“I don’t think I’ve ever had more reason to be nervous. I’ve been threatened and shot at and dragged all over the country, and—”

Holly broke in. “I did not drag you all over the country,” she said. “You came voluntarily.”

“That was only because I wanted to get you in the sack.”

“You had already gotten me in the sack. How soon you forget!”

Dino broke in. “You wanted to get me in the sack?”

“Oh, shut up. You know I was talking to Holly.”

“How do I know who you’re talking to? I can only hear you.”

“We’ve got to have a plan, Dino.”

“What sort of plan?”

“The kind of plan where men in black suits and body armor with automatic weapons and stun grenades go in first and let us know when they’ve got Trini handcuffed.”

“You don’t understand. Vito has a certain standing in his community, you know? He would not respond well to assault teams running up and down the aisles of his grocery store, tossing stun grenades. It would not reflect well on him in his neighborhood.”

“Well, we need some kind of a plan,” Stone said.

“What kind of plan do you want?”

“Suggest something.”

“I don’t know what to suggest. I’m okay with just going in there and talking to Vito.”

“How about you send a few undercover people in there to do some shopping and reconnoiter?”

“Oh, sure, and they’re not going to stick out like tourists from Alabama? The whole neighborhood would know.”

“Well, think of something, Dino.”

“I’ll call you back,” Dino said, then hung up.

“Hey!” Stone shouted down the phone. “Don’t hang up on me!”

“He hung up?” Holly asked.

“He hung up; said he’d call me back.”

“So, he’ll call you back.”

“You heard me voice my concerns?”

“I heard. I don’t really see what the problem is. Vito said just to come down there.”

“So now you trust Vito? The guy who was going to put two in your head and bury you in his cellar?”

“I kind of like him.”

“He’s a fucking mafioso, and you kind of like him?”

“Well, your friend Eduardo is a fucking mafioso, and you like him.”

“First of all, he’s not a fucking mafioso, he’s more of . . . an elder statesman of Italian-American diplomacy.”

“He’s a fucking mafioso.”

“And I’ve had a lot more experience of Eduardo than you’ve had of Vito.”

“Granted. Why don’t we just wait to hear what Dino has to say?”

The phone rang, and Stone picked it up. “Hello?”

“Okay, listen . . .”

” Who is this?”

“Now you don’t recognize my voice?”

“What is it?”

“I talked to Vito, and it’s okay.”

“That’s your plan? You talked to Vito, and it’s okay?”

“That’s my plan.”

Stone sighed. “Okay, what do we do?”