Stone sighed. Dino never missed an opportunity to bring up Dolce. She was the daughter of a close friend of Stone’s, Eduardo Bianchi, now deceased, who had taken a keen interest in him, and he in her. They had been through a civil marriage ceremony in Venice, but before the scheduled church ceremony could be conducted, sealing the deal, Stone had been called back to the USA to help an old girlfriend who was considered a suspect in the death of her husband.
Dolce, incensed by his absence from Venice and the presence of a previous woman back in his life, had begun an obsessive campaign to get Stone back to the altar, and the whole thing had ended badly. Eduardo, understanding his daughter and fond of Stone, had retrieved the document that they had signed at the civil ceremony and returned it to Stone, who had, very quickly, set fire to it. Dolce now resided in a nunnery in Sicily, attended by the nuns, a number of guards, and at least one psychiatrist. “You know very well that Dolce is not free to attack me.”
“I know that only because I spoke to my ex-wife this afternoon, who called the mother superior and ascertained that her sister is still ‘in residence,’ shall we say.” Dino’s ex-wife, Mary Ann, was Dolce’s sister and, after their father’s death, had been in charge of her treatment and confinement.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Stone said.
“You must admit that, if she had her freedom, she would be just the sort of person we’re looking for.”
“I suppose you’re right. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure I would. Just think of all the man-hours the department would save. As it is, we’re having to interview every person whose name is on the list, and in addition, every ex-wife and ex-husband and ex-lover and all the crazy people whose names they gave us. Also, we’ve had to assign cops to protect them. God help us if we didn’t protect every one of them and then that one turned up dead.”
“Any luck with the adman?”
“No, both his secretary and his ex-wife, who know him better than anyone else, say he’s just not of the nature to attract enemies. His name might as well have been drawn from a hat.”
“Who are the others?”
“They’re all employed in Manhattan by accounting or IT firms, universities, hospitals, etcetera, etcetera — no two of them with the same employer or even in the same field of endeavor. They’re fairly high up in their chosen fields, well-paid and well-thought of. About the only thing they have in common is that they’re all single — either divorced or never married.”
“Are any of the women lesbians or bisexual?”
“Only one, that we know of. She works on Page Six at the Post, dishing dirt. Why do you ask?”
“It occurred to me that the threat could have had affairs with all of them, if he or she were bisexual.”
“Do you know any lesbians or bisexuals?” Dino asked.
“Not well enough for them to hate me,” Stone replied.
“So your theory doesn’t hold water?”
“I guess not.”
They ordered steaks and wine.
“Oh,” Dino said, “two of the people on the list, besides you, have carry licenses — one is a diamond merchant and one is a fancy pawnbroker, with offices in a Fifth Avenue skyscraper.”
“Well, I’m packing, and I hope you told them to.”
“We didn’t have to; they both carry all the time.”
Their steaks came, and they assaulted them.
“I get why the diamond merchant carries,” Stone said, “but why the pawnbroker?”
“He says he has regular customers — for instance, a woman who’s a handicapper at the track in her spare time, and when she loses, she gives him a call. She has a diamond ring worth two hundred grand, and she might borrow fifty on it. When she does, he takes the cash to her personally and collects the ring. The process reverses when she wins big.”
“That’s novel,” Stone said.
“Yeah, he says he knows the ring better than he knows her.”
“I guess we could hope that the perp picks one of those two pistol packers and gets his head blown off,” Stone said.
“That would be nice,” Dino said. “So to speak.”
“Any other theories?”
“Yeah, there’s one on the list who has, over some time, had multiple threats or attempts on his life.”
“Which one?”
“Doesn’t that sound familiar?”
“You’re talking about me?”
“Why do you sound so shocked?”
“I’ve had... Well, there have been...”
“Yeah,” Dino said. “I think about half of the guys in the Russian mafia carry a card with your photograph on it, just in case they spot you somewhere and get a shot at you.”
“That’s a gross exaggeration,” Stone said.
“I know that’s what you’d like to think, but it just ain’t so.”
“What’s your point?” Stone asked.
“I think you’d better do more than pack a pistol, if you want to live through this little episode in your life.”
“Are you offering me police protection?”
Dino shook his head. “Nah, you’re too rich for that. You can hire your own.”
3
Dino insisted on giving Stone a ride home in his armored SUV. “So,” Dino said on the way, “let’s talk about steps you need to take to stay alive.”
“Oh, all right.”
“The first step is for you to assume that you’re the guy the lunatic is really after, and that all the others are camouflage.”
“Okay, it can’t hurt to assume that.”
“Second thing is, you don’t go out of the house unless it’s absolutely necessary. And when you do, you get driven in your armored Bentley by Fred, who will also be packing.” Fred was Stone’s factotum and a dead shot.
“Fred always packs,” Stone said.
“That’s good,” Dino said.
“What else should I do?”
“Well, if you get scared, leave the country; go to your house in England and keep your head down there. You’re unique on the hit list in that you have an airplane capable of transatlantic flight and homes in two foreign countries.”
“I can’t argue with your reasoning,” Stone said, as the car pulled up in front of the house, “but not yet.”
Dino produced his weapon and rolled down his window. “All right, the coast appears to be clear; run for it, and I’ll cover you.”
Stone got out his own weapon, opened the car door, and ran for it. It took him longer than he would have liked to get out his key and open the door. He closed it behind him and took a couple of deep breaths before he went upstairs to bed.
He had just crawled into the sack when his phone rang. “Hello?”
“I hear you’re in trouble again,” a woman’s voice said. It was Viv, Dino’s wife, who was the COO of Strategic Services, the world’s second-largest security company.
“Well, Dino thinks so, anyway. Where are you?”
“Hong Kong,” she said. “I think. When I wake up in the morning I have to figure out where I am. Also, what day it is. Right now, because I’ve crossed the international date line, it’s either tomorrow or yesterday, I can never remember which.”
“I can understand your confusion.”
“Dino says you need some protection, and I agree. I spoke to Mike Freeman — got hold of him just before he left on a round-the-globe tour of our international offices, and he’ll have two people over there tomorrow morning.”
“Have you seen the hit list?”
“Yeah, Dino e-mailed it to me.”
“Any ideas about any of the names?”
“Well, if you’re the target, it’s got to be either a woman, her ex-husband, or her current boyfriend. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I’d like to argue with that, but I can’t think of an argument.”