She got up and headed for her office. “Herbie’s going to call you every day, so we’ll know he’s alive!” he shouted after her. “I think.”
Joan had her bag and was letting herself out the front door. “Bye!” She waved and was gone.
Stone ran to the front door and checked the block while she got into a cab. He waved her off, then he went inside and up to his bedroom. He opened the safe in his dressing room and took out his favorite little.45 and a holster.
He would be going armed for the duration.
44
Stone left the house by the rear door and walked into Turtle
Bay Gardens, the common area behind all the Turtle Bay houses. The paths were lighted, so finding his way in the dark was not a problem. He walked across the garden and used his garden key to open the door leading to Second Avenue. He looked both ways for a full minute, then stepped out into the street and hailed a cab.
Fifteen minutes later he was seated at Elaine’s with a Knob Creek on the rocks before him, and Dino was working his way toward him from the front door, table by table, greeting acquaintances. Finally he plopped himself down and accepted a Scotch from a waiter.
“So, how was your day?” Dino asked.
?
?I hardly know where to begin,” Stone said.
“Just begin, and don’t be a pain in the ass.”
“Okay, Herbie’s off the hook for Cheech’s murder; they’ve arrested his buddy, Gus, whose fingerprints are on the knife. Herbie’s gone to his aunt’s in East Hampton, I hope to God.”
“And?”
“And Joan’s on vacation, sort of, to keep Devlin Daltry from killing her.”
“And?”
“And that’s about it.”
“That’s funny, you seem to be forgetting the part about why Devlin Daltry might want to kill Joan.”
“Oh, that.”
“I know it’s probably of little consequence to you, but when a beautiful woman gets her head cut off, I would have thought that that would have been the first thing on your mind. Charley Sample called me.”
“Oh, and Dierdre Monahan almost got me into bed, but I was saved by the D.A., the Old Man himself.”
“See? You did it again?”
“I don’t want to even think about it,” Stone said, taking a large pull on his bourbon.
“Stone, if you don’t talk about it, get it off your chest, you’re gonna have nightmares for a year.”
“Do I have to?”
“It’s for your own good, pal.”
“Dino, I want to hunt down Devlin Daltry and kill him slow, to quote Carmine Dattila.”
“I know you do.”
“I mean, I really, really want to do that. At lunch today, I was actually thinking about fucking Dierdre Monahan, after she asked me. I was desperate for something to think about besides Celia sitting in that porch chair without a head.”
“Well, fucking Dierdre Monahan is something you’ve done before, and when in your right mind, something you’d do again in a heartbeat, right?”