Paris Match (26 page)
Jacques Chance noticed, too, and he maneuvered Mirabelle toward the bandstand, where an American singer was performing.
From his angle of view, Stone noticed something else: cradled in Jacques’s hand was the haft of one of the hotel’s steak knives, its blade concealed in his sleeve.
Stone began to move quickly toward the couple, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it in time.
61
S
tone felt as if he were moving in treacle, dodging waiters carrying cheese and glasses of port. He struggled on.
Jacques Chance, clutching his sister’s wrist, dragged her toward the bandstand, where he shoved the singer out of the way and stood before the microphone. “
Attention!
” he shouted. The orchestra and the crowd began to fall silent.
Stone grabbed a cane from the back of the chair of an elderly gentleman and continued moving toward Jacques, knowing that he was about to witness a murder/suicide.
Then a tall, rigidly erect, white-haired man in a police uniform appeared at the edge of the dance floor and shouted, “Jacques Chance!”
Jacques had raised the knife in his hand but was momentarily transfixed by the sight of his father in this unlikely setting, and he hesitated, giving Stone his chance. He hooked Jacques’s hand with the cane and jerked him off the bandstand. The knife skittered a few feet away, and Jacques fell to one knee, still clutching Mirabelle’s wrist and taking her with him.
With Jacques disarmed and momentarily off balance, Stone took a wide swing with the cane and connected with the side of Jacques’s head, creating a resounding
whack
in the silent room. Jacques shook off the blow; he let go of Mirabelle and began making his way across the floor toward the knife, finally reaching out for it. His father walked up to him and stamped heavily on his son’s wrist, breaking it with a loud
snap
. The elder Chance turned toward Stone and said, “
Merci
,
M
’
sieur
,” then the area before the grandstand was swamped by gendarmes and Jacques disappeared in their midst.
Stone was roughly pushed back by a policeman, and he took the opportunity to make his way back to the table, rehanging the cane on the back of its owner’s chair along the way. He sat down next to Holly and mopped his face with his napkin. Pandemonium reigned at the bandstand. Peter Duchin got up from the piano, shouted something to the orchestra, and gave them a downbeat. “La Marseillaise”
filled the ballroom, and even the policemen stood at attention.
“Good work,” Holly said.
Dino spoke up. “The cane was a nice idea.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Stone said. He took Holly’s hand and led the others toward a side door. By the time the anthem had ended, they had escaped to the elevator.
—
THEY LANDED
at dawn, just after Teterboro opened for business. The sleepy passengers disembarked, said their goodbyes, and their luggage was transported to the front of the terminal, where their drivers took their luggage and Stone’s man, Fred Flicker, awaited with the Bentley. He and Holly piled in.
“Home,” Stone said wearily.
“My home first,” Holly said, “to leave my bags with the doorman. I’m back in the real world now, and I have to go to work.”
“So be it,” Stone said.
—
STONE LEFT
his luggage to Fred and let himself into his house. His secretary, Joan, who lived in the house next door, was up early to greet him.
“Welcome home,” she said. “Do you want to see the mail and messages?”
“I want my bed,” Stone said, kissing her on the forehead, and, getting into the elevator, “I’m going to sleep all day, if I can. Hold off the world.”
He fell into bed naked, alone, and exhausted.
—
THE FOLLOWING DAY
, Tuesday, Election Day, Stone voted at his neighborhood polling station, which, he noted, was packed, then collected Ann at her apartment building. Fred drove them to Teterboro, where the borrowed Strategic Services Citation Mustang awaited them on the ramp.
“I’ve never flown into Washington in a private jet,” Ann said, settling into the cockpit right seat.
“It’s more fun than the airlines,” Stone said, starting an engine.
They landed at Manassas, Virginia, and a waiting car drove them to the White House. A butler and a Secret Service agent rode with them in the elevator up to the family quarters, and their luggage was made to disappear.
Kate Lee left a group by the fireplace and came to meet them. Hugs and kisses were exchanged, and drinks appeared. Stone knew, perhaps, half of the two dozen people in the room. Two large flat-screen television sets had been set up, and there was a buffet table.
“I’m so happy you could join us,” President Will Lee said, shaking Stone’s hand and kissing Ann. “It’s going to be an exciting evening. I guess we’re going to find out if we have to move out of here.”
“Either way, you’ve both had a great run,” Stone said. “I hope to see it extended.”
“Well, if it is extended, we’ll be all lined up for a series of
firsts: first female president, first pregnant female president, first child born to a president, first born in the White House, and so on.”
“And first former president not to move out at the end of his term,” Stone pointed out.
Stone and Ann finished their drinks, got plates of food and glasses of wine, and settled into a sofa to watch the next president of the United States be elected.
—
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
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Writer
’
s Market
at any bookstore; that will tell you how.
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