...Continued Part I: molto lento

Bert was at least half-satisfied. Though the doctor had yet to arrive, Nick was leaning on the bar, wearing the boxer shorts and athletic grey t-shirt that usually comprised the sleepwear uniform of any American fraternity. To complete that image, he lacked only a backwards baseball cap and a can of beer--not the lead crystal glass from which he now drank. Myers looked from Nick to Pascal--who, in the scant moments he had delayed coming to answer the door earlier, had faultlessly attired himself. Myers looked back at Nick, who grinned at him in that blissfully ignorant way of his.

Bert threw one hand up onto the bar to help himself climb on a stool, but the action proved counter to comfort where his ribs were concerned, so he retracted the arm, and eased himself down onto a neighboring sofa instead. "Can't you put something on?" he told more than asked Nick, perhaps more irritably than he had intended.

Wolfe moved his position from the stool over to the sofa's adjoining overstuffed chair. "Hmm?"

"We've got a lady upstairs, that's all. I had to bring Claudia here. You can't go around like that. She's already out for your blood."

"So you said."

A moment passed while Bert collected his thoughts, and wished he had an actual bed in his future. It was going on what--six now? He decided against consulting his watch.

Finally, Nick prompted him out of his silence. "You bring me down here just to implement a dress code?"

"No," he almost sneered, mocking Nick's tone. "I did not bring you down here just to implement a dress code." His eyes tracked furtively over to the bar, where Pascal was at least pretending to leaf through last weekend's Chicago Sun-Times.

"Hey, uh, Pascal," Bert called to the other man, "Think of a reason you need to be somewhere else." He preferred not to discuss business in public--even if it was only in front of the bartender at the club in which he was part-owner.

"You know," Pascal began, unruffled by the order, "I think I will go and wait at the door for the doctor."

"Good idea," agreed Myers, as Pascal grabbed a nearby straight-backed chair, tucked the Sun-Times under his arm, and left them alone. Bert added under his breath to Nick. "Good guy, Pascal. How much you think he knows?"

Accustomed as he was to Bert's frequent evaluation of those with whom he surrounded himself, Nick shrugged and volunteered his usual, "about what?" reply. And as usual, Bert answered back with an enigmatic shrug of his own.

The warmth of dull pain that ensued in response to his shrug caused Bert to lean forward where he sat. He tried to overcome the desire to hold his side, and breathed shallowly. "Chloe," he said, and it spat out from his lips more than a little like a curse.

"You hurt?" Nick leaned toward him, hand out, ready to examine whatever injury his friend had taken on.

"You touch me--I'll break your rib."

"Broken rib? When did this happen? How?"

Bert held out his hand to stave off any renewed attempt Nick might make at diving in to facilitate his own diagnosis. "Doesn't matter, doctor's coming. What I need is for you to take care of Chloe."

"Who?"

"Claudia's PA, Chloe, she's coming in to Orly on an early flight--she's been in Budapest scouting locations for Claudia's BBC special."

"What's a PA?"

"Personal assistant--I don't know. Do I look like I've had a PA? No? Well then how should I know? Probably brushes her hair for her or something."

"And why are you sending me to pick her up?" Nick was obviously not following.

"Because I'm giving you a second chance. A chance to redeem yourself by making Chloe believe that she and Claudia can't get along without you."

"Any suggestions on how to help bring that about?"

"Yeah, get a shave and a haircut that costs more than a few francs." He laughed at the look on Nick's face, and grunted, his hand hovering to his side despite his best efforts. "And stop your detective work, Lieutenant. This ain't an inquest, you know, it's a job."

"So you know no one's after her."

"What I know," Bert's tone was stern. "Is that Claudia is hiring me to keep any potential threats to her person far away from her. I think we're doing that pretty well. You know as well as I do that plenty of celebrities hire security--it's just the cautious thing to do."

"But not all celebrities think someone specific is stalking them."

"Maybe not, but who's saying that she's wrong?"

Nick pounced on what he thought was a crack in Myers' exegesis. "So you haven't found any evidence to support her claims? Like last night, when no one turned up even though she was convinced that the guy was there." Another thought dawned. "Do we even know it's a guy?" He really thought he had him, and his face displayed the triumph he felt.

Bert opened his mouth to burst his bubble. "Once again you are not listening to me. What I know is that in two days I fly to Juneau to stay for an indefinite amount of time, and I can't afford to have Claudia calling and begging me to come back, or to take her business elsewhere because you need a refresher course in How To Win Friends and Influence People. Look Nick, I'm not asking you to hold an encounter group meeting, here. I'm not asking you to fall in love with her. I'm asking--no, I'm telling you--to be as attentive to her needs as humanly--and as close to within the confines of the law--as possible. So if she calls and tells you that the boogey man is under her bed and she can't sleep, you go up there, you investigate and you re-assure her-- personally, professionally, and in more clothes than you're wearing now."

"But--" he was prepared to argue, but Bert's hand came up as it had earlier, and cut him off.

"It's Claudia right now who's paying our bills, keeping this roof over our heads, and meat on the table." He jerked his head back to motion to the foyer. "Even for Pascal out there."

"Funny," said Nick, finding his coup de main, "And all along I thought Amanda was paying our bills with her successful club." He could not often resist dangling the club's profit margin in front of Myers. He knew it aggravated the other man to see his baby, his security firm so far outstripped by the lucrative Sanctuary, though Bert benefited from the profits as well.

Nick knew enough about what went on in both establishments to deduce that Bert felt a loss of face by the deficit his firm had been running of late in the books. Perhaps that was his first clue to one of the reasons Bert may have agreed to take on Claudia as a client at all.

"Amanda, yeah, well, speaking of the devil--"

...to be continued...

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