"How often does he travel there?"
Madame Leticia looked at me.
It was a brief look. Calm, direct, and carrying within it the very slight warmth of a woman who had registered exactly what question I'd started to ask and exactly what question I'd substituted for it and had formed an opinion about both. She said nothing about this.
"Several times a year," she said. "For business, primarily. He has associates in the 8th and meetings that take him to the financial district. He keeps in contact at the Élysée hotel." She moved back to the wardrobe. "He has not taken anyone with him in some time."
She delivered this information with the same tone she'd used for the weather forecast and the packing advice. Factual. Offered without editorializing and without a performance of significance, just l
