and settled into his leather swivel chair. Victor might well have been his troubled son.
Victor, slumped on the sofa, stopped gnawing on his lower lip. 'The Sanchez bitch phoned here a while ago, talked like she was crazy. Didn't even use her Madeline Scott name, called herself Maria. As if Maria Sanchez still actually existed somewhere.'
The concerned frown, genuine now, stayed glued to Stone's symmetrical features. 'I didn't expect to hear from her again. She seemed to understand the rules, and why they're necessary.'
Once the new identity was assumed, there was no reason ever to contact E-Bliss.org again. It didn't exist anymore. The old identity no longer existed except here and there on paper or in obscure databases. Each special client was made to understand that that was the entire idea, to draw a line between an old and a new reality. Madeline Scott (Stone no longer allowed himself to think of her as Maria Sanchez) seemed smart enough to comprehend that. Seemed safe as a special client. Apparently she hadn't come as advertised. Stone felt himself getting disturbed and pushed the heat of his anger aside. Anger was an emotion he couldn't allow. Only one letter away from danger, he reminded himself. Bad for business in so many ways, anger.
Victor, Stone observed, seemed to still be angry over the phone call. Victor, who might himself be a potential problem. Stone wondered, would Gloria, if he asked, be able to deal with Victor?
A problem for another day. Here was Stone, worried about Victor's anger today.
'What did our troublesome special client want?' he asked Victor
'Said she wants the better apartment we promised her. She wants money. She wants us to live up to our end of the arrangement. She wants things to change. She wants, wants, wants!'
Stone smiled. 'She wants quite a lot.'
'No, I think she wants one thing,' Victor said. 'A fix.'
Stone thought for a moment, then shook his head no. 'Maria Sanchez couldn't be a drug addict. She was around the stuff, but not a user. Somebody like that, in her position, she wouldn't survive long if she even started to use.'
'If it became a problem.'
'It always becomes a problem,' Stone said. 'Or often enough that no chances are taken. People in the business know that going in.'
'Maybe it was a problem that hadn't had time to develop enough to be noticeable.'
Stone said nothing. That was a possibility. An unsettling one. The company might have inherited a nascent problem, only just beginning to become a monster.
'I know the signs, Palmer. I know how cokeheads talk, especially when they get desperate. The bitch was unhinged.'
'I still say it's unlikely that drugs are the problem,' Stone said.
'If she's not a head that hit the wall, she sure sounded like one. You should've heard her, Palmer. She was ranting like she was nuts. She had to be crazy to phone here in the first place.'
Stone thought back to the poised young woman he himself had interviewed, to the background file reaching into her childhood. She'd been something of a revolutionary as a young girl, but a smart one. Near the top of her college class when she met her husband. Stone even knew her IQ, which was in the superior range. He remembered her correct and concise replies to his questions, the calm and appraising intelligence in her cool blue eyes.
Palmer Stone knew breeding and quality when he saw it. Maria Sanchez qualified.
'I'll phone and discuss things rationally with her,' he said. 'Don't worry, Victor, I can calm her down.'
Victor thought about the surest way to quiet the nutcase new Madeline Scott, a way he'd relish and she wouldn't. But he said nothing and with effort turned his mind away from possibilities already stirring in the core of him. The new Victor would think about the new Madeline Scott later, but he wouldn't act on his imaginings. Not in any way involving her. It wouldn't be worth the risk. She was business and would stay business.
He knew this was the kind of situation that called for bullshit, and nobody was better at it than Palmer Stone. He was built of the stuff.
Victor stood up from the sofa, stretched, and nodded.
'Whatever you say, Palmer.'
Jill could see that Tony was getting tired of it. And maybe a little puzzled.
He'd dropped in unexpectedly this evening, and two minutes later Jewel had turned up at the door. Jewel the pest and barrier to the bed. Jewel was talky, and downright pushy sometimes. She didn't take a hint and she didn't scare away. Tony and Jill were stuck with her. Jill played it that way, raising her eyebrows and making a what-are- you-gonna-do face at Tony when Jewel wasn't looking.
Jill had been barefoot tonight when Tony arrived. As soon as Jewel showed up, on had gone the shoes. Obviously, Tony saw that as a bad sign.
'Let's go out someplace and grab a bite to eat,' he suggested, standing up from where he'd been sitting on the sofa.
'Great idea!' Jewel said.
Tony glanced at Jill. 'I mean't-'
'The three of us,' Jill interrupted.
He stared at her, not even caring now if Jewel saw the look he was giving her. Why did you say that? What the hell's the matter with you?
No doubt Jill saw Jewel as a friend as well as a pest and didn't want to hurt her feelings. Not that Jewel seemed to have any.
Tony bet she could be made to feel. He found himself looking at her from time to time, sizing her up. Small woman with a great body, if she'd quit trying to conceal it. Slender waist, big boobs and ass. Sometimes he wondered what she'd look like nude. Jill had caught him looking at Jewel like that, and he had to think fast and make it all seem innocent. Jill wasn't difficult to deceive. Tony didn't think many women were. They only thought they were clever, which made them all the easier to fool.
'We can go back to that pizza place,' Jewel said. The three of them had eaten several times at a pizza joint down the block.
'Sounds great.' Jill looked at Tony.
'Sounds good,' was all he could muster.
The three of them started toward the door. Jill hung back and let Jewel go out first.
In the hall, when Jewel was half a dozen steps ahead of them, Jill raised her head and whispered in Tony's ear, 'She's my friend. I don't want to be rude to her.'
She could feel the tension in Tony, hear it in his breathing. How long could this charade last without him becoming suspicious? And if he did suspect, what would he do? She was beginning to think this might be the evening when she was going to find out.
Then his face broke into his beautiful smile. Easygoing Tony. The Tony she knew.
He bent over as they approached the elevator and whispered back to her, still smiling, 'Hey, I understand. What're you gonna do?' He kissed her ear.
Despite herself, she felt something in her melt.
He's a killer.
Sometimes it was so hard to remember that.
He reached over and squeezed her hand gently, lovingly, assuring her he did indeed understand her predicament with Jewel.
'Don't worry, darling,' he said patiently. 'We'll be alone sooner or later. Just the two of us. I'll see to it.'
Something with a thousand legs walked up JiIl's spine.
54
Tom Coulter stationed himself at the small wooden table where he'd sat drinking last night in Rodney's Roadhouse. The mingled odors of stale beer and stale sweat were in the air, along with tobacco smoke. Nobody in
