Insatiable Appetites Read online

  “Yes,” Ann replied, “along with everybody else in the White House Press Corps.”

  “If she calls you, take her call,” Kate said. “Anything else, Stone?”

  “No.”

  She stood up. “Then let me buy you another drink before dinner.” She took his arm and walked back into the living room. “By the way,” she whispered, “you did the right thing.”

  They sat down to dinner at seven forty-five and were served foie gras, Dover sole, and crème brûlée. After dinner they were arrayed around the living room, having coffee and after-dinner drinks, when Ann’s cell phone apparently vibrated, because she removed it from a skirt pocket, looked at who the caller was, then left the room. Ten minutes later, she beckoned Stone and Kate to join her. They went to the bedroom again.

  “That was Carla Fontana,” she said. “Stone, your anonymous caller has made contact and has told her the same story he told you.”

  “Did she find out who he was?”

  “She’s going to rendezvous with him sometime tomorrow, and he promises all will be revealed.”

  “Will she be in touch with you?” Kate asked.

  “She didn’t actually say so, but that was my impression.”

  “Then we shall see what we shall see,” Kate said.

  They all went back to the party.

  Stone was half asleep when the security system began to beep. He glanced at the bedside telephone display and saw the message: “Front door open.” He entered his code, and the beeping stopped. He lay quietly, waiting.

  She came into the room, and he heard the sound of a zipper, then of clothes falling to the floor. Ann landed on the bed as if from a great height. “And a very good evening to you!” she shouted.

  Stone grabbed her and pulled her to him. “You’re not treating your clothes very well.”

  “I was in a hurry. I’m getting laid.”

  “You certainly are,” he replied, kicking off his covers.

  She hugged him to her breast. “God, it seems like a year since I felt a man next to me.”

  “It’s less than a month,” he said, tickling her lightly between the legs. She immediately became wet, and he climbed aboard.

  “And just as long since I’ve felt that weight,” she said.

  He slid slowly inside her, and she made a happy noise. “And years since I’ve felt that!”

  “Tell me how it feels,” he said softly, moving slowly in and out.

  “Heavenly. Are you an angel or a devil?”

  “A little of both,” he breathed.

  She ran her nails down his back. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”

  “And I, you.”

  “And how I’ve missed this!”

  “How long can we do this before you abandon me again?” he asked, but he didn’t stop.

  “Forever, if I quit my job.”

  “But you’re not going to quit, are you?”

  “What can I say? My country needs me. I have to be back at the Carlyle, looking unfucked, by seven AM.”

  Stone increased the pace, and they stopped talking and concentrated. She climaxed three times before she pushed him off.

  “A girl’s gotta rest,” she said.

  Stone laid his head on her breasts and rubbed her belly.

  She slapped his hand. “Don’t get me started again,” she said. “At least, not for a few minutes. When I can make a fist again, I’ll entertain you.”

  Stone rolled onto his back and she rested her hand on him. “God, how I love a stick shift,” she said, kissing it.

  “Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me what it’s like for you these days.”

  She didn’t let go, but managed to talk. “Exciting, exhausting, exciting, exhausting. That’s it, both at the same time.”

  “What’s been your biggest surprise?”

  “How exciting it is. It’s like the campaign to the nth!”

  “And your biggest disappointment?”

  “That I can’t stay awake and do the job twenty-four hours a day.”

  “So, you’re happy in your work?”

  “Not so much happy as elated.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Elated is like watching your team score, knowing that they can’t score on every play. Happy would be if they could score whenever they feel like it. And we all know that’s not going to happen.”

  “How’s Will taking the transition?”

  “Oh, Will is always Will: cheerful, optimistic. He would have been here for the funeral, but he’s meeting with the Japanese prime minister in Los Angeles. Will has a surprise for him.”

  “What surprise?”

  “Will has gotten some contributors to donate a statue honoring the Japanese-Americans who were interned during the big war.”

  “That’s good of him.”

  “I think he’s doing it for Franklin Roosevelt. He said when he meets Roosevelt in heaven he wants to tell him that he did what he could to right the wrong.”

  “That’s a very fine motive.”

  “The words on the statue are ‘They also served and sacrificed.’”

  “Perfect.”

  “I’m elated, but it’s still tough,” Ann said. “I came real close to starting smoking again.”

  “When did you quit?”

  “Fifteen years ago.”

  “And you still want it?”

  “Sometimes. Why? Would that be a deal breaker?”

  “You know my friends—have you ever seen one of them smoke?”

  “Now that you mention it.”

  “I’m not a fanatic about it,” Stone said. “As far as I’m concerned, there are only two places where it should be banned.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Indoors and outdoors.”

  She laughed until he pounced again.

  Ann woke him at five AM and attacked him. Stone submitted gracefully. Done with him, she jumped into a shower, pulled a change of clothes from her large handbag, replacing them with those worn, spent half an hour doing something with a hair dryer in the bathroom, then woke up Stone again.

  “There’s a car waiting for me downstairs. I can’t stay for breakfast.”

  “Look in the dumbwaiter,” Stone said, pointing.

  Ann looked and found a brown paper bag. “What’s in it?”

  “Some of Helene’s pastries and coffee. You can enjoy it on the way to the Carlyle. Will I ever see you again short of the inauguration?”

  “Of course,” she said, kissing him, “but as Rodgers and Hart once said, ‘Who knows where or when?’”

  “I’ll wait with bated breath.”

  She kissed him and ran from the room.

  Stone fell asleep again.

  • • •

  Stone was working in his office with Herbie after lunch when his cell phone buzzed on his belt. “Hello?”

  “It’s Carla Fontana,” she said.

  “Good afternoon, Carla. I hope you’re well.”

  “I am, thank you, and better than ever, thanks to your referral.”

  “Did he prove cooperative?”

  “I met him an hour ago in the rear office of an antiques shop on Pennsylvania Avenue, in Georgetown.”

  “And?”

  “He was very cooperative. He told me his name, and he said I could tell you.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He is Evan Hills, a first-term Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, and he was very brave. He knows that if his leadership ever finds out he spoke to me, he’ll be gutted and hung out to dry, and I think he actually believes they’ll have him killed.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Some dark figure or other. Who knows?”

  “Is it a story?”

  “Is it ever!
Evan has an excellent memory, and he was able to give me a verbatim account of who said what. He made notes as soon as he got home.”

  “Whose house was the meeting held at?”

  “Ready for this? Harley David, oil billionaire who’s backed a dozen right-wing organizations. He has a son, Junior, who’s known as Harley Davidson—get it?”

  “The poor kid.”

  “No, he’s a rotten little bully. He drives around Dallas and D.C. in a Ferrari, mowing down pedestrians. He’s had two hit-and-runs in Texas while drinking and has walked away from both, leaving a trail of his daddy’s money in his wake.”

  “He sounds like a charmer.”

  “Not only that, but his daddy is clearing the way for a congressional seat for him next time.”

  “Was H. David Senior at the meeting?”

  “He was.”

  “When will your story run?”

  “A few days, maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “I’ve got some checking around to do. I want to be sure that I—and you—are not being set up. This has been a little too easy. I have a list of who was at the meeting, and there’s one other guy I might be able to get to cop to being there. I need a second source.”

  “You would know better about that than I.”

  “I’ve talked to my executive editor in New York, and he’s excited, but, like me, he thinks that it may be too good to be true. The Gray Lady doesn’t want her tit caught in a wringer, and Harley David would like nothing better than for that to happen. Also, I want to see what else I can get out of our man Evan Hills.”

  “What’s Hills’s background?”

  “Deerfield Academy, Penn, Yale Law School, practiced with a Philadelphia white shoe firm, very Republican.”

  “What are his motives in all this?”

  “Well you may ask. If he’s for real, I think he has a conscience, and he’s put off by the right-wing tilt in his party. Also, I have nothing to back this up but intuition, but I think he’s gay and afraid the Republicans will shun him if he comes out.”

  “Does he have money?”

  “He certainly appears to. His father is a big-time commodities trader, and that means he’s either very rich or very poor. Evan was married once, to a girl from a very Main Line family, not the sort that would have a pauper or a Democrat for a son-in-law. They were divorced, amicably, after a couple of years.”

  “Well, I hope he turns out to be real. I can’t wait to read the story in the Times.”

  “Neither can I. Are we ever going to have that dinner we talked about in Paris?”

  “Just as soon as you come to New York.”

  “I’ll be there the day after tomorrow.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “With friends at One Fifth Avenue, in the Village.”

  “I’ll have you picked up at six-thirty and brought here for a drink, then we’ll go on from there.” He gave her the address.

  “You’re on.”

  “So are you.” They hung up. Stone buzzed Joan and asked her to have Fred collect Carla.

  “That sounded interesting,” Herbie said. “Who was it?”

  Stone swore him to secrecy and told him the story, minus Hills’s identity.

  “I think it’s going to be fun, following this story.”

  “We can only hope.”

  The following day Stone received word from the court that Eduardo Bianchi’s estate had been released from probate, and that the proceeds could now be distributed. Stone was flabbergasted. Probate took weeks or months—in problematic cases, years.

  Herbie shook his head. “It looks like Eduardo knows people who, even after his death, want to make life easier for him.”

  Stone called Mary Ann and told her the news. She seemed pleased but not surprised.

  “Just between you and me, Mary Ann, was influence brought to bear here?”

  “Nothing untoward,” she replied, “so don’t worry. Daddy had many friends.”

  “I understand. Shall we now distribute the bequests?”

  “Good idea. How do we go about it?”

  “I’ll make up a list of all of them, and we’ll meet to cosign the checks.”

  “Say when.”

  “Tomorrow at three, my office?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  Stone hung up and turned to Herbie. “The list is your job,” he said. “Do you want your associates to help?”

  “I’m way ahead of you,” Herbie said, taking a file folder from his briefcase and handing it to Stone.

  Stone read through the document quickly. “It looks as though Eduardo’s influence extends to you. Good job!”

  Herbie shrugged. “I can be bought for a Picasso and a Braque. When do we get our pictures?”

  “I’ll send Fred out there to collect them from Pietro.” He called the Bianchi house, spoke to Pietro and gave him instructions on wrapping and boxing the three pictures. He hung up. “I’ll have Fred deliver them to you. Office or home?”

  “They’ll impress more people at the office,” Herbie said.

  The following day, Mary Ann arrived on time. Stone gave her a cup of tea and handed her the document to read.

  “All very neatly done,” she said. “And the checks?”

  Stone buzzed Joan, who brought the checks, each clipped neatly to a covering letter explaining the disbursement.

  “We cosign the checks and the letters,” Stone said, handing her half the stack and taking the other for himself. When they were signed they traded stacks and repeated the process.

  “There, all done,” Stone said. “I noticed that there was no bequest to the foundation for the maintenance of the house and property.”

  “Papa took care of that when he set up the foundation. There’s more than enough in the endowment to generate the necessary income.”

  “Has Dolce discussed with you her moving into the house?”

  “She has, and I’m content with her wishes. She’ll pay for whatever alterations she wishes to make and for the renovation of the barn, which has already started, I understand. That building predates the house by a couple of hundred years. It was damaged in a battle of the Revolutionary War. It should make a beautiful studio.”

  “Would you like me to overnight the disbursements or have them delivered by messenger?”

  “By messenger, I think. I’ll deliver Ben’s to him.” She stood and picked up Ben’s folder. “Well, it looks as though we’re all done. Thank you for handling everything so expeditiously, Stone.”

  Stone stood to walk her out. “There only remains the investigation into the forged paintings,” he said.

  “Where are we on that?”

  “The audit of Raoul Pitt’s gallery is nearly completed. If we don’t come up with an explanation of what’s happened, we’ll have to turn it over to the NYPD’s art squad.”

  “Whatever it takes,” Mary Ann said.

  “Oh, I sent my man, Fred, out to the house to pick up the three paintings that Eduardo bequeathed to Herb Fisher and me. Pietro is packing them.”

  “That’s fine, one less thing to worry about.”

  “Does Dolce know about the forgeries?”

  “Yes, and she was angry about it. She’ll be anxious to hear how the investigation is going.”

  They said goodbye, and Stone asked Joan to messenger the letters and checks to the heirs. They were on their way in half an hour.

  Fred arrived with Stone’s picture, having already delivered Herbie’s to his office. Joan came in with a box cutter and cut away the wrappings, and Stone set the painting on the back of the sofa, switched on all the lights, and regarded his new treasure.

  “I think I’ll keep it,” he said.

  Dolce was tidying up her apartment in anticipation of the arrival of her guest when the ph
one rang. “Hello?”

  “I’m in a cab,” Father Frank Donovan said. “Twenty minutes, according to the driver.”

  “I’ll have a drink waiting,” she said. They hung up, and she went into the kitchen and opened the package from the liquor store: two bottles of Bushmills Black Label Irish whiskey.

  She took them to the bar and filled the ice bucket from the machine.

  All was ready when the bell rang. She opened the front door and threw herself into his arms. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, then looked him up and down. “And in civvies!”

  “I didn’t want the doorman to think I’m visiting to hear your confession,” Frank said. He handed her a thick envelope. “They asked me to deliver this to you.” He set his suitcases inside the door and closed it behind him.

  She led him into the living room and tossed the envelope onto the sofa without looking at it, then went to pour them a drink.

  “What a beautiful place,” Frank said, looking around.

  “There’ll be more pictures on the walls in a day or two,” she said. “I asked the convent to pack up all my work and air-freight them to me. Do you know, I’ve got more than sixty completed canvases, not counting the ones that weren’t good enough.” She handed him his drink and poured herself one, then sat on the sofa, where she encountered a lump.

  “What’s this?” she asked, pulling the envelope from beneath her.

  “It’s what the doorman asked me to deliver.”

  She ripped it open and read the covering letter, then looked at the check. “It appears I’m now a very rich woman,” she said, waving the check. “Papa’s estate has been probated.”

  “I congratulate you,” he said, clicking his glass against hers.

  “Goodness,” she said, fanning herself with the envelope. “This is going to take some getting used to.” She took a swig from her drink. “I hope you have no duties but me while you’re here.”

  “Oh, I’ll have to suit up and swing by the archdiocese at some point. A courtesy call, to justify spending a week in New York.”

  “We have a week!”

  “We do.”

  “Whatever will we do with ourselves?” she asked, kissing him and tugging at his necktie.