“The very ones. They were across the street from my building when I came downstairs this morning. Stone, can you get me a carry permit for a handgun?”

“Herbie, that’s the hardest document to get that the city issues. I could get you a building permit at Ground Zero more easily.”

“What are the requirements for a carry license?”

“Essentially, you have to prove that you regularly carry large amounts of cash, like a payroll, or quantities of diamonds or other jewelry on a regular basis.”

“How about having my life threatened? Does that count?”

“I’m afraid the NYPD—the issuing authority—places more value on property than life.”

“I thought the Supreme Court decision on the D.C. case changed everything.”

“Everything but the NYPD and the mayor. It could happen, eventually, but they’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new era. If you want something to do, you could get a couple of your classmates together and sue the city.”

“Not a bad idea,” Herbie said. “And in the meantime I have to fend off hired killers with my bare hands?”

Stone raised a finger and picked up the phone. “Get me Seth Keener,” he said to Joan.

“Keener,” the voice said.

“Seth, it’s Stone Barrington. My client Herbert Fisher is in my office to sign the divorce papers, but he insists on one further condition.”

“I thought we had a deal,” Keener said.

“This is an easy one: Mr. Fisher insists that his soon-to-be-former wife stop trying to have him killed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mr. Fisher has already experienced an encounter on a yacht in New York Harbor that required him to choose between being knifed by two thugs or taking a swim in December. The thugs are still following him.”

“I have no knowledge of anything like that,” Keener said.

“That’s what I would say, too, in the circumstances. Would you be kind enough to mention the situation to Mrs. Fisher?”

“If you insist, but I still maintain she has nothing to do with thugs following Mr. Fisher.”

“Let me know what she says, will you?”

“Sure, I will.”

Stone hung up. “I’m afraid that’s all we can do to put an end to it. In the meantime, may I suggest that you carry a roll of quarters in each coat pocket?”

“You think I can buy them off with quarters, Stone?”

“No, but holding them will more than double the weight of your fists and greatly enhance the effects of a punch in the nose. And if the cops ask, you can say you carry the coins for the parking meters.”

Herbie got up and with a little wave departed Stone’s office. “For this I pay five hundred bucks an hour?” he called out from down the hallway.

11

Stone attended a partners’ meeting at Woodman & Weld in the afternoon, and afterward he asked for a few minutes with his old friend and law-school classmate Bill Eggers, the firm’s managing partner.

“What’s up, Stone? You look like a man with a problem.”