“Like what, baffled? I am genuinely baffled. I have never heard of Rodney Peeples, and I suspect neither has anyone else, name like that.”
“It does seem improbable, doesn’t it?”
“My whole evening, so far, seems improbable,” Stone said. “Whose apartment is this?”
“It belongs to the Ambassador to the United Nations; the Attorney General borrowed it for the event.”
“The Attorney General is in there?” Stone asked, pointing at a door.
“He is.”
“I’d like to leave now; I don’t want to catch anything.”
“What?”
“I’m afraid that if I breathe the air I might leave here as a tight-assed, right-wing, fundamentalist, anti–civil libertarian with a propensity for singing gospel music. And I don’t think that’s treatable.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Come on,” she said, rising. “Let’s get out of here.”
Stone stood up. “You’re afraid of catching it, too, aren’t you?”
“Not a chance.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, helping her into the mink coat from the sofa.
“To the same party,” she said.
“No kidding?”
“No kidding. I may as well give you a lift.”
“You’re just a party animal, aren’t you. Do you have another one after Woodman and Weld’s?”
“My last party of the evening.”
Stone grabbed his coat and followed her into the vestibule, where an FBI agent had the elevator door held open. They rode down in the elevator in silence, then got back into a waiting Lincoln, which was longer than the other one, while the two agents accompanying them got into a black SUV behind them.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had this many chaperones on a date,” Stone said. “And armed, too.”
“This isn’t a date,” she said. “It’s a coincidence.”
6
TIFFANY BALDWIN pressed a button, and a glass partition between them and the driver slid up. “Okay,” she said, “it’s not a coincidence.”
“Oh?”
“Nope. I’m new in town, and I needed a date for this party, and I once saw you across a crowded room, and I figured, what the hell?”
“I’m flattered. And is this Rodney Peeples fiction?”
“Nope, he’s real, but elusive. We heard a rumor that you were involved with him, so it was a good excuse to call you.”
They pulled up in front of the Four Seasons, and the doorman got the door.
“Let’s leave our coats in the car,” Tiffany said. “Then we won’t have to stand in line for the coat-check room when we leave.”
Stone tossed both coats and his hat into the rear seat and hustled her into the building, his teeth chattering. They climbed the big staircase and emerged into the Grill Room, which had been mostly cleared of tables so those present could drink and pump each other’s hands without bumping into the furniture. A string quartet was sawing away at some Mozart in a corner, and great quantities of food and drink were being consumed.