“The one you walked in here with.”
“She’s not a hooker.”
“Herbie, she’s with you; she is, ipso facto, a hooker.”
“Part-time, maybe,” Herbie admitted.
“Who do hookers work for, Herbie?”
“Me?”
“Besides you?”
“Madams? Pimps?”
“And who do madams and pimps work for, Herbie?”
“They’re self-employed, aren’t they?”
“They work for or associate with bad people, Herbie. If a hooker knows you’ve got two million dollars in her handbag, then her madam and her pimp know it too, and if they’ve had a moment, they’ve already sold that information to someone who wants to take it from you.”
“Sheila wouldn’t do that,” Herbie said. “She loves me.”
At that moment, as if for punctuation at the end of Herbie’s sentence, a fist-sized hole appeared in the front window of Elaine’s, and a loud report rent the air. This was quickly followed by two more shots.
Everybody hit the floor.
Stone raised his head an inch. “Are you sure Sheila loves you, Herbie?”
2
Dino was up and running at the door, clawing at the gun on his belt. He disappeared into the street.
People began cautiously to pick themselves up, look around and brush themselves off. Elaine sat two tables down, unmoving, looking unperturbed. The door opened, and a tall woman of Stone’s acquaintance, though not recent, walked in carrying a very feminine attache case.
Her name was Felicity Devonshire, though she was not called that by anyone who worked with her. She was, in fact, a high official of British intelligence who had formerly been called Carpenter but more recently, after a big promotion, had been dubbed Architect. A man had preceded her into the restaurant, and another followed her. They stationed themselves at the end of the bar, near the door, and watched the room.
Stone got up from the floor, dusted himself off, spotted Felicity and waved her over. They embraced casually. He could feel her ample breasts through her coat and his.
“Stone,” she said, “what is going on? Dino is out in the street waving a gun around and shouting into a cell phone, and this place is a mess.”
“Just a little after-dinner entertainment,” Stone said, taking her coat and holding a chair for her, not missing the sight of her cleavage as she sat down. He took his seat, picked up the plastic bag with the million dollars in it and stuffed it into the hooker’s handbag. Shoving the bag at Herbie, he said, “Go away.”
Herbie began to protest, but Stone held up a hand like a traffic cop and then waved him back to his own table and the clutches of the perfidious Sheila.
Felicity watched him go. “Isn’t that the awful little twit who gave you so much trouble a couple of years ago?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What was in the carrier bag?”
“A million dollars in cash.”
“Oh.” There were sounds of the sweeping up of glass from the front of the room, and a waiter appeared.
“Would the lady like a drink?” he asked.
“Thank you,” Felicity said. “The lady would like a Rob Roy with ice.”
Dino came back through the front door, holstering his weapon. “Felicity!” he said. “I thought that was you getting out of the Rolls.”
“Hello, Dino,” Felicity said warmly, for a member of the British upper class. She allowed herself to be pecked on the cheek. “How are you?”
“Pretty good,” Dino said. “Sorry about the excitement; somebody put a couple rounds through the front window.”
“Of course,” Felicity replied.
Elaine came and stood by the table. “So,” she said, “who’s paying for the window?”
Stone jerked a thumb toward the rear of the room. “Herbie Fisher, and he’s got the cash on him.”
Elaine walked back to Herbie’s table and slapped him on the back of the head. Stone could not hear what she was saying to him, but Herbie dipped into Sheila’s handbag and came up with a thick slice of hundreds. Elaine tucked the money into her bosom without a word and moved on to the table of another regular.
“This has always been such an interesting place,” Felicity said, sipping her Rob Roy.
Stone gazed with heartfelt lust at her pale red hair, her unblemished skin, and her very English but nevertheless sexy clothes. “You make it even more interesting,” he said.
Felicity patted him on the cheek. “Aren’t you sweet.”
“See anything outside, Dino?” Stone asked.
“A van, headed downtown,” Dino replied. “I didn’t have a shot. I called it in.” He looked at the floor beside the table. “Where’s the million bucks?”
Felicity spoke up. “Do you mean that there was actually a million dollars in that carrier bag?”
“It was Stone’s retainer,” Dino explained. “Herbie Fisher wanted legal representation.”
Felicity regarded Stone with a curious glance. “And you declined? This is not the Stone I know.”
“So,” Stone said, changing the subject, “what brings you to town, Felicity?”
“Her Majesty’s service,” she replied.
“Oh, come on,” Stone said. “Give us a hint.”
“We are not in the ‘hint’ business,” she said.
“Of course you are,” Stone said. “Hints are what you do. I mean, you never come right out and say anything; you just hint.”
“You may have noticed that I have not hinted. What on earth do you mean by refusing a fee of a million dollars?”
“You do remember Herbie, don’t you?”
“How could I forget him?” she asked. “Asked to take a photograph of an assignation from a rooftop, he fell through a skylight and broke both of one my colleague’s legs, as I recall. Of course, my colleague was already dead, but that hardly matters in the circumstances, does it?”
“It does not,” Stone said, “but you have just illustrated why I didn’t take Herbie’s money. It would have bought me ten million dollars’ worth of trouble.”
“Quite.”
“Would you like some dinner?”
“Yes, please. I couldn’t eat what they gave me at the Saudi UN embassy. I believe it was goat or something very like it.”
Stone signaled for a menu, and she glanced at it.
“Order for me, would you?”
“You’re starved?”
“Ravenous.”
Stone turned to the waiter. “Bring her the osso buco with polenta and a bottle of the Chianti Classico,” Stone said to the waiter.
“That’s goat, isn’t it?” Felicity asked. “Or something very like it?”
“You know very well that it’s veal,” Stone said.
“If you say so.”
“Excuse me a minute,” Dino said, and then headed for the men’s room.
“He’s being discreet,” Stone said. “He knows you want to talk to me about something.”
