was gorgeous.

While Geoffrey talked to a tall gangly man from the Canadian Consulate, Elita wandered the room aimlessly, luxuriating in its grandeur. Geoffrey — who sometimes sounded as if he had a wad of marbles in his mouth — had introduced the man as Sully or Solly or Selly Colbert. She learned his full name only when he handed her his card: Selwyn Colbert, Jr. Selly sounded totally American. He was wearing a dark suit, shirt and tie.

The floor was covered wall-to-wall with a thick carpet that featured an oval floral design in its center, surrounded by a royal blue field studded with a smaller flower pattern. The carpet’s border was ivory highlighted with blue and scattered with the same floral motif. At the far side of the room, windows hung with darker blue drapes admitted sunshine and showed glimpses of summer green in the park across the street. Ceiling chandeliers echoed themselves in wall mirrors, casting a glow as golden as the sun’s. A huge painting of a landscape hung on the wall right-angled to the windows. Even now — when uncovered tables showed only bare wood in sharp contrast to the chairs around them, upholstered and tufted in white — the room had an ambiance of serenity and dignity. She visualized herself in a long shimmering gown, dancing to the music of an orchestra with a violin section.

They were going over some sort of seating plan.

She overheard Selly saying he could see no problem about seating him — whoever that might be — to the left of Mrs. Thatcher; they were good friends. Besides, protocol definitely dictated that Mr. De Gortari should have the seat to the right of Mrs. Mulroney, and he was certain the U.S. people would have no objection to that. So, for all intents and purposes — and Geoffrey could report this to his people — Mrs. Thatcher would be seated exactly as had been originally planned, to the left of Mr. Mulroney, with her pal sitting right beside her — with his hand on her knee under the table, no doubt. Selly smiled to indicate he was making a little joke. Geoffrey did not return the smile. Selly sighed, rolled up the seating plan he’d been showing to Geoffrey, and then shook hands with him. Passing Elita on his way out, he told her how nice it was to have met her, and then loped out of the room.

Geoffrey took an inordinately long time studying the landscape painting on the wall, seemingly lost in thought. At last, he walked to where Elita was impatiently waiting for him.

“Care for some lunch?” he asked.

“I was hoping we could go back to your office for the...”

“The price one must pay,” he said, and grinned like a shark.

When the telephone rang at a quarter past one that Monday afternoon, the Balinese girl picked up the receiver and said, “SeaCoast Limited, good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” a man’s voice said, “this is Michael Rubin at Epsilon Chemical Supplies?”

“Yes, sir?”

“In Meriden, Connecticut?”

She had been prepped for a possible call.

“Yes, Mr. Rubin,” she said, “how may I help you?”

“May I speak to Mr. Pierce, please? Hamilton Pierce.”

“Out of the office just now,” she said. “May I be of assistance, sir?”

“I wanted someone in your Order Department,” Rubin said.

“This is the Order Department,” she said.

“Well... last Friday afternoon, a Mr. Pierce placed an order for five hundred milliliters of isopropylamine... with one of our sales-persons, Mrs. Carpenter.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Can you tell me what sort of firm SeaCoast is?”

“We do research, sir.”

“What sort of research?”

“I’m not really certain, sir, this is the Order Department.”

“Does Mr. Pierce work in the Order Department?”

“Yes, sir, he’s head of the department. Was there someone else you’d like to speak to?”

“Do you have a Safety Director?”

“No, sir, we’re just a small firm. But perhaps you’d like to speak to Mr. Hackett, sir. He’s our executive vice president in charge of research and development.”

“Yes, put him on, please.”

“Just one moment, sir.”

She put him on hold, buzzed Arthur’s inner office and said, “It’s Epsilon Chemicals on five. A Mr. Rubin. Wants to know what sort of research we do.”

“I’ll take it,” Arthur said, and pressed the five button on the base of his phone. “Martin Hackett here,” he said. “How may I help you?”

“Mr. Hackett, good afternoon, this is Michael Rubin. We had an order last Friday from your Mr. Pierce...”

“Yes, sir, Hamilton Pierce.”

“Yes. For five hundred milliliters of isopropylamine. As you know, this is a highly flammable substance...”

“Oh yes.”

“And it’s our policy to...”

“Of course.”

“... check with the ordering entity to learn how the substance will be used.”

“SeaCoast is at present conducting experiments in toxicity.”

Exactly what Sonny had advised him to say.

“Of isopropylamine?” Rubin asked, sounding surprised.

“Of a great many reagents,” Arthur said. “Isopropylamine is only one of them.”

“What are some of the others?”

“Aliphatic and aromatic amines, for the most part...”

Listing the classes of compounds Sonny had supplied.

“... and also some pyridines,” Arthur said. “That is, a wide variety of tests on nitrogen-containing organic compounds.”

“I see,” Rubin said. “Well, thank you, sir, I appreciate your time. I notice there’s a one-day FedEx request on this...”

“You mean it hasn’t gone out yet?” Arthur said.

“Well, normally, sir...”

“When will it go out?”

“You’ll have it tomorrow morning before eleven.”

“I hope so,” Arthur said, and hung up.

He was flirting, and she was fidgeting.

They were lunching in the Palm Court, downstairs in the Plaza’s lobby. Violinists were playing. Geoffrey was telling her how exciting he found his work in the foreign service. Every time he said the word foreign , she realized that to him America was a foreign country. He told her that only recently he’d been visited by a homicide detective looking into the murders of two supposed British subjects, and that...

“That is exciting,” she said.

She was thinking, Let’s finish this goddamn lunch and go get Sonny’s phone number.

“... both of them were tattooed,” Geoffrey said, and rolled his eyes.

“My,” Elita said.

“Under their breasts,” Geoffrey said, and wondered if he was being too bold, raising the subject of tattooed breasts over turkey and tomato sandwiches on toast. With iced tea. He decided to abandon this possibly offensive conversational line and switched the topic instead to the impending visit of Mrs. Thatcher, which was another exciting aspect of work in the foreign service.

“That’s why I came here today, in fact,” he explained. “To check on the seating arrangements. There’s a certain protocol that must be followed to the letter with heads of state.”

“I’m sure,” she said.

“To the letter,” he repeated.

She was wondering if whoever answered the phone in Los Angeles would know where Sonny might be in New York.

The violinists played on interminably. She hoped they would not come to their table; there was nothing she found more embarrassing. Geoffrey was explaining how important his role had been in making certain the prime minister was properly seated. It all had something to do with Canada Day, a gala dinner and ball, prime ministers and presidents among the invited guests...