“What happened to the Zero Zero One routine?” Matt asked.
“The Bull’s got one of these, too. They store a hundred numbers of other people with one of them,” Mickey explained, then held up his hand to cut Matt off.
“Antoinette, this is Michael. Would it be possible for me to speak with Casimir, please?”
It took several minutes for Mr. Bolinski to get on the line. He explained he was floating around the pool.
“Matt says he’ll go, Casimir,” O’Hara said. “Set it up.”
Bolinski said something Matt couldn’t hear.
“You got a passport? Is tomorrow night too soon for you?” Mickey asked.
“Yes and no,” Matt said.
“That’s fine with Matt, Casimir. Set it up.”
Bolinski said something else Matt couldn’t hear.
“He’s fine. He was exhausted, is all.”
Mickey broke the connection after Bolinski said something else.
“The Bull says he’s glad to hear you’re okay.”
“That’s nice of him.”
Mickey pushed another button on his worldwide telephone and put it to his ear.
“Hi, Mom!” he began. “How you doing?”
He spoke with his mother for five minutes, then handed the cellular to Matt.
“You want to call your mom?”
“Not particularly.”
“She’s your mother, for Christ’s sake. Call her.”
Matt called his mother and told her that he was fine, thank you, and that he was going to Paris tomorrow night with Mickey O’Hara.
When Air France Flight 2110 deposited them at Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris the second morning later, French customs showed great interest in Mr. O’Hara’s brand-new luggage-a last-minute purchase after Matt suggested that if they were going to be gone a couple of weeks Mickey would need more space than his zipper bag with the Philadelphia 76ers logotype would provide-and went through it suspiciously before gesturing they could pass.
Outside Customs, a man in a chauffeur’s cap was waiting for them, holding a sign lettered “M. O’Hara.”
He drove them, in a new Mercedes, to the George V Hotel, where they were installed in a two-bedroom, two-bath, sitting room suite on a corner of the building. From two windows in the sitting room, if they looked carefully, they could see the Champs Elysees, a block away.
They unpacked their luggage and then walked over to the Champs Elysees, took a quick look at the Arc de Triomphe at the other end, and went in search of breakfast.
Then they went to the U.S. Embassy at the foot of the hill, where-after Mickey threatened him with calling Pennsylvania’s junior senator right then and on his worldwide telephone-the press officer somewhat reluctantly promised to be prepared to give him the latest developments vis-a-vis the extradition of Isaac Festung once a day when Mickey called.
As they left the embassy, Matt said they were within walking distance of two famous Paris landmarks, the Louvre Museum and Harry’s New York Bar.
“Let’s take a quick look at the museum,” Mickey said. “Just so we can say we saw it. And then we’ll go to the bar and hoist a few.”
They went into the museum a few minutes before eleven and left a few minutes more than eight hours later, when at closing time three museum guards-immune to Mickey’s argument that he was the press, for Christ’s sake, and entitled to a little consideration-escorted them out.
He immediately announced to Matt that they were going to have to come back tomorrow.