“Perfectly,” Carrie said, “the bitch. I could have throttled her.”
“It’s probably better if you don’t throttle anybody,” Dino said. “Then I’d have to get involved.”
Carrie laughed. “It’s okay, Dino; she tried to apologize after rehearsal, but it came out all wrong. I mean, what was she going to say-‘I’m sorry I could do the move and you can’t’?”
“I can see how that could be awkward,” Stone said.
“She watches me all the time,” Carrie said. “It’s unsettling.”
“Maybe she’s just working very hard to learn your part,” Stone offered.
“No, it’s more like All About Eve. You know the movie? The young actress wants everything the star has, including her lover?”
“I remember it well.”
“You’ll meet her eventually,” Carrie said. “When you do, watch yourself.”
“I’ll be very careful,” Stone said solemnly.
“So, what’s Mitzi up to?” Carrie asked.
“She didn’t say a lot.”
“She has a rich daddy, I recall.”
“She said he was in the shrimp business.”
“That sounds right. You’re sure she went back to Charleston?” Stone shrugged. “I believe so. She had to leave lunch early to catch her plane.”
“What did she say about me?”
“She said you were a piece of work.”
“And what did she mean by that?”
“I don’t know, and somebody changed the subject before I could ask.”
“It’s just as well,” Carrie said.
Stone allowed himself to think, just for a moment, about what Carrie might do if she knew how he had spent the afternoon.
Carrie dabbed at his forehead with a cocktail napkin. “You’re perspiring,” she said. She put two fingers on his throat. “And your pulse is up.”
“Isometric ab exercises,” he said. “I do them at dinner sometimes.”
“By the way, I think you can send the young Irish gentlemen home. Not a peep out of Max. I think he’s been subdued.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. In fact, I sent them home when they dropped me off here. They said they would return your car tomorrow morning.”
Stone signaled for a menu, but he had trouble concentrating on it. He was still thinking of all those limbs.
20
STONE WAS AT HIS DESK the following morning when Willie Leahy rapped on his doorjamb.
“Good morning, Willie,” Stone said.