"Who was it?" Arrington asked.

"A client. We had a bad connection, so I couldn't hear him."

"Do a lot of clients call you at eleven o'clock in the evening?" Arrington asked.

"More than I would like."

"It's gotta be a girl," Dino said.

Stone had to put a stop to this right now. "It was Lance."

"Lance who?" Arrington asked.

"Lance Cabot," Dino said. "He would be the New York station chief for the CIA, if they have a New York station."

"I used to know a Lance Cabot years ago," Arrington said.

"What did he look like?" Dino asked.

Arrington pointed toward the front door. "Very much like that," she said.

Lance strode through the restaurant to the table. "Why, Arrington," he said, his usual charming self, "how nice to see you after all these years."

"And you, Lance," Arrington said, offering her hand. "I hear you're with the CIA these days."

A flicker of annoyance ran across Lance's face, but he kept his composure. He turned to Stone. "I need to speak to you outside."

"I'm sorry, Lance, but we're about to have dessert," Stone replied. "Would you like something?"

"I'm afraid I haven't time right now, but I do need to speak to you."

Stone turned to Arrington. "Would you excuse me for a moment?"

"Of course."

Stone jerked his head in the direction of the mens' room and walked back there. It was a small facility, but he checked the booth to be sure they were alone.

Lance leaned against the door. "Now," he said.

"Lance, I'm having dinner with friends. You'll have to get along without me tonight."

"Are you armed, Stone?" Lance asked.

"No," Stone replied.

"Another breach of my instructions."

"Lance, your instructions are becoming a pain in the ass."

Lance reached under his arm and produced a very small semiautomatic pistol. Simultaneously, he took a small tube from his pocket and began screwing it into the barrel. The whole assembly was no more than six inches long. "Please don't underestimate the power of this little weapon," he said. "It can put an end to your life instantly, or, more appropriate to this occasion, destroy a knee, which will require a mechanical replacement, if you don't bleed to death while waiting for the paramedics to arrive."

"No," Stone said.

Lance pointed the gun at Stone's right knee and fired a round, making a soft pffft noise.

Stone moved at the last second, and he felt something tug at his trouser leg. He looked down to see both an entry and an exit hole through the inside knee of his pants.

"Hold still," Lance said, taking aim again. "I wouldn't want to hit the femoral artery."

"All right," Stone said, holding his hands out before him. "That won't be necessary; I'll come with you."

"Thank you so much," Lance said. "Now say your goodbyes, and we'll be on our way."

Stone walked back into the restaurant and to his table. "Arrington," he said, "I must apologize, but something urgent has come up, and I have to accompany Lance somewhere. I hope you'll forgive me."

"If I must," she replied.

"Arrington," Lance said, "I hope we'll have an opportunity to renew our acquaintance at more length soon. Good night."

"Good night, Lance, Stone."

Stone got his coat and followed Lance from the restaurant. They got into a black car.

"Now," Lance said, "where did Arrington hear that I am connected with the Agency?"

"She didn't hear it from me," Stone said.

"Did Dino tell her?"

"She didn't hear it from me," Stone repeated.

"All right."

"So what's the emergency?" Stone asked.

"We've caught Billy Bob."

"What? Where?"

"He was sitting outside your house in the red Hummer; he was armed with a silenced nine-millimeter handgun and two of the rather special grenades I told you about."

"Outside my house?"

"That is correct. Stone, if you once again fail to follow an instruction of mine, I'll have you inducted into the armed services with the rank of private, so that if you should ever ignore another order, I can have you court-martialed and sent to Leavenworth for a few years. We have a rather special little detention unit there."

"All right, all right," Stone said.

"And if I find you unarmed again until this is over, I will, I promise, shoot you in a particularly painful place."

Stone slumped in his seat and wished he were at home in his bed.

35

LANCE BEGAN idly unscrewing the silencer from his little pistol.

"What is that, some CIA secret weapon?" Stone asked.

"Hardly," Lance replied. "It's a Keltec three-eighty, weighs ten ounces, loaded. Of course, our gunsmiths have done a little work on it, but it's a wonderfully concealable weapon and very effective, if the range isn't too great. I'll send you one."

"I don't understand why you need me."

"I want you to interrogate Billy Bob."

"And why do you think he'll talk to me more readily than to you?"

"He seems heavily invested in you; no one else has so captured his attention, so, even if he's just angry with you, he'll communicate."

"I don't see how this is going to work."

"You're going to be the good cop," Lance explained. "After I've shouted at him or threatened him, you're going to interrupt. Surely, you've done this a thousand times."

"Very nearly," Stone said. He had always played the good cop to Dino's bad, when questioning suspects. "Where is Billy Bob?"

"In your garage," Lance replied.

"What?"

"It was convenient to the scene of his capture."

"How did you get into my house?"

Lance looked at him, almost with pity. "Really, Stone."

Stone sat back and shut up.

"Now, here's the way it's going to go," Lance said. "Two of my men are with Billy Bob now, two very… ah, capable gentlemen. They may have slapped him around a bit by the time we get there, depending on his attitude. They're both rather short-tempered."

"Dino and I never got to soften them up," Stone said, half to himself. "Dino would have loved that."

"We do not operate under the same strictures placed upon the NYPD," Lance said, "or any other law-enforcement agency."

Stone wondered how far Lance would take that. "And just how far would you take that?" he asked.

"As far as necessary," Lance replied. "I hope it won't be necessary to spill Billy Bob's brains onto your garage floor. Incidentally, it's good of you to have a two-car garage and only one car. Otherwise, we'd have to do this in your office."

"Whatever I can do to help," Stone said, sarcastically.

"Now you're beginning to understand your position," Lance said. "I did not recruit you simply for legal advice or for the people you know, or for the table you have at Elaine's. I did so, because there are times I need someone like you, someone with a semipublic face, with gainful employment, who lives in full view of the world, or nearly so, and has some skills, no matter how rudimentary. It helps that you inadvertently made contact with and gained the attention of Billy Bob through other means.

"I recruited Dino, because there are times when I need the resources of a big-city police department without having to deal with its hierarchy."

"Why did you recruit Holly Barker?"

"I need Holly for other, more operational reasons. She is considering a more permanent offer from us as we speak, though I think it might take a few weeks or months for her to gather the resolve to leave her present, quite pleasant circumstances and join us."

They turned the corner onto Stone's block and stopped in front of his house.

"Let's go in through your office," Lance said, using a key of his own, to Stone's annoyance.

"I don't recall our contract saying anything about your using my house at will for surreptitious interrogations."