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Chapters (63)
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  2. Books by Stuart Woods
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  63. AUTHOR’S NOTE

Inside, a semblance of order had been restored. “Who turned off the power?” Dante was yelling.

“We don’t know,” one of the red-jacketed waiters replied. “Perhaps one of the guards in the security post downstairs.”

“Attend to them at once!” Dante shouted.

Stone was standing behind him, looking into the living room full of people on the floor. Guido had taken the microphone again. “All women, get up and come to the elevator,” he announced. “The men will go later.” Reluctantly, the women began to move.

Stone was watching this happen when someone took him by the shoulder and spun him around, then he caught a fist in his new nose.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hedy said, looking appalled. “I thought you were someone else.”

Stone pulled off his latex nose. “Want another swing?” he asked, then ducked as it came.

58

Stone blocked her swing and caught her wrist, then pulled off his mustache. “Am I more familiar, now?” She started to swing again, but he caught her wrists and pinned her arms to her sides and shouted, “Stop it! What are you doing?”

“You miserable bastard!” Hedy shouted back. “Where have you been? I’ve been living rough outside for two nights!”

“Stop struggling, relax, and listen to me,” Stone said.

Reluctantly, she did so. “All right, explain.”

“We were unable to confirm your location until very recently.”

“That’s a lie! I told you where I was in my first text!”

“You said only that you were on a coast.”

“I said I was on the A coast!”

Stone was baffled, then he got it. “The A coast?”

“Yes!”

“I’m sorry, we didn’t get that, the big A.”

“I’ve been living under a rock. I got out of my room during the night after I talked to you on the phone.”

“That was the night we figured it out. Look, we’ll sit down tomorrow after you’ve had a bath and a good night’s sleep, and I’ll take you through everything we did to find you.”

“Are you saying I need a bath?” Her voice was rising again.

“Well, yes, don’t you think so? Just tell me what you want, Hedy, and I’ll arrange it. Just tell me.”

“All right: I want to be driven back to Rome right now. I want to go to my apartment, where I can have the bath I apparently need so much, and pack my things. I want to be on a plane for New York tomorrow afternoon. Can you handle all that?”

“Just a moment,” Stone said, and snagged the passing Dante. He explained what Hedy needed.

“All right,” Dante said. “Do you have a passport?”

Hedy looked nonplussed. “No, it’s in Paris, in my handbag, in Stone’s house.”