“I think we should follow her advice and get back on the autostrada. The other guys will be getting off at the next exit.”

“Good idea,” Stone said, slamming on the brakes and executing a U-turn, then gunning it. “I don’t know what kind of engine they’ve got in this car, but it works,” he said, accelerating rapidly back onto the autostrada.

“Don’t go too fast, we don’t want to catch up to them,” Dino said. They passed the next exit. “Now go fast, they’ll be on surface roads, looking for us.”

Stone quickly achieved 180 kph. “It flies,” he said. “You want to get back up here?”

“I think I have a better field of fire from back here. I’ve only got the one magazine, though. Give me your gun.”

Stone handed back his pistol and the spare magazines. They continued unmolested to the end of the autostrada, where they had to stop and insert a credit card for the toll.

“Uh-oh,” Dino said, “I think their buddies are laying for us. You’ve got a car coming up fast, and there’s a shotgun sticking out a rear window.”

“Let me try something,” Stone said, accelerating, but not so fast that they couldn’t keep pace. He checked for nearby traffic, then slammed on his brakes and let the other car drift past; then, when they were just a little past him, he turned into them, smashing his left front fender into their right rear. The car spun, smashed into the guardrail, and came to rest athwart the fast lane, pointed in the opposite direction.

“The pit maneuver,” Dino said. “You’ve been watching Cops on TV.”

“How’d you guess?”

They managed to make it back to Marcel’s compound without incident. Jim Lugano’s people made much of their bent fender and bullet-scarred glass.

—

Upstairs, Stone found the liquor and poured them both a drink. “That was fun,” he said, raising his glass.

“It was, at that,” Dino said. “It’s been a long time since I shot at anybody.”

Lugano came into the room. “I hear you’ve scarred up my car a bit.”

“Isn’t that what it’s for?” Dino asked. “It’s not like we went looking for those guys.”

“I can’t disagree.”

“Question,” Stone said. “If those guys were tailing us, how come they waited until we were on the way back before they started shooting?”

“What’s your point?” Lugano said.

Stone found a pad and paper and wrote something on it, then handed it to Lugano.

The only time we discussed where we were going was in this room. I also made a phone call from here to book the table at Sibilla.

Lugano read the note and nodded. “Give me your cell phone,” he said, then left the room. He came back ten minutes later. “The room is clean,” he said, “but is your cell phone the original or the new one?”