BooksBarbecue
Back Dirty Work
Chapters (62)
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  62. AUTHOR’S NOTE

Carpenter spoke up. “She picked up a sobriquet in Paris, after murdering a member of the French cabinet. Interpol calls her ‘La Biche.’ And yes, she could be here tonight.”

Stone pushed back his chair. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

15

Dino’s driver took them to Stone’s house, where Carpenter packed her bags, then they were driven to the Lowell, a small, elegant hotel on East Sixty-third Street, off Madison Avenue.

They were met at the door by the night manager, who, without bothering to register Carpenter, took them directly to a suite on the top floor.

“Are you known here?” Stone asked when the manager had gone and the bellman had deposited her luggage in the bedroom.

“My firm is,” she said. “We’ve used the hotel often. We missed out on dinner; should we order something?”

They dined in the room on Dover sole and a good bottle of California Chardonnay, and without much conversation.

“So Dino,” Stone said when the dishes had been cleared, “I guess you’ve put out an APB for this woman.”

“Pretty tough, putting out an APB without a description,” Dino replied, looking at the dessert menu.

“Description? You’ve got a photograph of her!”

“Yeah, well,” Dino replied.

Carpenter went to her purse and brought back a sheet of paper. “Here’s what the CIA’s photo people were able to come up with,” she said, handing it to Stone.

He opened the paper to see a rather bland face, framed by long, dark hair—straight nose, big eyes.

“The photograph Herbie took was of her looking up, so only her hair, forehead, eyes, and nose were visible, no jaw, and the hair was a wig.”

“This could be nearly anybody,” Stone said.

“Exactly. La Biche’s stock-in-trade is looking like anybody. She can walk through the toughest airport security and pass herself off as an American businesswoman or a French fashion designer, an Italian countess, or a Spanish nun.”

“I thought, what with electronics, it was getting harder to use false passports. Every time I’ve used mine, it gets swiped through a reader, and my information pops up on a screen.”

“All true, but over the years there have been numerous thefts of blank passports from embassies and consulates all over the world, which solves the problem of paper authenticity, and if such thefts can be concealed for a few days or weeks, the numbers don’t come up as stolen when going through immigration. It’s very, very tough to catch somebody when your suspect is using real paper.”

“I would imagine,” Stone said.