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wine.
    â€œYou speak English?”
    â€œYes, a little.”
    Holliday peeled off three hundred-euro bills from his own wallet. “You know where to buy cell phones around here?”
    â€œOui.”
    â€œGet me two, bring them back here. Be back in less than half an hour and there’ll be an extra hundred in it for you. Understand?”
    â€œOui, m’sieur.”
    â€œGet going.”
    The man hustled out the door and Holliday settled down to wait. Twenty minutes later the bellhop handed Holliday the two cell phones still in their boxes, collected his bonus and left. Holliday called down to the desk again.
    â€œFind me the number for Peter Lazarus and connect me.” Holliday spelled out the name and hung up the phone. The Company might have the cell towers covered, but not the landlines. A moment later the house phone rang. Holliday picked it up. “Dr. Lazarus?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m a friend of Spencer Boatman. My name is John Holliday.”
    â€œHe mentioned you. What can I do for you?”
    â€œI have to see you. Now. Spencer is in harm’s way and I put him there.”
    â€œEighty-eight Avenue Foch,” Lazarus said, anote of dark humor in his deep voice. “You can recognize it easily enough. There’s a plaque on the entrance commemorating it as the Gestapo headquarters during the war.” Lazarus gave Holliday detailed information on how to find him.
    â€œI’ll need about an hour,” said Holliday.
    â€œI’ll be here.”
    *   *   *
    It took Holliday twenty minutes to find a room where housekeeping was still working. He slipped into the room as though he owned it, sat down in the armchair and made several mock calls on one of his new “burner” phones. The housekeeper finished, Holliday gave her a ten-euro tip and that was that. As soon as the housekeeper was out the door, Holliday was on his feet and going through the real occupant’s clothing.
    He found a cheap suit that fit him well enough, a white shirt and a pale yellow tie. His best find was a large wraparound pair of aviator sunglasses. He also found a formless old fedora on the shelf of the cupboard and realized the man was probably in the dining room. He quickened his pace. He went into the bathroom, removed his eye patch, put on the sunglasses and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. The glasses didn’t quite cover the scar tissue from the hit he’d taken at theMoscow Airport a few years back, but they were good enough. He dropped the fedora onto his head, which shaded his face even more. Satisfied, he left the room.
    As Holliday went down the stairs, he prayed he wouldn’t meet the stranger whose clothes he had just stolen, then crossed the small lobby and stepped out onto the street. The weather was cool and cloudy. Directly in front of him was a chunky, battered Mercedes taxi with an equally chunky and battered driver behind the wheel, who was reading a copy of
Le Figaro
. Holliday looked to his left and right, saw nothing suspicious and climbed into the rear seat. The interior of the taxi smelled of sausage and cheese. He gave the driver an address on Rue Pergolèse and ten minutes later they were there. He paid the driver, watched him go and then went back around the corner to Avenue Foch. It wasn’t much of a cover, but it would probably buy him a little time.
    Just as Lazarus had described, there was a narrow porte cochere leading to the interior courtyard. He walked down to the end of it, and instead of garbage bins and bicycles, there was a substantial two-story stone house, its roof covered with sooty clay tiles. The house must have predated the blocks of apartments all around it by at least a hundred years.
    There was a man in his late fifties standing on the steps, presumably waiting for Holliday. He was tall and more heavy-set than Holliday, with a square-jawed, clean-shaven face, hazel eyes and long, curly