“Eat,” Helene commanded. She was a compact woman with a thick Greek accent who had done for him for years.

Stone pressed the remote control, and the bed sat him up and raised his feet. “Good morning, Helene,” he said.

“Eat,” she said again. “You feel better.” She marched out of the room.

Stone ate hungrily. The various pains in his body were gradually replaced by a cozy warmth, and he was able to move more freely.

Dino walked into the room, unannounced. “You’re alive.”

“Why do you sound surprised?”

“How did you feel when you woke up?”

“I hurt all over, but I took a pill.”

“How do you feel now?”

“Warm and fuzzy.”

“Must be a good drug. We hauled in Devlin Daltry and had a chat with him.”

“Did you beat him to a pulp?”

“Sure we did, and we dumped the body in the East River.”

“Did he have anything to say before he died?”

“He had an alibi, backed up by two retired cops.”

“The ones who chased me into Central Park, I bet.”

“Probably, but we had to release him.”

“Anything on the car?”

“Stolen.”

“You wouldn’t think a sculptor would know how to hot-wire a car.”

“No, you wouldn’t. That’s why I wasn’t too surprised when I ran his name, and he had an arrest for car theft when he was nineteen, no conviction.”

“Celia was right about the guy; I should have listened to her. What’s his address?”

“What, you’re going down there?”

“No, Dino. What’s the address?”

Dino wrote it on a slip of paper and put it on the bedside table. “You up for dinner this evening?”

“As long as the pills last.”

“See you then.” He walked out of the room.

Stone sat and stewed for a few minutes, then he called Bob Cantor.

“Cantor.”

“You’re back.”

“How’d you guess?”

“Have you heard from Herbie?”

“No.”

“I took him to Finger’s law office for a deposition yesterday, stashed him in an office, and he ran the moment I left him alone. Dattila’s two goons may have followed him out.”

“Uh-oh. Did he say where they had held him the first time?”

“Herbie said an attic, downtown. Probably someplace near Dattila’s coffeehouse, near a subway station.”

“I’ll do a missing persons report and get them looking for him again.”

“Another thing: Herbie said that before he jumped out the window, Dattila showed up and told Cheech and Gus—that’s the two guys who dragged him out of Elaine’s—to kill him slowly.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It sounds like we should find him soon, but I’m laid up in bed today. I was hit by a car yesterday.”

“An accident?”

“Nope, and I want to talk to you about that.”

“Who done it?”