STONE WOKE UP the following morning with his headache nearly gone. He took a couple of aspirin, ordered breakfast and found Dino on the front porch waiting for him.

“How you feeling?” Dino asked.

“A lot better. I still have a little headache, but I took some aspirin.”

“You remember anything else that happened last night?”

Stone thought about that. “Yeah, I think I talked to Evan Keating at the bar, but just for a minute.”

“Do you know how you got outside?”

Stone thought some more. “He suggested we talk outside, I think.”

“You remember anybody following you outside?”

“No, Keating was ahead of me.”

“Was he with anybody?”

“There was a girl, I think, but I thought he left her at the bar.”

“Was she beefy, muscular?”

“No, she was slim and attractive.”

“Then she either packs a hell of a punch or she hit you with something solid.”

“I don’t remember her going outside.”

“She could have been behind you.”

“I guess.”

“What did you say to Keating at the bar?”

Stone replayed the scene in his head again. “Not much. I told him I had some business with him and suggested we get together in the morning to discuss it. I think I told him . . . that he would like what I have to say, or something like that.”

“Maybe he didn’t get that message and thought you were some sort of threat,” Dino said.

“Didn’t Tommy say that he busted the guy on some sort of drug thing?”

“Yeah, but it didn’t hold up, and he was released.”

“Well, maybe the cops got an address for Keating.”

“I’ll call Tommy,” Dino said. He produced his cell phone, spoke briefly to Tommy Sculley and hung up. “Hotel La Concha,” Dino said. “I think that’s Spanish for ‘conch.’ It’s on Duval Street.”

Stone went and got the map the rental car agency had given him.

“Yeah, here it is,” he said, pointing. “Duval is kind of the main drag, and the hotel is marked. It’s only a few blocks from here.”

“Then let’s go see him after breakfast,” Dino said.

“Yes,” Stone said, “and carefully.”

Breakfast arrived and they ate, then showered and dressed.

“Let’s go see Mr. Keating,” Stone said.

“I think I’d better watch your back this time,” Dino replied.

“Good idea.”

They drove over to Duval and down to the Hotel La Concha, which was a large stucco building. They found a parking place and fed a lot of quarters into a meter, then went inside to the front desk. Stone approached the clerk on duty.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, I’d like to speak to a Mr. Evan Keating, who, I believe, is a guest here.”

“You just missed him,” the clerk said. “He left maybe fi ve minutes ago.”

“Do you know what time he’ll be back?”

“He won’t. He checked out and didn’t leave a forwarding address.”