Stone looked around. The room was jammed with people, and somebody was playing the piano rather well. “I see at least four cops,” he said to Dino.

“So what? There are a lot of civilians here, too.”

“If you consider assistant DA’s civilians. Who’s the tall guy by the fireplace?”

“Tom Deacon. He runs the DA’s investigative division.”

“I don’t like him,” Stone said.

“Have you ever even met him?”

“No.”

“What the hell is the matter with you lately?”

“He’s got shifty eyes.”

“He’s with the DA, isn’t he?”

The party had clearly been going on for some time, because there was no food left, and everybody had had several drinks. Stone was as drunk as any of them but not as gregarious. He looked for a quiet corner. He left Dino with Dana Brougham and walked through a pair of double doors, into a handsome library. A pair of leather wing chairs faced each other before a cheerful fire, and Stone headed for one. He sat down, glad to be alone; then he saw that the other chair was occupied.

A chestnut-haired woman in a pin-striped suit sat with her legs pulled under her, reading by firelight from a leather-bound book. She glanced at him, raised her glass a millimeter in greeting, then went back to her book.

“You’ll ruin your eyes,” Stone said.

She gazed at him for a moment. “You’ve changed, Mom.”

“Sorry. What are you reading?”

“Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

“I haven’t read that since high school,” he said.

“I haven’t read it at all,” she replied.

“It seemed terribly erotic at sixteen, but then almost everything did.”

She smiled a little but didn’t look up. “I remember.”

“Where were you when you were sixteen?”

“At Spence.”

Spence was a very tony Manhattan private school.

“And after that?”

“Yale.”

“Law?”

“Yes. I work for Martin.”

“Funny, you don’t look like an assistant DA.”

“That’s the nicest thing anybody has said to me this year.”

“Then you’ve been seeing the wrong men.”

“You’re not only courtly, you’re clairvoyant.”

“I can’t divine your name.”

“Susan Bean.”

“Of the L.L. Beans?”

“No, and not of the Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beans, either. Of the entirely undistinguished Beans. And you?”

“Stone Barrington.”

“I believe I’ve heard the name. Of the Massachusetts Great Barringtons, I presume?”

Stone shook his head. “Of the Massachusetts Lesser Barringtons.”

“And how did you come to be in the big city?”

“It was easy; I was born here. After my parents had bailed out of Massachusetts.”

“Are you hungry?”

To his surprise, he was. He’d hardly touched his dinner at Elaine’s. “Yes.”

“The canapés were already gone when I got here. You want to get some dinner someplace?”

“I do.”