“Come on, I’ll walk you down,” Cary said, leading the way. Passing through the outer office, she tossed her steno pad on a desk and grabbed a raincoat from a rack. On the elevator, she turned to Stone. “Well, now you’ve had the Harkness treatment,” she said. “What did you think?”

Stone shrugged. “Forthright, frank, helpful.”

She smiled. “You got Barron’s message.”

The elevator reached the lobby, and, when the doors opened, they could see the rain beating against the windows.

“Can I give you a lift?” she asked. “I’ve got a car waiting, and you’ll never get a cab down here at this time of the evening.”

“Sure, I’d appreciate that.” He took a deep breath. “If you’re all through with work, how about some dinner?”

“You’re off duty now?”

“The moment you say yes.”

She looked at him frankly. “I’d like that.”

They ran across the pavement to the waiting Lincoln Town Car, one of hundreds that answer the calls of people with charge accounts.

“Where to?” Cary said, as they settled into the back seat.

“How about Elaine’s?” Stone said.

“Can you get a table without a reservation?”

“Let’s find out.”

“Eighty-eighth and Second Avenue,” she said to the driver.

Stone turned to her. “I got the impression from what you said in the elevator that I shouldn’t necessarily believe everything Barron Harkness tells me.”

“Why, Detective,” Cary said, her eyes wide and innocent. “I never said that.” She scrunched down in the seat and laid her head back. “And, anyway, you’re off duty, remember?”

Chapter

10

Elaine accepted a peck on the cheek, shook Cary’s hand, and gave them Woody Allen’s regular table. Stone heaved a secret sigh of relief. This was no night for Siberia.

“I’m impressed,” Cary said when they had ordered a drink. “Whenever I’ve been in here before, we always got sent to Siberia.”

“You’ve clearly been coming here with the wrong men,” Stone replied, raising his glass to her.

“You could be right,” she said, looking at him appraisingly. “You’re bad casting for a cop, you know.”

“Am I?”

“Don’t be coy. It’s not the first time you’ve been told that.”

Pepe, the headwaiter, appeared with menus. Stone waved them away and asked for the specials.

“No, it’s not the first time I’ve been told that,” Stone said, when they had chosen their food. “I’m told that every time a cop I don’t know looks at me.”

“All right,” she said, leaning forward, “I want the whole biography, and don’t leave anything out, especially the part about why you’re a cop and not a stockbroker, or something.”

Stone sighed. “It goes back a generation. My family, on my father’s side, was from western Massachusetts, real Yankees, mill owners.”

“Barrington, as in Great Barrington, Massachusetts?”