“I’m so sorry about that,” he said. “Lance can be a royal pain in the ass.”“I know,” Helga replied. “I’m astonished that you know each other. How is that?”“It’s a long and very boring story.”“And you are working for him?”“I’m under contract to his organization as a consultant. Now and then, Lance pops up and asks me to do something I’d rather not do.”“Always?”“I can’t remember an occasion when I was happy about what he wanted me to do. I’m sure you must have had that experience.”“Well, yes, I have. It was fun, at first, but . . .” She didn’t continue.“Did he ask you to meet me?”“No, that was Marcel. I had no idea you were connected in this manner and, I’m sure, neither did Marcel.”“I figured.”“The other one, I knew about.”“LaRose? You’d met before?”“No, I just spotted him for what he was as soon as he walked in wearing that awful dinner suit and said he was a commercial attaché.”“Not an undue assumption.”A waiter appeared with an ice bucket and a bottle of Krug ’78.
