She walked in and was greeted by Gianni, one of the two headwaiters. She ordered a drink at the bar, then grabbed Gianni’s sleeve when he came back from seating a party. “Gianni, you know everything; who were those people with Dino and Stone the other night?”

“What people are those?” Gianni asked.

“A beautiful blond woman and a couple of kids, one of them Dino’s.”

Gianni looked at her evenly for a moment. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said.

She started to pursue it with him, but he stopped her.

“And let me give you some advice: don’t ask Elaine, either.” He walked away.

She turned away, her cheeks burning. Gianni knew who she worked for, so she was going to have to be careful, if she didn’t want to get eighty-sixed from Elaine’s.

A man came into the restaurant and sat down beside her at the bar. She cased him in the mirror: slicked-back black hair, Italian suit, cashmere overcoat.

“Hi,” he said to her, holding out a hand. “Anthony Cecchini.”

“Kelli,” she said, shaking the smooth hand. The guy was definitely not a stevedore.

“Kelli what?”

“Keane, with an ‘a’ and an ‘e’ on the end.”

“Buy you a drink, Kelli?”

“I’ve got one, thanks.”

“The next one, then.”

“Sure, why not.” He was kind of good-looking. “I perceive that you are Italian,” she said.

He laughed. “You’re very perceptive.”

“Tell me, Anthony, does the name Eduardo Bianchi mean anything to you?”

He froze. “Where did you hear that name?” he asked.

“Oh, around.”

He turned to the bartender. “Kevin, her next drink is on me,” he said, then he got up and moved to the other end of the bar.

Kelli was flabbergasted, and she didn’t flabbergast easily. What the fuck was going on here?

24

A couple of days after Christmas Stone was catching up on his corporate reading, when Joan buzzed him.

“A Mr. John Ellis, from Knickerbocker Hall, on one.”

Stone picked up the phone. “Stone Barrington.”

“Good morning, Mr. Barrington,” the man said. “I’m John Ellis from Knickerbocker.”

“Good morning.”

“I run a little office at the school that deals with keeping our budget on an even keel,” he said.

“Oh?”

“I’m afraid that running the school on tuition fees just isn’t possible, and we rely on the kindness of our alumni and the parents of our students to help us keep the ship upright.”

“How can I help you, Mr. Ellis?”

“I understand that when you took the tour last week you had a look at our film school facilities.”

“That’s correct, we did.”

“Perhaps you’ll recall that two of our three cameras were out of service.”

“My son certainly remembers that,” Stone said.

“Also, that our editing equipment needs updating.”

“He recalls that, too.”

“The school would be very grateful if you could manage a donation that could help us with the modernization of our film school.”

“I see. I expect you have a figure in mind.”