She set up the desk and told them where to put the cash register, just around the corner in a less visible part of the store. By the time she left at nine o’clock, the bare bones were there, and the color palette, which dominated the room, looked like a sky at dawn, with mauves and purples, soft peaches, brighter oranges, and a splash of shocking pink. She was happy when she turned the alarm on, locked the door, and walked up Madison Avenue, with her bodyguard beside her. She didn’t speak on the brief walk uptown, but he could see that she was happy, more than she had been in a year.

—

The agent assigned to Pierre de Vaumont checked in with Mike every few hours, as Mike had asked him to do. He wanted to keep a close eye on who Pierre met with and his activities. He had arrived late at Harry Cipriani at the Sherry Netherland Hotel for lunch, but had called the man he was meeting as soon as he cleared customs, and they had delayed their lunch by an hour. The man had a modeling agency in New York and wanted to open an office in Paris, and he was looking for investors. A friend had told him that Pierre de Vaumont would know who had money and would be interested in the project. Pierre suggested a Russian businessman who loved spending time in Paris and had money to burn. Pierre knew the Russian businessman would view the venture as a never-ending source of women for him to date, who were a cut above the girls he went out with now. Pierre told him that he would arrange an introduction the next time the Russian came to New York, or they could make a plan to meet in Paris.

At four o’clock, he stopped at an art gallery where he knew the owner, another Russian, who greeted him with open arms. Pierre had found a backer for him.

At six, he went back to his hotel, and changed into a black suit, which fit him to perfection. Then he met with a new Chinese client downstairs at his hotel.

He had dinner at La Grenouille with a group of Saudis he had met in Dubai, members of the royal family, all in their twenties. Pierre went back to their hotel and dancing with them afterwards, and then he joined them in a suite at a small discreet hotel, where their assistants had hired the lustful young women they were going to spend the night with. Pierre left quietly when their choices had been made. It was after four by then and had been a very full day.