“How did you know I was going to ask you?”
“It was pretty obvious when you turned over onto your back,” she said.
“Tonight?”
“Tomorrow night would be better.”
“Great. Shall I pick you up at say, eight?”
“It would be better if we met.”
“Do you know Elaine’s?”
“I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know where it is.”
“On Second Avenue, between Eighty-eighth and Eighty-ninth. At eight-thirty?”
“Perfect,” she said, laying a card on the bedside table. “My cell number is there, should you need to reach me. How should I dress?”
“You can wear anything from jeans to a ball gown at Elaine’s; I’d suggest fairly casual.”
“I can do that,” she said.
“Just one thing: You don’t work for Bernard Finger, do you?”
“No, I certainly don’t.”
“Joan will have a check for you downstairs.”
She put her cool hand on his forehead for a moment. “There,” she said, “sleep.”
He followed her instructions to the letter.
11
As Stone left his house that evening to look for a cab to Elaine’s, a black Lincoln that was double-parked a couple of doors up the street started to move slowly. He looked over his shoulder, as if looking for a cab, which he was, and checked out the car. Darkened windows. He suddenly regretted that he was not armed.
He walked down to Third Avenue and hailed a cab, and fifteen minutes later he was sipping his first Knob Creek. Dino arrived five minutes later, simultaneously with his first Scotch, via waiter.
“You’re looking very fresh and relaxed,” Dino said.
“I am exactly that,” Stone replied. “I found a replacement for Marilyn this afternoon, and the woman is an angel.”
“I want to meet her,” Dino said.
“Come around this time tomorrow evening and have a drink with us, but don’t stick around for dinner, even if I invite you to, which I won’t.”
“What’s she like?”
“That’ll be a surprise; you’re not going to believe what you see.”
“I take it that’s a favorable assessment of her charms.”
“You may infer that. Oh, and she knows Marilyn-they used to work at the same day spa-and she tells me that Marilyn has retired from the business and moved into an apartment paid for by a married lawyer, who is…”
“Bernie Finger.”
“You’re so smart.”