On Sunday evening Stone was enjoying an after-dinner cognac with Dino and Viv when his cell rang.

“Hello?”

“Stone, it’s Dan Harrigan.”

“Good evening, Dan.”

Dino perked up. “I want to speak to him.”

“You can speak to him tomorrow morning,” Viv said sternly.

Stone put the phone on speaker and set it on the coffee table. “Go ahead, Dan.”

“I got some new stuff: Gene Ryan took a plane from Newark to Fort Lauderdale this afternoon. We were supposed to be tipped if he even made a reservation, so he must have used another name. A woman, a clerical worker in the department, spotted him getting off the plane in Lauderdale. She was taking it back to Newark after a few days off.”

“Okay, then what?”

“Then he was gone. I guess he’s still there.”

“Does this mean anything?”

“He might be on the run, or think he is.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand that. On the run from what?”

“Al Parisi caught a bullet in the head late Friday night, so did his girlfriend.”

“Is Ryan a suspect?”

“He’s a person of interest. The Jersey cops want to talk to him.”

“And you think he might have run, thinking that?”

“Maybe.”

“Then why would he wait until Sunday afternoon to get a plane out?”

“Good question. I posed it myself, and they didn’t have an answer.”

“Any suspects besides Ryan?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’ll try and follow.”

“Apparently, Parisi was playing in an, ah, informal poker game when it got robbed, and one of the players, a liquor dealer named Sean Finn, thought Parisi might have set it up. Then while Finn, Parisi, and some other upstanding citizens of New Jersey were having lunch to discuss the matter, one of Finn’s liquor stores got held up by two guys wearing elaborate disguises. They took the week’s receipts for three stores that Finn was due to pick up and bank.”

“And Finn thought Parisi was responsible for that, as well as the poker game?”

“Yeah. Finn has an alibi for Friday night, though. He was in bed with a woman, not his wife, and she backed him up. Of course, he could have farmed out the hit.”

“Well, the Finn theory pretty much takes Ryan out of the picture as a suspect, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, but if Finn was right about Parisi, then Ryan might have been one of the guys who knocked over the liquor store.”

“Is he wanted for that?”

“Not enough evidence. If he ever comes back from Florida, though, the locals will want to talk to him.”

“Anything else, Dan?”

“Not right now. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Good night, then.” Stone hung up. “Did you get all that, Dino?”

“What a lot of garbage,” Dino said disgustedly.

—