It was typed sloppily on his own letterhead. “Dear Stone,” she said, “I wanted to let you know that I’m not going to be here when you get back. Vance has to go back to L.A., and we’re not nearly finished with the piece, so I’m going with him. I’ve no idea how long I’ll be out there, but it’s going to be at least a couple of weeks. I’ll call you when you’re back in New York. Best, Arrington.”

Best. Not love, best. He didn’t like the sound of that in the least, and he was suddenly very glad he’d fucked Allison Manning. He would do it again, every chance he had, for as long as he could.

He tore up the fax, threw it into the wastebasket behind the bar, and trudged up the stairs to start working again on Allison’s case.

Chapter
15

Stone worked on his notes for the trial and tried to come up with new ideas for Allison’s testimony, but he was depressed, and depression always made him sleepy. Soon he was stretched out on the bed and dead to the world.

Thomas was shaking him. “Stone, wake up.”

“Huh?” He was groggy, and he felt hung over.

“You got two press people downstairs: one from 60 Minutes and one from The New Yorker.”

“Jesus, we landed the big ones first, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“I’d better splash some water on my face; tell them I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Okay.”

Stone shook himself awake, washed his face and toweled it briskly to bring back some color, then went downstairs. Two men came toward him, a tall, slim, tanned one in Bermuda shorts and a short, stocky, pasty man in a khaki bush jacket.

“I’m Jim Forrester from The New Yorker,” the tall one said, shaking hands.

“I’m Jake Burrows, I’m a producer on 60 Minutes,” the bush jacket said, “and I was here first. I want to talk to you before he does.” He nodded at his competitor.

“All right, all right,” Stone said. “Let’s all sit down and discuss this; I mean, you two guys are not exactly competitors.”

“That’s right,” Forrester said.

“Everybody is a competitor,” Burrows said.

“Come on, sit down, and let’s talk.” Stone herded them toward a table. “Thomas, how about some lunch menus?”

“Sure thing,” Thomas said.

“I want the first interview,” Burrows said; “I was here first.”

“Wait a minute,” Stone said. “Just listen to me, both of you. Jim, you’re not exactly on deadline here, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” the writer said. “I’m here to get the whole story; the soonest we could run would be a couple of weeks after the trial.”

“Feel better, Jake?” Stone asked.