“Have I started drinking in the mornings?”
“Well, I don’t know. Have you?”
“Joan, I am completely baffled. Please explain this to me.”
She looked at him as if he were simple. “That nice young man said that he had retained you, and he handed me a million dollars in cash. I couldn’t get to the bank fast enough.”
“Was that nice young man named Herbie Fisher?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“You give that money back immediately,” Stone said sternly. “I have no wish to have anything to do with Herbie Fisher.”
“Get it back? Are you insane? This is a gift from God.”
“It’s a gift from hell,” Stone said. “Send it back to him.”
“Stone, this is how it works,” Joan said, as if to a child. “I get money, I deposit it in your bank account, I send a check to the IRS for the taxes, I pay off the bank loan, I write checks to everyone we owe, and I mail them immediately. How do you expect me to get the money back?”
“Stop payment on the checks.”
“You want me to stop payment on a check to the IRS? They’ll come and get you.”
“Well, stop the others, then.”
“The bank has already debited your account to pay off the loan. I can’t stop that, either. And those two payments took most of the money.”
Stone put his face in his hands and tried not to sob.
“I don’t understand,” Joan said. “All you have to do now is represent Fisher.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Stone said. “You’ve sold my soul to the Devil.”
“No, I’ve just paid your bills with money you earned or are going to earn.”
“I dread to think of what I’m going to have to do to earn it,” Stone said.
“Well, just chip away at the retainer with little jobs for Herbie.”
“A little job for Herbie has a way of becoming a minefield.”
“Well, then, tread carefully,” Joan said. She turned and flounced back down the hallway to her office. Then she stopped and came back. “I forgot to tell you that that woman was back yesterday.”
“What woman?”
“The one who stands across the street with that big man and just stares at the house. She’s been there for three of the past five days.”
“Dolce,” Stone said tonelessly.
“Eduardo Bianchi’s daughter?”
“What, didn’t you know that?”
“I’ve never seen her before,” Joan replied. “I thought she was locked in a rubber room in her father’s house. What is it with you and that woman, anyway?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Stone said wearily.
“Try me.”