'What kind of answer is that?' Stone asked.
'An honest one. Please accept it.'
'I accept it.'
'And please know that this conversation is entirely confidential.'
'Wait a minute,' Stone said, 'you can't say that after the fact; it has to be before.'
'I am not a newspaper reporter interviewing you and promising to keep your name confidential.'
'That doesn't matter.'
'Let me put it this way,' Willa said. 'This and any other conversation you and I have had on the subject of Herbert Fisher or any member of his immediate or extended family is entirely confidential. Got that?'
'But-'
'Either you've got that, or I'll pay for my two drinks and leave immediately, never to be heard from again. And you'd better not take too long to think about it.'
Stone thought about it instantly. 'Got it. Would you like another drink?'
'I haven't finished my second one,' she said. 'Are you trying to get me drunk? Because if you are, I should tell you that three drinks isn't going to do it, since I'm not driving, and drinking will have no effect on my memory of the details of our conversation.'
Stone handed her a menu. 'Let's order dinner,' he said.
FORTY-SEVEN
Stone awoke suddenly. He was in a strange bed, completely disoriented, his head throbbing. He sat up on his elbows and looked around, trying to remember the evening before.
He needed to go to the toilet badly. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and fell out, having missed the set of steps provided for the purpose. Was the bed a foot higher than standard, or was he hallucinating?
He got to his feet and saw a note on the bedside table.
Some of us have to go to work. There's coffee made.
Stone made it to the john, peed and splashed water on his face. He avoided looking in the mirror and went back to the bedroom to get dressed. This involved a scavenger hunt for the various items of his clothing. One by one he located everything but one sock, which was nowhere to be found no matter how hard he looked.
He put on his shoes and stumbled into the kitchen. There was a brown liquid in an electric coffeemaker on the kitchen counter, but he didn't like the smell. Must be decaf, he thought. He needed the high-test. He switched off the coffeepot, found his overcoat on the living room floor with his necktie in a pocket, and let himself out. A woman on the elevator smiled brightly at him.
'Good morning!' she said with enthusiasm.
'Good,' he replied, trying to smile. 'Good morning.'
Her smile faded. 'Do you have flu symptoms?' The city was in the grip of rumors of a new strain of the virus.
Stone thought about that. 'No, I have hangover symptoms.'
She fled the elevator at the first opportunity.
Stone stepped out of the building into sunlight like a thousand strobe lights. Shielding his eyes with a forearm, he stepped into the street and was nearly run down by a cab.
'You looking for a ride, buddy, or just suicide?' the cabbie yelled through his open window.
Stone struggled into the backseat and gave him the address. 'What street are we on?' he asked.
'East Seventy-ninth,' the cabbie replied. 'It's the big one with all the cars.'
As the cab neared his house, Stone took mental inventory of the previous evening's events. He seemed to remember some sort of drinking contest with Willa, which he had, apparently, lost. How many drinks did it take to make him feel this way?
He stuffed money into the pass-through of the driver's bullet-proof shield and spilled himself into the gutter in front of his house. He looked at the front steps and decided against, instead taking the steps down to his office door.
'Good morning!' Joan said from her office as he passed.
'No need to shout,' Stone said as he stumbled toward his own office. He decided to rest on his sofa for a moment before trying to find the elevator.
Joan shook him awake. 'It's ten-thirty,' she said. 'Are you working or doing anything at all today?'
Stone sat up. He found he was still wearing his overcoat.
'Mr. Herbert Fisher to see you,' Joan said.
Stone got to his feet. 'Tell him to come back tomorrow, and tell Helene to send some toast and coffee upstairs.' He looked around for the elevator door.
'Why are you wearing only one sock?' Joan asked.
Stone raised a hand. 'Not now.'
'I don't think I saw that recommended in the Styles section of the Times,' she said.
Stone got into the elevator. 'I don't want to hear from you before one o'clock,' he said. 'Maybe not even then.' The elevator doors closed, and he pressed his back against the wall to steady himself.
He got to his dressing room, emptied his pockets, and stuffed all his clothes into the two bins, one for laundry, the other for dry cleaning. He hung up his overcoat and his necktie.
He stood under a hot shower for two minutes, then got into a terry robe and made his way to the dumbwaiter, where his toast and coffee awaited, then he put the electric bed into the sitting position, ate and drank and pulled the Times into his lap and tried to read the front page.
'Stone.' Joan's voice came from the speakerphone. 'It's one-thirty; you asked me to wake you.'
Stone jerked awake, still in a sitting position, with a sore neck from sleeping with his chin on his chest. He pressed the button on the phone. 'Forget I asked you,' he said.
'Nighty-night,' she replied, and switched off.
Stone pressed the 'flat' button on the bed's remote, shucked off the robe and crawled under the covers, brushing aside the unread newspaper.
The phone began ringing, and nobody was picking it up. He reached for the 'talk' button. 'Hello.'
'You sound like shit,' Dino said. 'Are you sick or something?'
'That's what Elaine asked about you last night,' Stone replied. 'At least, I think it was last night.'
'Are you coming?'
'Coming where?'
'To dinner. At Elaine's.'
'What time is it?'
'Nine o'clock.'
'I don't think I'm going to make it. Remember me to Madame.'
'You want a doctor? I know a guy who makes house calls.'
'Not unless he can bring along a new head,' Stone said. 'Gotta run.' He hung up. Suddenly he was ravenously hungry, but Helene was gone for the day. He got into his robe and slippers and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.
The refrigerator was oddly bare, containing only a box from Domino's, which held three slices of desiccated pizza. He sprinkled some water on them and put them into the microwave for two minutes, while he looked for something to drink. There was, mercifully, a single Heineken in the refrigerator door shelf. He drank half of it in a gulp, burped, and attacked the pizza.
He went back upstairs and found that he was now wide awake and surprisingly un-hungover. The phone rang.
'Hello?'
