As we boarded Delta's nonstop flight at JFK to Nice, Clair George and I agreed to call our client’s bluff: We'd eat and drink and rubbish our livers with rich sauce and vintage Armagnac until she folded and ordered us out. It would be more than a production meeting. With the Reserve's restaurant now meriting two Michelin stars, this would be a pig fest.
La Reserve processed us into a pair of sea-view rooms and we met the countess for tea and biscuits; she requested we approach her situation as if it were a movie. So, by now, even she knew this was about her own entertainment.
At 7:30, the countess and her banker joined us for cocktails in the bar. A quartet of servants escorted us into the dining room, where and a mortician-like sommelier proffered a wine list. We decided on 1990 Bandol rouge.
From there it was all up-hill: Fresh asparagus and sardines served in a rich sauce only a Frenchman could conceive, followed by sea bass.
The tasting was so sensational, my brain borrowed from my sense of hearing. Every so often I caught a phrase or two about the terrible predicament in which our countess found herself: Her daughter, with whom she had not spoken for a year, was intent on returning to New Mexico and installing her son at college in the United States. We—said the countess—must not allow this to happen. Such a move, she reiterated, would bode badly for the sole heir to her immense fortune.
"This is our last chance," trilled the countess. If it didn't pan out her way, she said, she'd leave all her money to charity. Her way was this: The boy should go to university in Europe. The boy's mother could go to hell so far as the countess was concerned, having written her off—for the fifth time—as nuts. But the boy must remain in Europe.
(As I look back now, Clair and I should have said finito bon soir well before this point, though I worried then that the countess would hire others who would cause real damage instead of just holding her hand, listening sympathetically and trying to talk her down from being overly mischievous.)
Just when I started to pay attention, the chocolate soufflé arrived. And that was the end of that. In any case, I'd heard it all before. We were into repeats.
The Swiss Banker arrived punctually at eleven next morning for our first formal session. I presented him with the results of our deeper financial investigation. But we needed people news i.e. gossip, not money news, to hold our client’s interest. And even the banker now appreciated that this is what it was truly all about: Keeping the countess entertained in her old age.
Although she had planned to miss this first session, the countess could not help herself. She popped by, “just to say hello,” but after plopping down she never got up. Her tiny terrier, expecting a walk, glared with indignation.
The chipper countess proposed that we title our endeavor Operation Rescue. Then she called on Clair to present all the options.
"Number One," Clair commenced, paying lip service. "We can get your daughter thrown out of the United States. It's drastic, and probably not what you want, but..."
"Who says I do not want?" the countess interrupted. "We see. What next?"
"Number Two," said Clair. "We can create an illusion that her daughter is under investigation by the IRS."
"How does this work?" asked the Countess, intrigued.
Clair turned Number Two over to me because I had conceived it as a better option than Number One, which, in any case, we would never do.
"I know someone retired from the IRS," I said. "He was one of their top investigators and knows exactly how the IRS goes about investigating someone they suspect of income tax evasion. He would go through the motions of an investigation, the same way the IRS would do it. He doesn't actually tell anyone that he works for the IRS, because impersonating a federal officer is illegal. But he knows all the right things to say, leading others to draw their own conclusions.”
"But if her lawyers call the IRS?" asked the countess.
"That's the dumbest thing anyone can ever do," I said. "If someone calls the IRS and asks, 'Are you investigating me?' the first thing the IRS would ask themselves is, Should we be? But even if your daughter and her lawyers are naive enough to do that," I added, "the IRS—a cumbersome bureaucracy—won’t answer. They'll say, 'We'll look into it' or 'We're not allowed to talk about on-going investigations.’”
The countess liked this idea. So did her banker. It was less extreme than Number One.
"Number Three," said Clair. "Baron von Biggleswurm. He's a flake—we all know that—but he's the only person who has any legal rights over the boy." Clair pointed to me. "He talks to him all the time."
"He's a do-nothing," growled the countess. "I spoke to him yesterday. He listens, he says yes, then he does nothing."
"I made an appointment for him to see lawyer two weeks ago," said the banker. "We wait. He does not come."
"Biggleswurm is still an influence in the boy's life," said Clair. "We all have to work on him, from different directions, to influence the boy and exert his rights as father.”
"Number Four," said Clair, speaking with such gravity that it seemed like weeks of thought had gone into this numeric sequence. "The Buddhists."
Nobody could raise any enthusiasm about the Buddhists. Thankfully, Number Four died on the vine.
"Bravo." The countess stood. She decreed that we would meet in her suite—for maximum privacy—to review our options and devise a strategy.
"I have Number Five," said the banker, after she departed.
"Five?" said Clair. He looked at me, I looked at him, we both looked at the Banker. “What is Number Five?”
"Number Five," said the banker. "Beat, talk, leave."
I didn't get it.
The banker elaborated: "I have friends in Sicily. They send someone to—how you say—make an offer that cannot be refused. But first we beat. Beat first, make offer, and leave. Simple, no?"
Clair and I looked at each other with incredulity.
In our client’s suite, we rehashed the options.
Number One: Getting Lara thrown out of the United States. Too extreme.
Number Two: The mock-IRS investigation. Approved.
Number Three: Trying to influencing Biggleswurm to exert his paternal legal rights. Approved.
Number Four: Buddhists. Boo.
Number Five: I refused to discuss Number Five.
Clair, the banker and I descended to the Metropole's bar while the countess changed for dinner. She joined us in high spirits. "Tonight we will celebrate!" she announced. She patted Clair’s knee and insisted we all drink dry martinis and toast success.
Menus were consulted. Both Clair and I settled on foie gras as an appetizer and a fish called Saint-Pierre. We declined soufflé; Clair realized he'd be lucky if he survived the foie gras.
Main thing, we had a plan. We should have said goodbye. But the countess was not ready to fold.
"You know," I told Clair over 1954 Armagnac in La Reserve's bar. "The plans are approved. We've peaked. By hanging around, it can only go south."
"We promised her as much time as she wanted," said Clair. "We just keep going until she says enough." He sipped Armagnac, raised his hand to order another and grinned. "But I know what you mean, the pressure is unbearable."
We did not meet until 2:30 next afternoon.
The countess asked me a long, drawn-out question about The Plan, and when I did not understand and asked her to rephrase it, she turned on me. "Are you sleeping?" she hissed. "Maybe you drink too many martinis."
I threw Clair an I-told-you-so glance.
Later, Clair and I met for aperitifs in anticipation of our client’s arrival for dinner.
"You know," he said. "She's nuts."
"You think so?"
Clair nodded. "She did a few things, said a few things, that confirmed it for me. She's crazy in the head. And if she puts her hand in my lap one more time..."
The countess arrived, banker in tow. She seemed relaxed, less aggressive.
I ordered salmon, which was, of course, the best salmon I'd ever eaten—lubricated by another 1990 Bandol rouge. This was followed by a selection of cheese made in heaven, followed by a nightcap of 1954 vintage Armagnac in the bar.
The countess, bless her, finally had had enough.
You know what you have to do, she said, so go do it.
Five pounds heavier each, Clair and I flew to London.
When I telephoned Baron von Biggleswurm to announce my presence, he said, "I was talking to the hedgehog. I have hedgehog in my ear!"
The countess could not wait even a day before getting on the horn and blasting the baron with a verbal onslaught.
At one o’clock I rang his doorbell. (Clair found a reason to be elsewhere.) Biggleswurm appeared in a bright red vest adorned with brass buttons over a pink check shirt and burgundy patterned tie; a beige jacket with colorful pocket hanky, gray flannel trousers and cream-colored socks—his most outlandish getup yet. He took a cursory look around his desk for "some writings," but found nothing.
"By next autumn," he announced, "I will have four hundred pages."
Yeah, right.
A maid entered with a half-empty bottle of bubbly and two crystal goblets. She was about to pour when the phone rang.
"Answer it," Biggleswurm commanded of her.
The maid answered. Whomever it was wanted the baron’s wife. Biggleswurm demanded the phone. "I have my publisher from America here with me," he told the caller.
I asked about his family, swiftly turning the subject to his son. I impressed upon Biggleswurm the importance of having his son attend college in Europe.
"College in the USA is about partying,” I said. “Booze and drugs.”
The Baron stiffened. "I must put my foot down."
Mission accomplished, in theory.