Lucid Intervals

13

Stone was in his dressing room when Felicity walked in, holding her shoes in her hand. She offered him her lips, and he accepted. “Your feet are tired?” he asked.

“I no longer have feet,” she replied, going into the bedroom. “I’m walking on stumps.” She began shedding clothes. “What time is dinner?”

“Eight-thirty. We’re meeting Dino.”

“What a surprise! Wake me in an hour, please.”

STONE FINISHED DRESSING, read for a while, then woke her as requested.

“Is it morning?” she asked sleepily.

“Not yet. Another ten hours to go.”

She sat up. “A shower,” she said.

“Thataway,” he replied, pointing.

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, she was as fresh as a bouquet of roses.

“How do you do that?” Stone asked.

“Do what?”

“Recover from exhaustion in half an hour?”

“I slept for an hour, remember?”

“Yes, but you still seemed exhausted.”

“Not exhausted, just sleepy. I’m quite well now. May we go to dinner? I’m starved.”

DINO HAD NOT yet arrived, so Stone ordered a Knob Creek and Felicity’s Rob Roy. “How was your day?” he asked.

“Not bad,” she replied. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet tomorrow.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Stone laughed. “Of course not; it was a silly question.”

“I’m thinking of quitting,” she said without preamble.

Stone was shocked. “I’m shocked,” he replied. “Truly.”

“I’ve got twenty years in, and there’s a pension.”

“Can one live well on a British civil service pension?”

“One can if one has a comfortable private income, a house in London, another in the Isle of Wight and yet another in the south of France. Daddy died last year, and I was his only child.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Daddy wasn’t sorry,” she said. “He had been in pain for a year, and he was glad to go.”

“I’m sorry he was in pain. I’m glad he left you well off.”

“I would have been really well off but for the taxes. Fortunately, Daddy was liquid enough that I didn’t have to sell the properties. If I retire, will you come and see me?”

“I will come and see you, retired or not.”

She patted his hand. “You’re sweet.”

DINO ARRIVED, WAVED for his Scotch and sat down. “Good evening, one and all,” he said.

“You sound cheerful,” Stone said.

“I’m always cheerful,” he replied.

“Well… no. You are often dour.”

“Me, dour?”

“Often.”

“Well, I’m not dour tonight,” he said.

Felicity spoke up. “Could your good cheer be related to some success with the FBI regarding the photo of Stanley Whitestone?”

“Yes, it could.”

“I’m so glad.”

Dino pulled an envelope from his pocket. “The FBI photo comparison program pulled this from a bank security camera two blocks up Park Avenue from the Seagram Building.” He laid the photo on the table. It was that of a stocky man in a good suit, wearing a hat, entering the bank. “It was a good match.”

Stone looked at the photo. “It’s no better than the one we got from the Seagram Building,” he said.

“Wait, there’s another angle,” Dino said, producing another photograph and laying it on the table. This one was full face, but from farther away.

Stone and Felicity peered at it.

“Can they enhance it?” Felicity asked.

“This is the enhanced version,” Dino said.

“It gives an impression of the same man,” Stone said, “but it’s too blurry for identification. The Seagram stuff was much sharper.”

“The bank equipment isn’t as recent,” Dino said. “Would you rather have a blurry photograph or no photograph at all?”

“Hobson’s choice,” Felicity said.

“What?” Dino asked.

“It’s Britspeak for no choice at all,” Stone replied.

“May I keep these?” Felicity asked.

“Sure,” Dino said. “Anybody hungry?” Without waiting for a reply, he waved at a waiter for menus.

“I need red meat,” Felicity said. “Sirloin, please, medium rare, pommes frites.”

“It shall be so,” Stone replied, ordering two.

“Make it three,” Dino said.

“DO YOU EVER think of retiring, Dino?” Felicity asked when their steaks were ruins of their former selves.

“Never,” Dino said. “I’m going to do the full thirty, and then we’ll see.”

“You’ll have to take a promotion,” Stone said.

“Nah, I have an understanding with the commissioner.”

“Dino doesn’t want to be a captain,” Stone explained to Felicity. “He likes to pretend he’s still a street cop.”

“I don’t pretend,” Dino said. “I am a street cop.”

“Yes, but you never see the street, except from the rear seat of your cop-chauffeured car,” Stone pointed out.

“I understand, Dino,” Felicity said. “Sometimes I wish I were, well, a street agent again.”

“They got you cuffed to a desk?” Dino asked.

“A very good description,” she replied.

“I wouldn’t like that.”

“It has its advantages,” Felicity said.

“Name one,” Dino said.

“I haven’t been shot at for quite some time,” she replied.

“That’s okay if personal safety is important to you.”

“It isn’t important to you?” Stone asked.

“Nah, I don’t mind an occasional bullet in my direction.”

“This is news to me,” Stone said to Felicity. “I’ve never heard of Dino’s fondness for flying lead.”

“I understand what he means,” she said. “One remembers the occasions when death was near but passed one by.”

“You bet your sweet ass one do,” Dino said.

“I remember getting shot in the knee,” Stone said. “I didn’t find anything to like about it.”

“Not even survival?” Felicity said.

“Oh, well, yes,” Stone said. “That and not getting shot higher up.”

She squeezed his thigh. “I’m grateful for that, too.”