“Yep. I’ll show you the place sometime; my father did all the cabinetwork and millwork.”
“Your father was a builder?”
“A cabinet and furniture maker. His father was a textile mill owner in Massachusetts, but they parted company over politics.”
“What was the disagreement?”
“My grandfather was a Republican; my father was a Communist.”
“No kidding?”
“Don’t tell the AG; he’ll come after me.”
“Don’t worry, his time is taken up with Islamists these days. Where’d your first name come from?”
“My mother’s name was Matilda Stone.”
“The painter?”
“Yes. You know her work?”
“I saw an exhibit of hers at the Morgan Library once, years ago. She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“They both are. Your folks still alive?”
“Very much so. Daddy is a Washington lawyer, and Mother is, well, a hostess and a great beauty. For a living.”
“Baldwin and Peet?”
“The very same.”
“So your daddy’s rich, and your ma is good-lookin’?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Tough.”
“Yes, it’s been a hard life.”
“You ready to order?”
“The osso buco sounds great.”
Stone ordered it for both of them, along with a bottle of Amerone.
Dino came in, hung up his coat and sat down at their table.
“What are you doing here?” Stone asked. “Can’t you see I’m trying to seduce this woman?”
“Introduce me,” Dino said.
“Tiff, this is Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti, commander of the detective squad at the Nineteenth Precinct. Dino, this is Tiff Baldwin, the new U.S. Attorney.”
“I heard about you on TV,” Dino said. “Why are you trying to crucify Martha Stewart?”
Tiff buried her face in her hands and pretended to weep.
“It’s not her fault, Dino,” Stone said, “now go find another table.”