“So, you’re going to get ten percent of half of everything Bernie has? Wow!”

“Thirty percent.”

“You’re shitting me!”

“I shit you not. Only thing is, Bernie took her off to Las Vegas for a weekend and they reconciled. And I had the settlement all worked out.”

“Oh, poor baby,” she said, patting his cheek and sticking her shoeless toe into his crotch.

“I’ll live, I guess. Anyway, it can’t last; she’ll be calling me again as soon as she catches him with some doxie.”

“Speaking of that, hurry up with the pasta, okay? I’m getting wet.” She had already finished hers.

Stone scraped the last of the pasta from his plate. As he was about to rise, a belt buckle appeared beside his table. He looked up and found it cinching the waist of the district attorney, the Old Man himself, so called because he was a man and very old, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down. He had just been reelected for the umpteenth time.

“Why, hello, Dierdre,” he said.

She was obviously flabbergasted to see him so far off the reservation. “Uh, hello, Boss. You know Stone Barrington?”

The Old Man offered his hand. “We’ve opposed each other once or twice. It’s one to one, so far, isn’t it?”

“I thought it was two-nil, your favor,” Stone said.

“No sucking up,” the Old Man said. “Come on, Dierdre, I’ll give you a lift back to the office. You’ve got a deposition, haven’t you?”

She was momentarily nonplussed. “Yes sir, I have, and I’d love a lift. It’s so hard to get cabs at this time of day.” She got up and went with the Old Man, but not before she had turned to Stone and mouthed, “Call me!”

Stone sighed, put away his dictator and dug out a credit card. Saved from a fate worse than death by the district attorney. And he had done himself some good, too: He had Dierdre interested not just in Carmine Dattila but in Devlin Daltry, and that could come in useful.

43

Stone arrived back at his house to find Herbie Fisher waiting in his office.

“Hey, Stone!” Herbie cried, as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.

“What are you doing here, Herbie?”

“I didn’t know where else to go, unless you think it’s safe for me to go back to my apartment. I mean, Cheech is dead and Gus is in jail, isn’t he?”

“You think those two guys are the only muscle working for Dattila?”

“Well, I…”

“Exactly.” He pressed a button and Joan answered. “Have we got a thousand dollars in the safe?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Bring me that much in an envelope.” He regarded Herbie. “Do you have any relatives besides your uncle Bob?”