I couldn’t hear what the security director said, but Alex announced that Lacey Dowell was expecting her, this was urgent, and would he get out of the way. Frank murmured something else, his posture so deprecating that I cringed. The hall monitor used a phone, and in another minute Alex and her satellite were allowed to pass.

I sat back down, hoping Lacey might decide I could help her after all, but when Alex and her attendant reappeared, no one had asked for me. I couldn’t resist following Alex outside.

“Vic!” Her greeting was half surprise, half venom. “I thought you—what are you doing here?”

So Lacey hadn’t told her I’d written to her: interesting. “Yeah, I know, I was supposed to be dead or in jail or something, but here I am. Lacey doing okay?”

“If you’re trying to see her, you can’t.” Alex waved off a doorman offering her a taxi.

“She’s not the only guest at the Trianon. I was having tea with my aunt. She’s a permanent resident.”

“You don’t have an aunt who can afford this place.”

“You haven’t read the LifeStory report on me very thoroughly, Sandy,” I chided her. “As a matter of fact I do have a rich aunt. Actually, I have a rich uncle. He’s very big in the food industry. And his wife could afford to live here if she wanted to. By the way, where did you get the cocaine you planted on me?”

Alex became aware of her satellite, who was frowning in an effort to follow our conversation. She gave an unconvincing laugh and said she didn’t know what I was talking about.

“It has that Hollywood feel to it, the kind of thing Gene Hackman would turn up in French Connection Three. Did you get Teddy Trant to talk to his screenwriters, have them come up with an absurd plotline, then turn it over to Baladine and his tame goons to act out?”

“Vic, why didn’t you take that assignment I dug up for you? It would have saved everyone a lot of grief.” Her green eyes were dark in the twilight.

“Was it a bribe or a distraction?” I asked.

“There are worse things on the planet than bribes. I didn’t remember you as so uncompromising in law school.”

“No, that was you back then,” I agreed. “Hot politics and stubborn intransigence. If you weren’t part of the solution you were part of the problem. Although maybe in that regard you haven’t changed so much.”

She bit her lower lip, swollen from collagen injections. “Well, you were always stubborn, that’s for damned sure. But you weren’t ever right about everything. As you’ll find out now if you don’t back off. Felicity, can you get a cab over here? We have a lot of work to do tonight.”