Free The Obedient Assassin: A Novel by John P. Davidson

said.
    â€œOh yes, that.”
    â€œHow will you proceed?”
    â€œIt shouldn’t be difficult. She studied psychology. I’ll confide in her the problems I’m having with my difficult mother.”
    The right corner of his mother’s mouth lifted in the precursor of a smile. She took a puff from the cigar and peered into the smoke as she blew it out. “Do you have any hint that she might suspect you?”
    â€œOf what?” he said, waving his hand at the smoke.
    â€œOf deceiving her.”
    â€œIf I keep arriving in a cloud of cigar smoke, she’s going to suspect that I’m having an affair with a man.” He brushed a piece of imagined lint from the navy blue JM monogrammed on his cuff, wondering if maroon wouldn’t have been better for the pink shirt. “She doesn’t have a high opinion of aristocrats. In her mind, I could hardly be worse than what I’ve claimed to be.”
    â€œBut that doesn’t mean she won’t fall in love with you.”
    â€œNo, of course not.”
    â€œDoes she guess that you’re so much younger?”
    â€œNo, I seem to be aging rapidly.”
    â€œAnd where will you take her to dinner tonight?”
    â€œI thought that small place on Vieux-Colombier.”
    â€œIt’s a shame she wears glasses. She has no chic whatsoever.”
    â€œShe doesn’t care about fashion. She’s an intellectual, a bit like you, Mama.”

TEN
    T heir heels clicked on the parquet as they strolled through the royal apartments at Versailles, their reflections floating through the clouded glass of the immense gilt mirrors. Sylvia moved slowly, stopping to read long passages in her Baedeker. When they came to an exit, Jacques went out to one of the great staircases to smoke a cigarette. He missed Ruby, chatting away mindlessly, flirting. But now he would focus on Sylvia. He sensed that he needed to go very slowly, that to get her attention he would have to offer her a puzzle.
    He turned when he heard her coming. She was carrying her guide, wearing high-heel sandals and a yellow cotton dress. “I’m sorry I took so long,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”
    â€œYou didn’t. We can stay as long as you want.”
    â€œThe château is beautiful, isn’t it?”
    â€œIt is a gloomy place for me.”
    â€œReally? With all of those chandeliers and mirrors?”
    She gazed up at him, holding her right hand against the glare of the sun, her face reflected in the dark lenses of his sunglasses. “Do you want to see the gardens?”
    â€œIt’s getting rather warm. I believe I saw a café when we drove through the village.”
    â€œYes, that’s fine with me. I’ve seen enough.”
    They walked to the parking lot then drove down the long narrow lane lined with plane trees, a plume of white dust rising in their wake. In the village, they stopped at the sidewalk café, where they chose a table in the shade. He placed their orders then lit a cigarette. “I suppose Versailles and the revolution are more interesting for someone with your family history.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, my family history?”
    â€œRuby told me how your family fled Russia before the revolution, that the Ageloffs were a rich family in Russia.”
    Sylvia laughed. “That’s preposterous.”
    â€œIt isn’t true?”
    â€œI can’t imagine where Ruby got that.”
    â€œShe’s not a close family friend?”
    â€œNo. I don’t really know Ruby all that well. She was a friend of my sisters until they quarreled about politics. She stopped speaking to them when they accused her of being a Stalinist, but then she started calling when she heard I was coming to Paris.”
    â€œAnd the Ageloffs weren’t wealthy Jews. They didn’t flee Russia?”
    â€œFar from it. My father was from a small village in the Ukraine. He