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While Milly plotted revenge against Pam, Andreas tracked the person who’d sent Pam the bomb. Neither task was easy. Neither made sense.

Pam was rich. She could shower gold into Milly’s lap. Why irritate Pam? Worse, why kill her? As Milly considered how to slay Pam, its fundamental logic escaped her. From the right thing to do, Pam’s death became an idiotic blunder. This without adding the factor of political influence. Pam held the Governor in the palm of her hand. Milly, as Pam’s confidante and partner, could hope for a senior desk in the White House if not a corner office at an agency reining in career bureaucrats. She’d be on the fast track to a six-figure pension with retirement in a few years to the tropics. And Pam knew plenty of those construction workers who Milly liked to hire for nameless, violent purposes related to discipline in the drug underground, psychopaths, experts in human relations that had kept Pam’s largest building projects on schedule. Pam dealt easily with these men. She could turn them against Milly. A war with Pam was irrational, Milly understood, as she planned the kill. Together they were a force to reckon with. At daggers drawn they’d self-destruct. And Pam was Milly’s only potential friend. Pam was motivated by the same forces: a subterranean urge to succeed, the desire for power, the necessity at all costs not to understand why she did things. By making Pam a target, Milly confirmed that her only community was the company of dolls. Reviewing the rows of impassive faces, like the contemplative rosy cheeks of a Church choir, Milly consoled herself. A break with Pam was inevitable. It would come to death in the end. Best to embark at her own pace for the tragedy that is life and love’s necessary terminus. Only her dolls would never leave. They were the faithful. Pam would betray Milly, if not today then tomorrow. Milly wouldn’t and couldn’t trust her.

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Milly gave Lin a ride in her Porsche. They drove on the highway with the wind heaving the car sideways every few minutes. Then they took the smaller routes toward Altamont and Knox. It was a challenge to keep on the road and Milly drove like a demon. She loved the danger. This was a side of Milly Lin hadn’t seen. He loved it.

“Hit Pam hard and fast and get out,” Milly said. “I work alone.”

“With inanimate creatures. Dolls, I hear.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“I’ve tested Pam’s defences.” He stretched. “They’re good. Pam has a friend in town from France, someone with lots of experience. I’ve dealt with him before. It makes my job easier.”

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During the flight from Paris, Andreas had plenty of time to think. The Elysee and the Quai know, thought Andreas. Antoine has told his masters about Immortality. They know he’s pumping it into the American illicit drug scene and they want to use it to elevate France’s influence. Now, if that were true, what would the devious minds that govern France do? Andreas already had part of the answer, personal and incomplete; they required Andreas to visit Albany.

Andreas regarded Pam as a quintessential American success story. Ironically, she was also Antoine’s conduit into the U.S. drug market. The juxtaposition satisfied common sense, however, because many American fortunes had blossomed during Prohibition. They took advantage of bootlegging as they did any profitable enterprise. The legal status of the business didn’t matter, and it therefore wasn’t absurd that a major construction boss would profit from surreptitious forms of enterprise. Indeed, it was sanctioned by historical precedent.

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Lin called Milly a few days after he’d shot at her. “You have a stalker,” he said.

Fred, Milly thought. “A secret admirer,” she said.

That’s the spirit, Lin thought. “Someone who carries a detective’s badge,” he said.

They’re on my trail, thought Milly. “A training run for someone else,” she said.

“We should talk.”

“We’re talking.” It was the crack of dawn. Milly took her phone to the dolls’ room.

“Where no one can overhear us. Wireless phones aren’t secure.”

“Neither are we.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

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Shortly after Milly delivered her negative answer to Lin, he parked down the road from Pam’s home and, for the hundredth time, considered his approach. He couldn’t fault it. Curiosity rather than hesitation governed his spirit. Milly’s attitude affected his calculations further into the contest, but not at present. They certainly didn’t dominate. Lin was more concerned with understanding Milly and taking her motives into account than following her advice. For Lin, it had always made sense to eliminate Pam and lay a faint trail, as though accidental, to Milly’s door. He worked best alone, and sweeping the drug market of its two most powerful personalities would create the turmoil he needed to take control. At the same time, Milly and Pam could accelerate his legitimate rise to power through the Governor’s committees and friendship. The question was which prevailed for Lin: politics or the drug trade, the open or secret path. One led to life for Milly and Pam, the other death and ruin. Lin had spent too long in covert fields to have a preference. The evidence he would drop from a plastic envelope lay to hand. His rifle was sighted.

Lin wasn’t foolish enough to ring the doorbell at the gate. He’d paid a pizza delivery boy to do it for him then run away. And Pam wasn’t foolish enough to open the door herself. But she did, to Lin’s astonishment. The self-confidence, no, hauteur of this self-made millionaire amazed him. Did she think she was invulnerable? Apparently so. Lin saw the red dot from his rifle wander across her face, contradicting her. He squeezed the trigger and the bullet raced to its target, as Pam bent down to pet her dog. The shot crashed into the door. Pam dived inside the house and Lin didn’t try another shot. He drove quietly away at a safe speed, just another wealthy businessman who couldn’t sleep, a New York sales rep returning from a late meeting. The choice was made for him, Lin thought. He’d chase the legitimate prize for a time. Then reconsider.

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Milly mulled over Lin’s suggestion that he “take out” Pam. It interested her that he wouldn’t take a small lateral step and talk openly. His reticence might stem from caution against eavesdropping, an episode of blackmail in his past, reluctance to confront necessity, an effort to tease or provoke, any number of things. Milly placed this wad firmly in her ruminant disposition for later chewing.

On the question itself, assuming that Lin was serious and not – for example – coat-trailing, Pam was Milly’s counterpart in so many ways that reflecting on her demise carried a strong sense of suicide. An intelligent woman, working alone, Pam had every reason to identify with Milly; the two of them were stronger together than separately. Each could offer advice, comfort, and practical assistance ranging from blue ribbon experts to strong-arm boys. They’d been victims of the same prejudice and insults, usually covert, and fought their way to the top by insulating themselves progressively against the need to consider others’ interests. It didn’t contradict this rational succession that both Pam and Milly served others as acolytes until they replaced their mentors or hopped onto faster rising escalators. The differences between them amounted to an image and its mirrored reflection.

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Antoine was American by birth, but he’d earned the trust of the French, a stubborn disbelieving race. He’d earned it the hard way, in colonial wars that no one cared to talk about. The French regarded him as an adopted child. They believed in him as they did no other American. While to the Americans he remained one of their own.

Antoine supported any regime his masters in the Elysee endorsed. He parlayed weapons into power, power into weapons and diplomacy into both. Blackmail and killing were all in a day’s work, means to an end, available at a price. Antoine effortlessly put politicians’ wishes into practice, and no pigeons came home to roost. It was ideal. Moreover, the adopted child had learned his table manners. He roamed the quai d’orsay with gentile charm and an educated accent, as he strode the halls of Langley sounding like a Boston Brahmin or Chicago Cubs fan as the occasion demanded. No one feared or disliked him or doubted his influence. The Americans couldn’t understand why the French embraced him. The French didn’t know why the Americans welcomed him back. Both exploited him relentlessly against the other. Or tried. Antoine studied Andreas in the bar near the Buttes Chaumont. “Shall we try the Champagne? I really don’t like this Bourgogne,” he said.  

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“I’m a merchant, not an addict,” Milly countered. How did he get my cell number, she wondered. She stepped out of the bath.

“I’ll explain in 20 minutes.”

“I’m busy,” Milly replied. She planned a quiet evening. Fred had moved out. The house was hers alone and she was determined to enjoy it. She didn’t crave company. Rather the reverse: she needed time to let her mind wander aimlessly with her peaceful companions in the dolls’ room.

Lin hung up. Another man incapable of finishing a conversation, Milly thought, there must be a language virus linked to gender. Is Lin coming here? She pressed call-back on her cell; the number was blocked. He doesn’t let women initiate conversations. This elevates the concept of control freak to new heights.

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Carrie wondered if the world was going crazy. She tells an intelligent man that bizarre events are occurring and hammers the message home by adding that they don’t make sense. Not 30 seconds later, while she is describing the irrational occurrences, the intelligent man asks her to make sense. How (Carrie wanted to scream this but instead said she’d call back) can events both be bizarre and make sense? She wasn’t suffering a breakdown. Carrie settled on the assumption that the intelligent man was sleep-deprived or having a bad day.

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There was meat, here, for reflection. On one side, a shooting war with Pam. Milly could smooth things over; she excelled at avoiding conflict. And Pam might have been bluffing; captains of industry rivalled Sir Laurence Olivier on stage. Milly might persuade Pam that the decision lay outside her control and grease the wheels with extra profit. Anything was preferable to the alternative, disregarding the clear instructions of the voice to up her market share. But if Milly sold more, Lin’s favourable pricing would create extra profit she didn’t have to share. War with Pam or war with the voice, keep to existing percentages or rev hers up. No contest. Milly called Lin and they made arrangements.

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