That evening, Stone got a call from Dino.

“We screwed up, I think.”

“What happened?”

“Frank and Charlie beat it—they never even went home. My guys played the recordings for me. Gino called his killer Frank at one point, but the recording quality wasn’t that great. Charlie didn’t feature at all, so we haven’t got much of a case against them. The good news is, you won’t be hearing from these two guys again.”

“I didn’t know they would kill him,” Stone said.

“Don’t worry about it, you did the world a favor.”

“If you say so. You free for dinner? I’d like to get out of the house.”

“Sure.”

Chapter 24

Jerry Brubeck got to work on time, as usual. Late the evening before he had had a call from his sister, Maria, wanting to know where Gino was—not why he was out late, just where. Jerry figured there was a girl in the picture.

He let himself into the office and stopped at the break room to make himself a cup of coffee, then he walked into his office and spilled coffee everywhere. Gino was lying on the floor in front of the safe, and his head was a mess. Jerry didn’t even try for a pulse, he just sat down at his desk, swiveled his chair away from Gino, and called 911.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“I want to report a murder.”

—

Not quite ten minutes passed, and he heard the elevator open. He walked into the reception room and found Hilda, the receptionist, hanging up her coat. “Hilda,” he said, “the police are going to be here in a minute. When they come—”

The elevator door opened again, and two young uniforms stepped out. “Where’s the murder?” one of them asked.

“Murder?” Hilda asked.

“Hilda, you just sit down at your desk and I’ll deal with this.”

“Who’s murdered?”

“Hilda!”

“Yes, Mr. Brubeck.” She sat down.

“In here,” Jerry said to the cops, holding the door open for them.

The two cops walked in and gazed at Gino’s body. “This the guy?”

“How’d you guess?” Jerry asked drily.

“You touch anything?” the other cop asked.

“Just my telephone, when I called nine-one-one.”

Two detectives walked into the office. “Okay, you two,” one of them said to the uniforms, jerking a thumb toward the door. “We got this.” The two uniforms left, muttering under their breath.

The younger of the two detectives closed the door. “We’re Detectives Mills and Schwartz,” he said, indicating he was Mills. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jerry Brubeck.”

“And who’s he?” He pointed at the corpse.

“He’s Gino Parisi, my business partner.”

“You two have a little argument over business?” Schwartz asked.

“No, I just arrived at work and found him like that.”

“You touch anything?”

“Just my phone.”

“When did you last see Mr. Parisi alive?”