“Well, get him out of there, before he sets it on fire!”

“Talk to him first.”

“Put him on.”

There was a short silence, then: “Stone? Is it really you?” He sounded like a little boy just home from summer camp.

“Where have you been, Herbie?”

“In an attic downtown somewhere.”

“Tell me.”

“Those two guys grabbed me on the street, near my house.”

“What were you doing near your house? I told you to stay away from there.”

“All I wanted was some clean underwear.”

“Was it worth it?”

“I never got it. In fact, I’ve been wearing the same underwear for four days.”

“I didn’t need to know that, Herbie. What did they do to you?”

“They slapped me around a lot and threatened to do stuff with pliers.”

“Did you get any names?”

“Cheech and Gus. And an old guy named Carmen.”

“Do you, by any chance, mean Carmine?”

“Yeah, that’s it, with a ‘mine.’”

“What was he doing there?”

“He just came into the room for a minute this morning, looked at me and said, ‘Kill him as slow as possible.’”

“He actually said that?”

“Right before I jumped through the window.”

“You jumped out an attic window?”

“I jumped through an attic window, glass and all. You would have, too, if somebody had said to kill you slow.”

Herbie had a point. “Have you talked to your uncle?”

“Not yet.”

“Put Joan back on the phone.”

“Now what?” she asked.

“Let Herbie take a shower in the little bathroom off the kitchen, and tell Helene to throw his clothes into the washing machine and give him something to eat. Then give him two hundred dollars and call Bob Cantor and tell him to come get his nephew. I want Herbie out of there in two hours, and tell him it’s very, very dangerous for him to be in my house.”

“Gotcha,” Joan said.

“Any other calls?”

“No.”

“Call Sam Teich at Bernie Finger’s office and tell him we want an accounting today and a check in three days. Fax me anything he sends you. Call Bernice and tell her we’re ironing out the final details, and give her my cell number and the number here, if she needs to have her hand held.”

“Okay. When are you coming home?”

“Probably tomorrow. I’m stashing Celia up here to keep her former boyfriend away from her. If he should call me, tell him I’ll see him in court.”

“Okay. See ya.” Joan hung up.

Stone finished his coffee, showered and shaved and drove Celia to the Mayflower.

“Wow,” she said, as they drove up the driveway. “This is really beautiful.” She was impressed with the dining room, too.

They ordered lunch. “I’m going to have to go back to the city tomorrow morning,” he said. “We’ll get you some groceries this afternoon; if you need any more, you can charge them to my account at the market, and I’ll rent you some kind of car from the guy at the gas station. You might drive around the county a little, take a look around. I’ll give you a map.”

“What if Devlin finds me here?”

“Have you ever fired a gun?”

“Sure, I grew up with guns. My daddy was a handgun freak, so I’ve fired just about everything.”

“I’ll leave you with one, but you are not, repeat not, to kill anyone, even if you think it’s absolutely necessary. Fire into the floor to scare him. I live a quiet life when I’m here, and I don’t want to get to be known as the owner of the house where the guy got blown away by the giant girl.”

“I understand,” she said. “But what if Devlin does find me?”

“That’s very unlikely, but worse come to worst, I’ve got a house on an island in Maine that my cousin left me, and I can guarantee you he won’t find you there.”

“Maine sounds nice.”

“It’s a little early in the year for Maine; you can still freeze your ass off up there, but the house is comfortable.”

“How would I get there?”

“I have an airplane. I’ll fly you, if necessary, but believe me, Devlin is not going to find you in Washington, Connecticut.”

“What if I run into somebody I know?”

“Tell them you’re up here doing some antiquing, and you’re going back to the city almost immediately. Then go back to my house, lock yourself in and call me.”

“You think of everything,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I’m going to have to think of something to do for you.”

The thought made Stone squirm in his seat.

Stone drove back to the city early the following morning, trying to remember every detail of what he and Celia had done to each other for much of the night, right into the dawn. Occasionally, he had to slap himself to stay awake through the drive. Once, he stopped for coffee.

Back at home, he pulled the car into the garage, let himself into the house and went to his office. Joan heard him and came down the hall.

“I hope the lovely Celia is safe and sound.”

“She is, indeed, but I would be neither safe nor sound if I had spent another night there.”

“You do look a little peaked,” she said. “Nothing much to do today. Sam Teich says he’ll have an accounting to you by close of business, which probably means tomorrow morning, and he needs five days to liquidate assets and produce a check, unless you want to just divide some of the assets, like the stocks. He says to give him a call tomorrow and let him know how you want to handle it.”

Stone shook his head, “Frankly, I can’t believe how cooperative Bernie is being.”

“I bet it’s not Bernie, but Sam, who is doing the cooperating. I bet Bernie is screaming bloody murder.”

“You’re probably right. I assume Bob Cantor came and took his nephew away.”

Joan looked at the floor. “Well, there was a teensy problem with that.”

Stone’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by a ‘teensy’?”

“Well, Bob is actually in Atlanta for a couple of days, and he doesn’t want Herbie in his house while he’s gone, for fear that Herbie will hock everything and bet on the ponies.”

“So, where is Herbie?”

“In the third-floor guest room.”

“My third-floor guest room?”

“He’s so sweet; I couldn’t just throw him into the street and let Dattila’s thugs get him again.”

“You’re fired.”

“Okay, but who’s going to do everything for you?”

“All right, you’re hired back, but how could you leave that little creep alone in my house? He’s probably hocked everything I own.”

“No, he hasn’t; I locked him in when I left last night, so he couldn’t get any of your stuff out of the house. Anyway, he seems to sleep most of the time.”

“Did you drug him?”

“I would have, but he didn’t seem to need it. He’s probably exhausted after his ordeal in the attic.”

“Did he have any cuts on his body?”

“Not on the parts of his body I saw, but I didn’t do a full inspection.”

“He’s lying, the little bastard! He said he jumped clean through a glass window and fell from an attic, and yet he doesn’t have a mark on him!”

A voice came from the doorway. “I’ve got a nick right here, on my elbow, that I used to break the window.” Herbie was standing there in one of Stone’s Sea Island cotton nightshirts.

“Take off the nightshirt,” Stone commanded.

“Huh? Right in front of the lady?”

“She’s not that much of a lady, so take it off.”

Herbie lifted the nightshirt over his head. There was some bruising around his ribs.

“Turn around,” Stone said.

“Please,” Joan echoed.

There were bruises on his back, too.

“All right, so you got pounded a little; how come no cuts from the glass and the fall?”

“Well, the window was actually open, and it was only a short fall to the canvas.”

“Canvas?”

“They had a big piece of canvas draped over some stuff, and it broke my fall. I sprained my ankle, though, when I went over the fence and landed on the sidewalk.”

“How did you get here?”