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“Thanks, I think.”
“I hear you’ve got a nice wife.”
“She was divorcing me until she heard I was dead, then she stopped.”
“A lot of women would have kept right on going. You should have brought her up here. It’s the only way you would get laid in these parts, at this time of year.”
“I don’t know. I hear you’re keeping your hand in, so to speak.”
“Oh, you can do all right, if your tastes run to sixty-year-old widows.”
“I’ll bet.”
“They’re not accustomed to a lot of attention.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Of course, the only place you could meet them is in the village store, this time of year, the yacht club being closed.”
“Maybe if I continue to wear my disguise,” Jack said.
—
They had dinner,and Jack enjoyed himself. It was nearly the only conversation he’d had since he was dead.
29
Stone was doingtheTimescrossword the following morning when the phone rang.
“Yes?”
“It’s Rawls. This late enough for you?”
“Eight o’clock,” Stone said. “That’s better than six.”
“I had your boy over to dinner last night.”
“And what did you think of him?”
“A bright young fellow, though not all that young. Everybody looks like a young fellow, when you’re my age.”
“Did you interrogate him?”
“I prefer to give a man some whiskey, then let him debrief himself. They don’t feel cornered that way.”
“What did you learn that I don’t know?”
“Almost everything,” Rawls said. “Looks like Lance Cabot sent him up here to deal with Valery Majorov, and somehow things went belly-up.”
“How’d that happen?”
“Majorov was laying for him, but he picked the wrong victim.”
“Who was the victim that got the two in the head?”
“Your boy’s partner, so to speak. They had met only once, at the Farm, and Lance teamed them up.”
“So Lance knows everything about everything?”
