“Make it three,” Dino said.

“DO YOU EVER think of retiring, Dino?” Felicity asked when their steaks were ruins of their former selves.

“Never,” Dino said. “I’m going to do the full thirty, and then we’ll see.”

“You’ll have to take a promotion,” Stone said.

“Nah, I have an understanding with the commissioner.”

“Dino doesn’t want to be a captain,” Stone explained to Felicity. “He likes to pretend he’s still a street cop.”

“I don’t pretend,” Dino said. “I am a street cop.”

“Yes, but you never see the street, except from the rear seat of your cop-chauffeured car,” Stone pointed out.

“I understand, Dino,” Felicity said. “Sometimes I wish I were, well, a street agent again.”

“They got you cuffed to a desk?” Dino asked.

“A very good description,” she replied.

“I wouldn’t like that.”

“It has its advantages,” Felicity said.

“Name one,” Dino said.

“I haven’t been shot at for quite some time,” she replied.

“That’s okay if personal safety is important to you.”

“It isn’t important to you?” Stone asked.

“Nah, I don’t mind an occasional bullet in my direction.”

“This is news to me,” Stone said to Felicity. “I’ve never heard of Dino’s fondness for flying lead.”

“I understand what he means,” she said. “One remembers the occasions when death was near but passed one by.”

“You bet your sweet ass one do,” Dino said.

“I remember getting shot in the knee,” Stone said. “I didn’t find anything to like about it.”

“Not even survival?” Felicity said.

“Oh, well, yes,” Stone said. “That and not getting shot higher up.”

She squeezed his thigh. “I’m grateful for that, too.”

14

Stone and Felicity got out of the ambassador’s old Rolls-Royce in front of his house. As the car pulled away, the opposite side of the street was exposed, and Stone, standing on his doorstep, fumbling for his key, saw her.

He hustled Felicity inside, locked the door, picked up the nearest phone and pressed the intercom and page buttons. “Willie, pick up any phone.”

“I’m here,” Willie said.

“Where?”

“In the kitchen.”

“She’s across the street.”

“I’m on it.”

“Watch your ass.” Stone hung up.

“Your former lady friend?” Felicity asked.

“I wouldn’t describe her that way.”

“How would you describe her?”

“As the insane daughter of a good friend.” They got onto the elevator and started upstairs.

“Isn’t it about time you told me about her?” Felicity asked.

Stone sighed. He ushered her off the elevator and into his bedroom, and they began to undress for bed.

“All right,” he said. “I met her four years ago. I didn’t seek her out; she found me. We saw each other for a while, and it got serious. She suggested we get married, and I didn’t refuse her.”

“A reluctant bridegroom?”

“No, just one with reservations. She is the daughter of a man named Eduardo Bianchi, an Italian-American of some note.”

“The name is familiar, but I can’t place him.”