Bettina Noor drove me back to the Bistro, staying within the speed limit.
After a period of silence, she asked, “Am I not flexible?”
“Beats me. Maybe a yoga demonstration—”
“I just had a telephone discussion with A.W., and he accused me of being too inflexible. I have heard this before. Ken Foster, whom Ms. Franchette replaced, told me that I needed to be more flexible, that, in this business, it is something to be cherished. If, as I fear, I have been guilty of this criticism, I should adapt, don’t you think?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” I said. Events would prove me wrong, of course. They always do.
At the Bistro, Bettina took a deliberate circuit through the building, making sure all was secure. By the time she arrived at the kitchen, I had prepared eggs and sausages for our breakfast.
“I don’t eat flesh or feathers,” she informed me. “Anyway, I had my breakfast at five o’clock this morning.”
“Then it’s time for brunch,” I said.
“I do not eat brunch.”
“Just out of curiosity, what did you have for breakfast?”
“Vegetarian lentils and a gluten-free potato-flour biscuit. And one cup of tea, unsweetened.”
“Damn, girl. You know how to party!!” I said, using my fork to spear a section of egg and a chunk of sausage. “You bake that biscuit from scratch?”
Ignoring the question, she sat down on a high stool beside me at the kitchen counter and stared at the plate I’d prepared for her. “It seems absurd for us to keep people from trying to kill you,” she said, “while you’re killing yourself with cholesterol and fats.”
She pushed the plate away. “Anyway, I thank you for the breakfast, but I wish you had asked first. With so many starving, I hate to see any food, even this, go to waste.”
“I assure you it will not.” I drew her plate closer to me. “Tell me a little bit about Lee. What’s her story?”
“Her ‘story’? I should think you’d know more of that than I.”
“Humor me.”
“She’s a strong, dedicated woman of Asian and African ancestry who has achieved great success in a business not known for sexual or racial equality. I consider this a great opportunity to observe and learn from her firsthand.”
“You’ve never worked with her before?”
“I’m assigned domestic cases. Until quite recently, she’s been global. She was reassigned when our previous supervisor died. She seems considerably more adept at leadership than her unfortunate predecessor, judging by the security arrangements she has made for the Goyal Aharon book tour.”
“What’s so special about them?” I asked.
“Aharon’s book is fiction, and is therefore frivolous,” she replied. “However, because of his candor in discussing the many Mossad operations in which he participated, his life has been threatened by both pro- and anti-Israeli groups.”
“Sounds like nobody loves Goyal, except maybe his publisher. How many InterTeckies are assigned to him besides Lee?”
“Lee does the assigning,” she said, as if I’d insulted her boss. “She has designated the coverage as a four-and-four.”
“As opposed to my one-and-one?”
She nodded. “His security will be much more difficult, since the dangers are limitless and unknown. For example, bookstore signings would require from ten to twenty agents, depending on the size of the store and the number of exits. Therefore, his promotional appearances will be limited to only key stores and on-air interviews that can be carefully controlled.”
“Beginning on Tuesday with Wake Up, America!”
“Yes.” As if to stem further conversation, she hopped from the stool and said, “Excuse me, but I have reports to prepare and submit. And we may be summoned back to the WBC building at any moment.”
I finished my breakfast and most of hers, and left the dishes in one of the sinks for the dinner crew to deal with. Then I climbed the stairs to find her seated at the desk in my office, working at her laptop. Rather than disturb her, I backed away and went to my living quarters.
The bedroom looked sad and empty, as they do on those mornings. I felt tired but didn’t think I could sleep. Especially since I was on call. I replaced the linen and gave the blanket what Paul Lamont used to refer to as a “Navy tuck.” Then I shaved, showered, and dressed in gray slacks and a charcoal wool pullover.
I picked up my cellular, checking to make sure I hadn’t missed THE call while in the shower, as if Bettina would have allowed that. There were no messages.
I sat down on the newly made bed and stared at the phone in my hands. With nothing better to do, I brought up the photo I’d taken of the blackboard in Rudy’s kitchen. The reminders he’d left for himself seemed no less enigmatic then than they had last night. “Jewel for Berry9.” “Check: 1 or 2, F or OC?”
Could the F have been Felix? Then what was I to make of OC? There’d been a television show called The OC. About Orange County in Southern California, I thought. Hadn’t one or more of the actors dropped by our show? As everyone kept telling me, Rudy had not only lived TV, he’d loved it. Had he been planning to check for some connection between Felix and that show? Or maybe he thought Felix was born in the real Orange County. Or maybe the F didn’t stand for Felix at all.
“Ahem.”
Cassandra was standing in the doorway. “I just got the third degree from Little Miss Bollywood in your office,” she said. “What happened to Andrew?”
Andrew. A.W. to the world, but Andrew to Cassandra.
“He’s off-duty. You’re here a little early for a no-lunch day, aren’t you?”
“I was up. I figured I might as well …”
“… have breakfast with Andrew?”
“I was just … never mind.”
“You blushing?” I asked.
“Abso-fucking-lutely not!” she said, storming off down the hall.
How juvenile. To prove I was above that kind of childish behavior, I called out after her. “Cassandra and Andrew sittin’ in a tree … K-I-S-S-I-N-G …”
In response, one of Cassandra’s shoes came sailing back in my direction, just missing my head. She could’ve gone after our last President with an arm like that.
“Gonna be hard, walking around on one shoe!!”
It was nearing eleven a.m. on what was starting out to be the longest day of my life. I’ve never been very good at waiting, especially for a phone to ring. When it finally does, it’s never the person you want.
I went to the office to do busywork. Since Bettina was still using my desk, that consisted of straightening picture frames, gathering newspapers and tossing them, collecting scattered magazines into piles, and putting books back on their shelves.
“Did you want to sit here?” Bettina finally asked, after I’d opened the desk drawer on her left to put away a bunch of business cards I’d collected from the various shelves.
“Not really,” I said.
That’s when I noticed the stack of Rudy’s DVDs still in the drawer. I wondered how late Melody and her roommate slept in on a Sunday morning.