The man looked like a salesman of some sort. He was dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and necktie, and his shirt pocket contained a plastic pen guard and several writing instruments. “Don’t worry about it,” the man said, and very quickly, there was a gun in his hand.

Stone looked over his shoulder for some way out of this, but as he did, a silver Lincoln Town Car with darkly tinted windows screeched to a halt beside him.

The man with the gun opened the rear door. “Inside,” he said, “and don’t let’s get blood on this pretty street.”

Stone got in, followed by the man with the gun, and the car moved forward, leaving the other two cars stopped in the middle of the street. The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds, he figured, and more disturbing than the gun in the man’s hand was the fact that he was wearing rubber gloves. “What’s this about?” he asked.

“First, let’s get you all secured, and then I’ll tell you,” the man said. “Get down on your knees, rest your head on the armrest and put your hands behind you.” He nudged Stone’s ribs with the gun barrel for emphasis.

Stone did as he was told, and in a moment, he was handcuffed.

“All right, now you can sit back up here,” the man said.

His accent was Southern, sort of educated redneck, Stone thought. “So what’s this about?” he asked again.

“First, let’s get the introductions out of the way,” the man said. “You can call me Larry, and the feller driving is Ernest. And you would be one Mr. Stone Barrington.”

“How do you do?” Stone said.

“I do pretty good,” Larry replied. “Now, as to what this is about, we’re going to take a little drive out in the country, and then we’re gonna make a phone call.” His tone was pleasant, conversational. “I don’t enjoy putting violence on folks, so I’d ’preciate it if you wouldn’t make that necessary. I can do it, if the need arises.”

“All right, I’ll behave,” Stone lied. He was going to get out of this at the first opportunity, and he was beginning to regret that he had gotten into the car without a fight. The rubber gloves were weighing heavily on his mind.

Shortly, they were in West Palm, driving west on one of its broad boulevards. “You were saying?” Stone asked.

“Oh, yeah. A friend of mine called me a couple of days ago and asked me to come down here and shoot your ass.”

“What friend is that?”

“Does it matter? He’s paying me and Ernest, here, fifty big ones to deal with you, and that’s the most I ever got for a hit.”

They stopped at a traffic light, and a police car pulled up next to them.