Part 53 (1/2)
Stone walked over to the car. ”It's been a weird couple of days; I was going to call you from New York.”
”I get to New York once in a while. Shall I call you?”
He gave her his card. ”I'd be hurt, if you didn't.” He leaned over and kissed her, then she drove away. Before she turned the corner, she waved, without looking back.
Stone got into the limo and settled into the deep-cus.h.i.+oned seat. He'd be home by bedtime.
Back in Turtle Bay, he let himself into the house. Joan had left for the day, but there was a note on the table in the foyer.
”A s.h.i.+pment arrived for you yesterday,” she wrote. ”It's in the living room. And there was an envelope delivered by messenger this morning.”
Stone saw the envelope on the table and tucked it under his arm. He picked up his suitcases and started for the elevator, then he looked into the living room and set down the cases. Standing in the center of the living room was a clothes rack, and on it hung at least twenty suits. He walked into the room and looked around. On the floor were half a dozen large boxes filled with Vance Calder's Turnbull & a.s.ser s.h.i.+rts and ties. Then he noticed a note pinned to one of the suits.
You would do me a great favor by accepting these. Or you can just send them to the Goodwill.
I love you,Arrington
His heart gave a little leap, but then he saw that the note was dated a week before their parting scene, and it sank again.
He'd think about this later. Right now, he was tired from the trip. He picked up the suitcases, got into the elevator, and rode up to the master suite. Once there, he unpacked, then undressed and got into a nights.h.i.+rt. Then he remembered the envelope.
He sat down on the bed and opened it. There were some papers and a cover letter, in a neat hand, on Eduardo Bianchi's personal letterhead.
I thought you might like to have these. This ends the matter. I hope to see you soon.
Eduardo
Stone set the letter aside and looked at the papers. There were only two: One was the original of the marriage certificate he and Dolce had signed in Venice; the other was the page from the ledger they and their witnesses had signed in the mayor's office. These made up the whole record of his brief, disastrous marriage.
He took them to the fireplace, struck a match, and watched until they had been consumed. Then he got into bed, and with a profound sense of relief, tinged with sorrow, Stone fell asleep.
Acknowledgments.
I AM GRATEFUL TO MY NEW EDITOR, DAVID HIGHFILL, AND my new publisher, Phyllis Grann, for their enthusiasm and hard work on this book. I look forward to working with them both in the future.
I must thank my agents, Morton Janklow and Anne Sibbald, and all the people at Janklow & Nesbit, for their continuing fine management of my career and their meticulous attention to every detail of my business affairs.
I must also thank my wife, Chris, who reads every ma.n.u.script, for her good judgment and acute insight, as well as for her love.
Author's Note I AM HAPPY TO HEAR FROM READERS, BUT YOU SHOULD know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pa.s.s before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my Web site at , where there is a b.u.t.ton for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all of my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is because you are one among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail return address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.
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Please turn the page for a preview of Stuart Woods'sORCHID BLUESavailable now from Signet.
HE WAITED UNTIL THE LAST OF THE LINE HAD EN tered the cinema for the eight o'clock movie.
”All right, let's take a tour,” he said to the boy at the wheel.
The boy drove slowly around the parking lot.
”Here,” he said.
The boy stopped the car.
The man looked at the parked vehicle. It was an older Ford commercial van, well cared for and clean. ”Wait a minute,” he said. He got out of the car and grabbed his tool bag. ”Drive over to the edge of the parking lot and wait. When you see the van's headlights go on, follow me home. I'll be making a lot of turns.”
”Yessir,” the boy said.
He slipped on a pair of rubber gloves, then walked over to the van and tried the door. Unlocked. It took him less than a minute to punch the steering lock and start the van. He switched on the lights and checked the odometer: 48,000 miles; not bad. He backed out of the parking s.p.a.ce and drove out of the lot, onto the highway.
In the rearview mirror he watched the boy fall in behind him, well back. He drove for a couple of minutes, constantly making turns, checking the mirror, then he turned down a dirt road, drove a hundred yards, and stopped. The boy stopped behind him. He sat in the van and watched the traffic pa.s.s on the highway for five minutes, then he made a U-turn and went back to the highway and headed west. He had two hours before the van's owner would come out of the movies and discover his loss, and he needed only half an hour.
Twenty-five minutes later, he drove into the little town, and five minutes after that, he pulled the van into the large steel shed behind his business. Half a dozen men, who had been sitting around a poker table, stood up and walked over.