Hedy’s bedroom door was ajar; he peeked inside, and saw only a large lump in the bed. He closed it and left the suite, putting the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob.

He walked down the hall, found the meeting room, and walked in. Half a dozen men and two women were seated around the conference table. The man at the head of the table, his friend Marcel duBois, rose to greet him.

“Ah, Stone, I’m so glad you could make it on such short notice.”

“You have no idea,” Stone said, embracing him.

“Please have a seat,” he said, indicating a chair next to his, “and we will start.”

Stone sat down.

“Our purpose for being here,” Marcel said, “is to discuss and inspect a potential site for an Arrington Hotel in Rome.” He stood and flipped back a page on an easel to reveal a map of Rome. “This,” he said, pointing to a red dot, “is the Hassler Villa Medici. This,” he said, pointing to a blue dot a short distance away, “is our site. Just the other side of the church next door, on the edge of the Borghese Gardens.”

There was a murmur of approval from the group.

“Marcel,” a woman said, “how on earth did you manage such a site?”

“Approval had been given to another hotel group to build there, but there were difficulties that could not be resolved. We have the opportunity to buy a hundred-year lease on the land, and there is already planning approval, in principle, for a hotel of two hundred rooms and eight stories.”

“What difficulties?” someone asked. “Why would any self-respecting group let go of such a property?”

“You will recall that, until recently, we were in a terrible recession, and Europe has not recovered nearly so quickly as the United States. At a time when others are retrenching, the Arrington Group has the resources to invest.”

Stone knew that the resources mentioned were Marcel’s, inherited from his father and greatly increased by the son, and his own, inherited from his late wife, Arrington Calder Barrington, and her late husband, the film star Vance Calder, and swollen by a burgeoning stock market.

Marcel mentioned the price.

“Move to buy it,” Stone said reflexively.

“Second,” someone called out.

“Yea,” everyone else shouted.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” Marcel said, “you have made my job easy. Shall we adjourn to the site and inspect it?”

—

Ten minutes and a short walk later they were surveying the view over Rome from the hilltop of the Borghese Gardens.

“You will have to imagine, ladies and gentlemen,” Marcel said, “the view from our rooftop restaurant, which will be as good as that of the Hassler.”

Everyone turned and looked at the half-built skeleton of the abandoned project.

“Our architects tell me that we can utilize all of the previous structure, with some judicious additions.”

“Marcel, this is brilliant,” someone said.