“What kind of plan do you want?”
“Suggest something.”
“I don’t know what to suggest. I’m okay with just going in there and talking to Vito.”
“How about you send a few undercover people in there to do some shopping and reconnoiter?”
“Oh, sure, and they’re not going to stick out like tourists from Alabama? The whole neighborhood would know.”
“Well, think of something, Dino.”
“I’ll call you back,” Dino said, then hung up.
“Hey!” Stone shouted down the phone. “Don’t hang up on me!”
“He hung up?” Holly asked.
“He hung up; said he’d call me back.”
“So, he’ll call you back.”
“You heard me voice my concerns?”
“I heard. I don’t really see what the problem is. Vito said just to come down there.”
“So now you trust Vito? The guy who was going to put two in your head and bury you in his cellar?”
“I kind of like him.”
“He’s a fucking mafioso, and you kind of like him?”
“Well, your friend Eduardo is a fucking mafioso, and you like him.”
“First of all, he’s not a fucking mafioso, he’s more of . . . an elder statesman of Italian-American diplomacy.”
“He’s a fucking mafioso.”
“And I’ve had a lot more experience of Eduardo than you’ve had of Vito.”
“Granted. Why don’t we just wait to hear what Dino has to say?”
The phone rang, and Stone picked it up. “Hello?”
“Okay, listen . . .”
” Who is this?”
“Now you don’t recognize my voice?”
“What is it?”
“I talked to Vito, and it’s okay.”
“That’s your plan? You talked to Vito, and it’s okay?”
“That’s my plan.”
Stone sighed. “Okay, what do we do?”