“Good night,” Dino said. “We’ll go get him in Jersey tomorrow.”

“Right,” Stone said, then walked to the front door, switching off lights as he went. Dino’s driver delivered Stone to his house, and soon he was in bed and as out as Dino.

—

Half a large pepperoni and sausage pizza and four beers later, Ryan was getting into bed when his cell phone rang. Nobody had called him on the iPhone for weeks, since Jerry Brubeck had fired him. Must be a wrong number, he thought. He didn’t recognize the area code the call was coming from. “Hello?”

“Hi, sweetie, did you get your package?”

“Sylvia? How the hell did you get this number? How’d you get my address?”

“There was a card in your pocket with the name of the building, and you wrote your apartment number on the back. The phone was easy: while you were in the toilet, I just turned it on, went to Settings, and tapped Phone. I’ve got an iPhone, too. Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t know. I sure was at first, but now not so much.”

“You should be grateful to me—I had it all, you know, and I didn’t have to give it back.”

“I know. Why did you?”

“I told you, because you seem like a nice guy. Also, we’re kind of in the same business, so we’re colleagues, in a way.”

“Why do you think we’re in the same business?”

“Because nobody has two hundred grand, cash, in a suitcase that he earned honestly. I mean, does he?”

Ryan had to laugh.

“And you don’t win that big in a poker game or on a horse. What’d you do, rob a bank?”

“You really think I’m a bank robber?”

“Well, it was the great bank robber Willie Sutton who said, ‘That’s where the money is.’”

“He had a point.”

“So you went to Florida to knock over a bank? I’m impressed.”

“Nah, I just did a favor for a friend. It was supposed to be a horse parlor, but the cops beat us to it. The bank was an afterthought.”

“And you got out alive, too!”

“It didn’t go so well—we were set up, and I was the only one who got out.”

“Wow, set up twice in one day!”

He laughed.

“That’s a nice noise you make.”

“What did you put in my drink?”

“Nothing that would harm you. I mean, permanently. I’ll bet you slept well, didn’t you?”

“Once I had puked my guts out, yes.”

“A girl in my game has to be careful.”

“I guess so. Do you work that train all the time?”

“Goodness no—a girl who looks like I do would get recognized by the conductor and end up getting picked up by the cops.”

“Does that happen to you often?”