“I told her she didn’t tell me we were leaving the country, so I didn’t bring my passport. And you know what she did?”
“No, Herbie.”
“She kissed me and said, ‘Well, fuck you, kid; you’re out.’ Then she got on the plane and they left. I didn’t hear anything else until this morning, on TV.”
Stone began to laugh.
“What’s funny?” Herbie asked.
“I was just thinking that there are two very pissed-off ladies right about now in the DA’s and the U.S. Attorney’s offices.”
“If you say so,” Herbie replied. “Oh, there are some guys in your waiting room that want to talk to us.”
“Us?”
“They’re FBI agents. I told them I wouldn’t have anything to say until my attorney arrived, and Joan said you were on the way, so they waited.”
“Okay, Herbie,” Stone said, hanging his tattered coat on the back of his chair and sitting down at his desk. “Trot ’em in here and let’s see if we can get you out of this one.”
And Herbie did.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once again I am grateful to my agents, Morton Janklow and Anne Sibbald, for their tireless efforts on my behalf over the past thirty years. They are peerless.
Again I am grateful to my editor at Putnam, Rachel Kahan; my publisher, Ivan Held; my publicist, Michael Barson; and all their colleagues for keeping my career on the boil.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my website at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is probably because you are among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.
Remember: e-mail, reply; snail mail, no reply.
When you e-mail, please do not send attachments, as I never open these. They can take twenty minutes to download, and they often contain viruses.
Please do not place me on your mailing lists for funny stories, prayers, political causes, charitable fund-raising, petitions, or sentimental claptrap. I get enough of that from people I already know. Generally speaking, when I get e-mail addressed to a large number of people, I immediately delete it without reading it.
Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of Writer’s Market at any bookstore; that will tell you how.
Anyone with a request concerning events or appearances may e-mail it to me or send it to: Publicity Department, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Those ambitious folk who wish to buy film, dramatic, or television rights to my books should contact Matthew Snyder, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 98212-1825.
Those who wish to make offers for rights of a literary nature should contact Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit, 445 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022. (Note: This is not an invitation for you to send her your manuscript or to solicit her to be your agent.)
If you want to know if I will be signing books in your city, please visit my website, www.stuartwoods.com, where the tour schedule will be published a month or so in advance. If you wish me to do a book signing in your locality, ask your favorite bookseller to contact his Penguin representative or the Penguin publicity department with the request.
If you find typographical or editorial errors in my book and feel an irresistible urge to tell someone, please write to Rachel Kahan at Penguin’s address above. Do not e-mail your discoveries to me, as I will already have learned about them from others.
A list of my published works appears on my website. All the novels are still in print in paperback and can be found at or ordered from any bookstore. If you wish to obtain hardcover copies of earlier novels or of the two nonfiction books, a good used-book store or one of the online bookstores can help you find them. Otherwise, you will have to go to a great many garage sales.