“I’ll take your word for it. What do you want to know?”

“It was a guy named Evan Keating. Apparently, you found him in Miami, but he skipped again.”

“Jesus, I’m getting too old to go running off to Miami on a skip. I called a guy named Manny White, ex-NYPD, who’s a P.I. down there, and he put somebody on it.” Wally gave him White’s number.

“Took him a couple of weeks, so finding the guy wasn’t a piece of cake. Tell him I said to call.”

“Thanks, Wally. Say hello to Elaine.”

“Sure.” Wally hung up.

“How’s Wally?” Dino asked.

“He’s okay.”

“I’m hungry, let’s get out of here. You can call Manny White later.”

“You know him?”

“Old-timer, Wally’s generation. I had some dealings with him on a case when I was still in a rookie uniform, and he busted my chops every chance he got.”

“Obviously, he knew you well.”

“What do you mean? I was a great rookie.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Everything.”

“Oh.”

THEY WENT TO the Raw Bar for conch fritters, third time. They were halfway through lunch when Stone’s cell phone went off. A Miami number.

“Hello?” Stone put it on speaker; it was easier than repeating everything to Dino.

“Is this that little Barrington shit who worked out of the Nineteenth, until they kicked his ass down the stairs?”

Dino broke up. “It’s Manny White.”

“No,” Stone said, “this is the Barrington who was a very smart detective at the Nineteenth and who walked down the stairs on his own.”

“I didn’t know there was one like that.”

“There was.”

“Wally called me. What the fuck do you want?”

“Wally gave you a skip trace on a guy named Evan Keating.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“He said it took you two weeks to find him. What was so hard about it?”

“You think I hoof it up and down the streets looking for guys at my age? I put an agent on it. Took two weeks to check every hotel in South Beach, locate the guy and put a tail on him.”

“I hear you lost him.”

“So? People lose things all the time. Anyway, my agent lost him. What’s it to you?”

“I need background on the guy; there’s a hundred in it for you, if you can give me something I need.”

“What do you need?”

“Like I said, background. What was he doing in South Beach? Did he work? Who were his friends?”

“He was doing what everybody else in South Beach was doing—

looking pretty, drinking, snorting powder and spending money they don’t have, except he had the money. That’ll be a hundred bucks.”

“Come on, Manny, give me something about the guy, not about everybody else.”