“Jesus, Dino, I didn’t do anything,” Stone said.
Dino motioned to Michael for a drink. “That’s usually the problem,” he said. The drink was placed before him, and he sipped it.
“You want some dinner, Dino?” Michael asked.
“Whatever he’s having,” Dino replied.
“Caesar salad and the osso buco?”
“Good.” He turned to Stone. “After a while, women
“She’s marrying Thad Shames.”
Dino’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit? Well, I’ll admit, I didn’t see
“Not yet, but he’s only worth three billion now.”
“Poor guy; couple months, he’ll be living on the street. Still, he got the girl.”
“Don’t rub it in.”
“It’s what I do,” Dino explained.
Stone’s cellphone, clipped to his belt, began to vibrate. “Now what?” he said to nobody in particular. “Hello?”
“Stone, it’s Bill Eggers.” Bill was the managing partner of Woodman & Weld, the prestigious law firm for which Stone did unprestigious jobs.
“Yeah, Bill.”
“You sound down.”
“Just tired; what’s up?”
“You got anything heavy on your plate right now?”
“Nothing much.”
“Good; there’s a guy coming to see you tomorrow morning at nine, with some work. Do whatever he says.”
“Suppose he wants me to kill somebody.”
“If this guy wanted somebody killed, he’d do it himself. His name is John Bartholomew, and he’s major, in his way.”
“I’ll be glad to see him.”
“You got a passport?”
“Yes.” Not that he’d used it for a long time.
“Good. You’re going to need it.” Eggers hung up.
Elaine came over and pulled up a chair. “Callie left in a hurry,” she said. “I guess you fucked it up again.”
“Don’t
Chapter 2
STONE WOKE UP HUNGOVER. HE SHOULDN’T drink that much so close to bedtime, he reflected, and resolved, once again, not to do it again. It was half past eight, and this guy Bartholomew was coming at nine; no time for breakfast. He showered and shaved and got into a suit, then went down to his office on the ground floor.
The ground floor, except for the garage, had been a dentist’s office when Stone’s great-aunt had still owned the house. After Stone inherited the place and renovated it, mostly with the sweat of his own brow, he turned the dentist’s office into his own. His secretary, Joan Robertson, worked at the front of the house, then came a couple of small rooms for supplies and the copying machine, then his own office, a pleasant room at the back of the house, looking out into the gardens of Turtle Bay, a collection of townhouses in the East Forties that opened onto a common garden. Only the burglar bars spoiled the view.
Stone heard the clicking of computer keys stop, and Joan came back to his office. “You’re in early,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Stone asked, with mock offense. “It’s nearly nine o’clock.”
“That’s what I mean. I’ll bet you didn’t have time for breakfast.”
“You got some coffee on?”
“I’ll get you a cup,” she said.
“There’s some guy named John Bartholomew coming in at nine,” he said. “Bill Eggers sent him.”
“I’ll show him in when he arrives,” she said.
Stone shuffled listlessly through the files on his desktop. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Eggers that he wasn’t busy.
Joan came back with the coffee. He was grateful that her taste in beans ran with his, that she liked the strong, dark stuff that usually got made into espresso. “Did Callie get in last night?” she asked.
“She got in, then she got out.”
“Out? You mean,
“I do. She’s marrying Thad Shames this weekend.”
“Good God! I’m shocked!”
“So was I, to tell the truth.”
“You let another one get away.”
“Joan . . .”
She threw her hands up defensively. “Sorry, it’s none of my business. You want me to send a wedding gift?”
Stone brightened. “Good idea. Go find the ugliest piece of sterling that Tiffany’s makes and send it to them in Palm Beach with a truly sincere card.”
The doorbell rang. “There’s your appointment,” she said. She left and returned a moment later with a tall, heavyset man in his fifties who, in his youth, had probably played college football.
“I’m Stone Barrington,” Stone said, rising and offering his hand.
“John Bartholomew,” the man replied, shaking it.
Stone waved him to a chair. “Bill Eggers called last night.”
“Did he give you any details?”
“No.”
Joan brought in another cup of coffee on a silver tray and offered it to Bartholomew, who had, apparently, placed his order with her on arrival.
Bartholomew sipped it. “Damned fine coffee,” he said.
There was something vaguely British about him, Stone thought, perhaps more than just the hand-tailored suit. “Thank you. We drink it strong around here.”
“The way I like it,” the big man replied. “Never could understand that decaf crap. Like drinking nonalcoholic booze. Why bother?”
Stone nodded and sipped his own coffee.
“We don’t have much time, Mr. Barrington, so I’ll come to the point. I have a niece, my dead sister’s only child, name of Erica Burroughs.” He spelled the name. “She’s twenty, dropped out of MountHolyoke, involved with a young man named Lance Cabot.”
“Of the MassachusettsCabots?”
“He’d like people to think so, I’m sure, but no, no relation at all; doesn’t even know them; I checked. Young Mr. Cabot, I’m reliably informed, earns his living by smuggling quantities of cocaine across international borders. Quantities small enough to conceal on his person or in his luggage, but large enough to bring him an income, you follow?”
“I follow.”
“I’m very much afraid that Erica, besotted as she is, may be assisting him in his endeavors, and I don’t want to see her end up in a British prison.”
“She’s in Britain?”
