“A fine selection, Monsieur Briggs!”
“Box them with the others, if you will.”
“Of course. She is, indeed, a fortunate lady.”
“A good companion, but a child. A spoiled child, I’m afraid. However, Ire been away a lot and haven’t paid much attention to her, so I guess I should make peace. It’s one reason I sent her to Cap-Ferrat.” He smiled, taking out his Louis Vuitton billfold. “La facture, si’il vous plaît?”
“I’ll have one of the girls expedite everything.” Madame Lavier pressed a button on the intercom next to the telephone. Jason watched closely, prepared to comment on the call Bergeron had answered in the event the woman’s eyes settled on a slightly out-of-place phone. “Faites venir Janine-– avec les robes. La facture aussi.” She stood up. “Another brandy, Monsieur Briggs?”
“Merci bien.” Bourne extended his glass; she took it and walked to the bar. Jason knew the time had not yet arrived for what he had in mind; it would come soon--as soon as he parted with money--but not now. He could, however, continue building a foundation with the managing partner of Les Classiques. “That fellow Bergeron,” he said. “You say he’s under exclusive contract to you?”
Madame Lavier turned, the glass in her hand. “Oh, yes. We are a closely knit family here.” Bourne accepted the brandy, nodded his thanks, and sat down in an armchair in front of the desk. “That’s a constructive arrangement,” he said pointlessly.
The tall, gaunt clerk he had first spoken with came into the office, a salesbook in her hand.
Instructions were given rapidly, figures entered, the garments gathered and separated as the salesbook exchanged hands. Lavier held it out for Jason’s perusal. “Voici la facture, monsieur,” she said.
Bourne shook his head, dismissing inspection. “Com-bien?” he asked.
“Vingt-mille, soixante francs, monsieur,” answered the Les Classiques partner, watching his reaction with the expression of a very large, wary bird.
There was none. Jason merely removed five five-thousand-franc notes and handed them to her.
She nodded and gave them in turn to the slender salesclerk, who walked cadaverously out of the office with the dresses.
“Everything will be packaged and brought up here with your change.” Lavier went to her desk and sat down. “You’re on your way to Ferrat, then. It should be lovely.” He had paid; the time had come. “A last night in Paris before I go back to kindergarten,” said Jason, raising his glass in a toast of self-mockery.
“Yes, you mentioned that your friend is quite young.”
“A child is what I said, and that’s what she is. She’s a good companion, but I think I prefer the company of more mature women.”
“You must be very fond of her,” contested Lavier, touching her perfectly coiffed hair, the flattery accepted. “You buy her such lovely--and, frankly--very expensive things.”
“A minor price considering what she might try to opt for.”
“Really.”
“She’s my wife, my third to be exact, and there are appearances to be kept up in the Bahamas.
But all that’s neither here nor there; my life’s quite in order.”
“I’m sure it is, monsieur.”
“Speaking of the Bahamas, a thought occurred to me a few minutes ago. It’s why I asked you about Bergeron.”
“What is that?”
“You may think I’m impetuous; I assure you I’m not. But when something strikes me, I like to explore it. Since Bergeron’s yours exclusively, have you ever given any thought to opening a branch in the islands?”
“The Bahamas?”
“And points south. Into the Caribbean, perhaps.”
“Monsieur, Saint-Honoré by itself is often more than we can handle. Untended farmland generally goes fallow, as they say.”
“It wouldn’t have to be tended; not in the way that you think. A concession here, one there, the
designs exclusive, local ownership on a percentage-franchise basis. Just a boutique or two, spreading,
of course, cautiously.”
“That takes considerable capital, Monsieur Briggs.”
“Key prices, initially. What you might call entrance fees. They’re high but not prohibitive, in the finer hotels and clubs it usually depends on how well you know the managements.”
“And you know them?”
“Extremely well. As I say, I’m just exploring, but I think the idea has merit. Your labels would have a certain distinction--Les Classiques, Paris, Grand Bahama ... Caneel Bay, Perhaps.” Bourne swallowed the rest of his brandy. “But you probably think I’m crazy. Consider it just talk. ...
Although I’ve made a dollar or two on risks that simply struck me on the spur of the moment.”
“Risks?” Jacqueline Lavier touched her hair again.
“I don’t give ideas away, madame. I generally back them.”
“Yes, I understand. As you say, the idea does have merit.”
“I think so. Of course, I’d like to see what kind of agreement you have with Bergeron.”
“It could be produced, monsieur.”
“Tell you what,” said Jason. “If you’re free, let’s talk about it over drinks and dinner. It’s my only night in Paris.”
“And you prefer the company of more mature women,” concluded Jacqueline Lavier, the mask cracked into a smile again, the white ice breaking beneath eyes now more in concert.
“C’est vrai, madame.”
“It can be arranged,” she said, reaching for the phone.
The phone. Carlos.
He would break her, thought Bourne. Kill her if he had to. He would learn the truth.
Marie walked through the crowd toward the booth in the telephone complex on rue Vaugirard.
She had taken a room at the Meurice, left the attaché case at the front desk, and had sat alone in the room for exactly twenty-two minutes. Until she could not stand it any longer. She had sat in a chair facing a blank wall, thinking about Jason, about the madness of the last eight days that had propelled her into an insanity beyond her understanding. Jason. Considerate, frightening, bewildered Jason Bourne. A man with so much violence in him, and yet oddly, so much compassion. And too terribly capable in dealing with a world ordinary men knew nothing about. Where had he sprung from, this love of hers? Who had taught him to find his way through the dark back streets of Paris, Marseilles, and Zurich ... as far away as the Orient, perhaps? What was the Far East to him? How did he know the languages? What were the languages? Or language?