“I crept into the apartment, and I could hear these angry voices from out on the terrace. I peeped out there, and she and this other person were having a knock-down, drag-out fight, and, all of a sudden, Sasha was just dumped over the railing.

“I jumped back behind the door, and I could hear this other person rummaging around the room, looking for something, I guess. That went on for a minute, then I heard the elevator start up, and I guess the… well, the murderer heard it too, and ran. I heard the fire stairs door open, then the elevator door open, and I heard somebody running down the stairs.

“I peeped out the door, and the doorman was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down, so I just popped into the open elevator and rode down. I got out on the second floor and tiptoed down the stairs. When I saw you get back into the elevator, I left the building, got into the van, and drove around the block to where Sasha was. The ambulance arrived about that time, and I followed it. I wanted to see which hospital Sasha was being taken to, so I could send flowers.

“Then, wham! That fire truck came out of nowhere, and the ambulance got hit. You know the rest.”

“Herb, who threw Sasha off the balcony?”

Van Fleet shrugged. “Nobody I knew,” he said.

“Can you describe him?” Stone asked.

Van Fleet started to speak, then stopped. “No, I don’t think I will,” he said petulantly. “You were unkind enough to bring up the past, so I don’t think you deserve to know, at least not yet. Later, if you’re nice, you can bring it up at dinner, and maybe I’ll tell you.” Van Fleet stood up, reached down, and picked up his case. He set it on the stool, opened it, and took out a large scalpel. “Don’t worry, I’m very good at this; it’ll be absolutely painless, I promise.”

Stone had thought about dying before, but never in such close proximity to the event. Would his whole life flash before his eyes? Would it be less painful if he just relaxed and let it happen? He discovered he could not give in to it; he would go down fighting, with what meager resources he had left. “Wait a minute, Herb!” he said. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“You can tell me at the dinner table,” Van Fleet said, sliding his hand under Stone’s chin and pulling it up to extend his neck.

Stone jerked his head free. “It’s about Sasha!” he said, and watched Van Fleet’s face.

Van Fleet showed interest. “What about Sasha?”

“Something you don’t know about her, something important. I wouldn’t want to say this in front of her at the table.”

“What is it?”

“You like guys, don’t you, Herb?”

“What do you mean?” Van Fleet replied indignantly. “I’m no queer. I like women.”

“What about your relationship with the men at the table?” Stone asked.

“You have a filthy mind,” Van Fleet said. “I have no kind of relationship with anybody at the table. Except Sasha, of course. We have a perfectly normal sex life.”

Perfectly normal? Stone laughed aloud. “Come on, Herb, you’re as queer as a three-dollar bill.” Words were all Stone had left to fight with, and he was at least going to get in a few punches before this maniac slaughtered him.

“That’s a lie!”

“Then why do you think you like fucking Sasha so much?”

“Sasha’s a woman, you idiot,” Van Fleet said. “We have a heterosexual relationship!”

“Sasha’s not a woman, Herbert. I found out. When she was born in Russia, her parents named her Vladimir, because she was a boy. They raised her as a girl, though, and, when she was twelve, she had a sex-change operation in Morocco!”

“You’re insane!” Van Fleet cried.

“You’re fucking a guy, Herbert, you goddamned faggot!” Stone screamed. “All this time you’ve been fucking a guy’s corpse, a dead guy, Herbert!”

Van Fleet was making animal noises now, and spittle had formed on his lips. He raised the scalpel over his head, and his voice became a howl.

Stone braced himself, baring his teeth. He’d bite the bastard’s arm off, if he could.

Then a huge noise filled the room, echoing off the tile walls, and, simultaneously, a hole appeared in Van Fleet’s throat; a moment later, the noise came again, and another hole appeared under his right eye. Van Fleet reeled backward and disappeared from Stone’s view.

Stone was nearly deaf from the noise, which was now settling into a constant ringing in his ears.

Then Dino walked into Stone’s view and looked down at him. “Jesus, Stone,” he said, shaking his head. “How do you get yourself into these situations?”

Chapter 50

“Well, I always told you Van Fleet was dirty, didn’t I?” Dino said. He and Stone were sitting facing each other on the sofas in front of Herbert Van Fleet’s fireplace.

Stone was dressed again and was rubbing his ankles where they had been bound. “Jesus, Dino, I guess I should have just listened to you all along,” he said sourly. He took a large swig of Van Fleet’s bourbon.

“I wouldn’t have recognized this place,” Dino said. “He’s sure done a lot to it since we were here before.”

“I didn’t recognize it either,” Stone said. “I didn’t remember the garage door in the building. I had no idea where I was. How did you figure it out?”

“You mentioned Van Fleet; that was all I had to go on. I had to take a tire iron to the downstairs door, or I would have been up here sooner.”

“How much of my conversation with Van Fleet did you hear?”

“Most of it, I guess. I had to duck out when Van Fleet came back to the kitchen to get his tools.”

“Well, why did you wait so fucking long to stop the bastard?”

“I wanted to hear it all. Anyway, you were in no trouble; I wasn’t going to let him carve you up.”

“I wish I’d known that. He gave me about the worst hour of my life.”

Dino picked up the phone on the coffee table. “I guess I’d better call it in.”

“No!” Stone said, snatching the phone away from him.

“Look, Stone, I’m beat. Between screwing Mary Ann twice a day and shooting craps all night every night, I’m coming apart. Let’s get this over with.”

“You can’t call it in, yet. We still don’t have the guy who tossed Sasha off the balcony, and, if he finds out Sasha’s dead, he’ll feel safe.”

“It’s Harkness, then?”

“Damn right, and, if you’d done what I asked you to at the airport, we might have had him long ago.”

“Come on, Stone, his name was on the manifest; let’s not go over old stuff again, okay?”

“All right, let’s not. But tomorrow night, Hi Barker is going to have Harkness on his TV show, and I mean to see him nailed, right there on television. I want you to be there to bust him.”

Dino thought for a minute. “I gotta cover my ass some way, here, in this place.”

“Do this: seal the place, and put a blue-and-white outside to make sure nobody disturbs the scene.”

“Not until I get the medical examiner in here. We can’t just let Van Fleet’s corpse rot for a couple days, you know.”

“Look, we have no solid evidence against Harkness, and, unless Barker can force some admission out of him on the air, we’ll never get him. If somebody in the ME’s office leaks this to the press, we’re cooked; we’ll never get him.”

“Too bad you pissed off Van Fleet when you were on the table in there. He might have given us Harkness.”

“He might have given us Harkness anyway, if you hadn’t blown him away.”

“What was I supposed to do? Stand there and watch the ritual slaughter? Shout ‘freeze!’? What if he didn’t freeze? You’re pretty fucking ungrateful.”

“Ungrateful? I’ve dragged you kicking and screaming through this whole thing, and now, when you turn up at the last possible minute, like the cavalry, you want gratitude?”

“That’s the second time I’ve taken out somebody who wanted to kill you, and, come to think of it, you didn’t thank me the first time either!” Dino was standing up now.