Then a huge noise filled the room, echoing off the tile walls, and, simultaneously, a hole appeared in Van Fleet’s throat; a moment later, the noise came again, and another hole appeared under his right eye. Van Fleet reeled backward and disappeared from Stone’s view.

Stone was nearly deaf from the noise, which was now settling into a constant ringing in his ears.

Then Dino walked into Stone’s view and looked down at him. “Jesus, Stone,” he said, shaking his head. “How do you get yourself into these situations?”

Chapter

50

Well, I always told you Van Fleet was dirty, didn’t I?” Dino said. He and Stone were sitting facing each other on the sofas in front of Herbert Van Fleet’s fireplace.

Stone was dressed again and was rubbing his ankles where they had been bound. “Jesus, Dino, I guess I should have just listened to you all along,” he said sourly. He took a large swig of Van Fleet’s bourbon.

“I wouldn’t have recognized this place,” Dino said. “He’s sure done a lot to it since we were here before.”

“I didn’t recognize it either,” Stone said. “I didn’t remember the garage door in the building. I had no idea where I was. How did you figure it out?”

“You mentioned Van Fleet; that was all I had to go on. I had to take a tire iron to the downstairs door, or I would have been up here sooner.”

“How much of my conversation with Van Fleet did you hear?”

“Most of it, I guess. I had to duck out when Van Fleet came back to the kitchen to get his tools.”

“Well, why did you wait so fucking long to stop the bastard?”

“I wanted to hear it all. Anyway, you were in no trouble; I wasn’t going to let him carve you up.”

“I wish I’d known that. He gave me about the worst hour of my life.”

Dino picked up the phone on the coffee table. “I guess I’d better call it in.”

“No!” Stone said, snatching the phone away from him.

“Look, Stone, I’m beat. Between screwing Mary Ann twice a day and shooting craps all night every night, I’m coming apart. Let’s get this over with.”

“You can’t call it in, yet. We still don’t have the guy who tossed Sasha off the balcony, and, if he finds out Sasha’s dead, he’ll feel safe.”

“It’s Harkness, then?”

“Damn right, and, if you’d done what I asked you to at the airport, we might have had him long ago.”

“Come on, Stone, his name was on the manifest; let’s not go over old stuff again, okay?”