“Go with me, here, Stone. Anyway, they put him in the program and he finds himself stuck in Peoria or someplace, running a Burger King, and he doesn’t like it. So he bails out of the program—happens all the time. Once the government gets these people in the program, the feds run their lives, and they’ve got fuck-all to say about it. Lots of them go overboard.”

“True enough.”

“So our guy is on the street, now. Maybe he sells the business and the house the government bought him, so he’s got a few bucks. He finds someplace he likes, in this case, Minneapolis, though God knows why anybody would want to be stuck there in the winter, but he can’t use his old name because whoever he ratted on still wants to cut his heart out and eat it for dinner. So he has to make up his own new identity, and he doesn’t do the greatest job in the world. After all, he’s not Justice; he can’t call up the State Department and tell them to issue him a new passport, so he does the best he can. He gets a local driver’s license, picks up a credit card and finds a business partner who’s real and who can deal with the banks.”

“Makes sense.”

“Then he meets the rich widow, and pretty soon he’s living in a much nicer house, and he doesn’t need the business anymore, or, for that matter, the wife, so he sells one and does away with the other, and he gets away with it. Now he’s rich, footloose and fancy fucking free, and he’s house-hunting in Palm Beach and shopping for a Bentley.”

“Okay, I buy it.”

“I don’t,” Dino said. “I don’t buy it for a minute.”

“What? Why not? You just convinced me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a pushover for a good story, Stone. You always were.”

“What are you talking about, Dino? Have I missed something?”

“You usually do, pal, and this time it’s this: If Bartlett is Manning, why would he hunt down his ex—well, his previous wife and start harassing her? He risks bringing himself to the attention of the local police, which he has already done, and exposing himself—in the fully clothed sense of the expression. Why would he want to do that?”

“Because he’s pissed off at her for running off with all the money he stole, and he’s crazy as a fruit bat, and he knows how to hold a grudge.”

Dino didn’t say anything.

“Well?”

“Okay, maybe you’re right. After all, you can’t depend on criminals to behave sensibly. I got another question, though.”

“Okay.”