“I gave it to him, and he got it done.”
“I’ll call Wally.”
“Tell him I said it’s okay to talk to you and to call me for confi rmation if he wants.”
“Okay. Talk to you later.” Stone hung up and called the Gardens and left a voice mail for Evan Keating. “The contract will be here by noon tomorrow. Call me in the morning, and I’ll buy you lunch.”
Stone looked up Wally Millard’s number in his address book and called him.
“Hey, Stone.”
“Hey, Wally. Bill Eggers asked me to call you about a skip trace you did for him.”
“If I call Eggers, will he tell me that?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take your word for it. What do you want to know?”
“It was a guy named Evan Keating. Apparently, you found him in Miami, but he skipped again.”
&n
bsp; “Jesus, I’m getting too old to go running off to Miami on a skip. I called a guy named Manny White, ex-NYPD, who’s a P.I. down there, and he put somebody on it.” Wally gave him White’s number.
“Took him a couple of weeks, so finding the guy wasn’t a piece of cake. Tell him I said to call.”
“Thanks, Wally. Say hello to Elaine.”
“Sure.” Wally hung up.
“How’s Wally?” Dino asked.
“He’s okay.”
“I’m hungry, let’s get out of here. You can call Manny White later.”
8 8
L o i t e r i n g w i t h I n t e n t
“You know him?”
“Old-timer, Wally’s generation. I had some dealings with him on a case when I was still in a rookie uniform, and he busted my chops every chance he got.”
“Obviously, he knew you well.”
“What do you mean? I was a great rookie.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Everything.”
“Oh.”
THE Y WE NT T O the Raw Bar for conch fritters, third time. They were halfway through lunch when Stone’s cell phone went off. A Miami number.