“Did you offer the two of them your bed?”
“I offered them a guest room; that’s it.”
“So far. Well, I guess it’s how you keep your weight down, isn’t it?”
“Dino…”
Gianni put some menus on the table.
“We’ll be two more,” Stone said. “And we’ll order when the ladies arrive.”
Gianni brought two more menus and a basket of hot bread. Stone tore into a slab of sourdough.
“Carbing up for later?” Dino asked.
“Get off it. I just want to get something in my stomach with the bourbon.”
“Mary Ann and I worry about you, you know.”
“Mary Ann has enough to worry about with you on her hands.”
“We want to see you settled with some nice, plain girl.”
“You just want to drag everybody down with you,” Stone said. “And what do you mean, ‘plain’?”
“A beautiful woman demands too much of a man.”
“You’re married to a beautiful woman.”
“I speak from experience. Their care and feeding is a full-time job.”
“Mary Ann cares for and feeds both of you, and without the slightest help from you, as I recall.”
“She’s an exceptional woman,” Dino said. “You’ll never do that well.”
“Thanks a lot.”
They finished their drinks and had just ordered another round, when Dino nodded toward the front door. “I’ll bet that’s your lady cop,” he said.
Stone looked up to see a tall woman, more striking than he remembered, striding toward them, smiling.
“Hey, there,” Holly said, offering her hand.
Stone and Dino were on their feet, getting her chair.
“This is my friend Dino Bacchetti, my old partner. He runs the detective squad at the Nineteenth Precinct.”
“Hey, Dino.”
“Hey, Holly.”
“Where’s your friend?” Stone asked.
“Oh, Daisy’s exhausted,” Holly replied. “I put her to bed.”
“Can I get you a drink?” Stone asked.
“What are you drinking?”
“Bourbon.”
“That will do nicely,” she said.
Gianni brought her the drink.
“So what brings you to the big city?” Stone asked.
“I’m in hot pursuit of a fugitive,” Holly said.
Stone handed her a menu. “Let’s order dinner, then you can tell me about it.”
2
THEY WERE HALFWAY through their first course, a salad of French green beans, mushrooms, and bacon.
“Tell us about your fugitive, Holly,” Dino said. “Maybe I can help.”
“That would be nice, Dino,” Holly replied. “First, a little background: Not long ago, I wrapped up a case in my jurisdiction that involved a man named Ed Shine; his history is interesting. He came to the U.S. from Italy, as a teenager, and his original name was Gaetano Costello.”
“Costello?”
“Second cousin to Frank. The mob changed his name to Edward Shine, planted a birth certificate in the county records, and put him through high school and college, ostensibly the son of some people named Shine, who just happened to live in the same apartment building as Mr. and Mrs. Meyer Lansky. Right out of college, Ed starts building office buildings, and he never has any trouble arranging financing; he’s laundering money for the mob. He continues doing this for forty years or so, and very successfully. In the meantime, he’s visiting Florida on a regular basis, and he has a brief affair with a Latino woman and fathers a son out of wedlock, naming the boy Enrico. The kid takes his mother’s maiden name, Rodriguez, and is called Trini.
“Trini Rodriguez grows up his father’s son and is trained in all the little arts required of a Mafia-made man. His favorite is killing people. I thought I had killed him, but he bounced back.”
“Why did you think you had killed him?” Stone asked, putting down his fork.
“Because I stuck a steak knife in his neck and wiggled it around, and he was pumping blood at a great rate the last time I saw him.”
Stone gulped. “And why, may I ask, did you stick a steak knife in his neck?”
“He was trying to kill an FBI agent at the time, and I was trying to stop him.”
“Oh.”
“Apparently, though, his people got him to a hospital in time, and he recovered.”
“Wasn’t he arrested?”
“Yes, but there were complications.”
“He was trying to kill an FBI agent, but there were complications?”
“Right. Turns out Trini had been an FBI informant all the time he was killing people, and the Miami agent in charge, a guy named Harry Crisp, took him out of the hospital and put him in the Witness Protection Program, saying that he needed his testimony in the big case-
Dino spoke up. “So the guy you’ve come to New York to find is in the Federal Witness Protection Program?”
“Right.”
“Well,” Dino said, wiping his mouth and taking a sip of his wine, “that’s going to make it just a little difficult to arrest him.”
“Hang on,” Stone said. “You said you wanted him for
“Right. I had a witness in protective custody, and he killed two of her relatives, trying to get at her. She insisted on going to the funeral, and the FBI had the scene covered with lots of agents and a few snipers. I’m up in the church bell tower with one of the snipers when the hearses arrive, and everybody is on maximum alert, looking for somebody with a weapon.
“The coffins are taken out of the hearses and set by the graveside, and my witness walks over, puts a rose on the first coffin and kisses it, then steps over to the other coffin, and, as she kisses it, both coffins explode.”
“Holy shit,” Dino said quietly.
“My sentiments exactly,” Holly replied. “It’s carnage, everywhere you look. More than a dozen people are dead and several dozen injured, some critically. Like I said, I’m in the church tower, and the shock wave from the explosions starts the bell ringing and nearly deafens the sniper and me.”
“So he murders a dozen people, and still the FBI puts him in the Program?”
“Harry Crisp puts him in the Program, and once
“And I’ll bet Crisp still has his job,” Stone said.
“No, thanks to a little work of mine, but he still has
“
“It was the most remote place they could find to send him. The AIC in Miami is now one Grant Early Harrison, who was the FBI guy I was trying to save when I stuck Trini Rodriguez. He was undercover at the time.”
“Well, Grant Early Harrison must be very grateful to you,” Stone said.
“Grateful, but not very. He’s how I know Trini Rodriguez is in the Program and in New York, but he stopped talking to me the moment he realized that I planned to take Trini.”
