“Carrie,” Stone said, getting to his feet, “let me get you a cab home.”
“Why should I l
eave?” she demanded.
“Carrie,” Mitzi said, “I’m trying to make the best of this. Either get into bed or get out of here.”
Carrie seemed to be thinking it over, and Stone found himself speechless. Then Carrie disappeared into his dressing room, and a moment later she came out, holding her clothes in her arms.
“I’ll get my own cab,” she said, stalking out of the room.
Stone made to follow her but found his wrist locked in Mitzi’s iron grip.
“She’s an actress,” Mitzi said. “Don’t spoil her exit.”
Stone sat down on the bed, and a moment later he heard the front door slam. “I hope she got her clothes on before going outside,” he said.
Mitzi knelt on the bed behind him and put her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts into his back. “How did she get in?”
“I seem to remember giving her a key a while back,” Stone replied.
“Oh.”
“She was in trouble and needed a place to stay.”
“She seems to have taken a proprietary interest in the house. And in you.”
Stone sighed. “I guess this is my fault.”
“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” Mitzi said, pulling him back onto the bed. “Carrie was always a little crazy, even when she was fourteen.” She fondled his penis. “Oh, she frightened it. Poor baby.”
Stone did his best to turn his attention to Mitzi again, and his best was pretty good.
VERY EARLY in the morning the bedside phone rang. Stone opened an eye and checked the clock. Half past five. He closed his eyes and let the machine pick up on the third ring.
After a short delay it rang again, and the machine picked up again.
“Maybe you’d better get that,” Mitzi said, pulling a sheet over her head. “Somebody really wants to talk to you.”
When it rang again, Stone picked up the phone. “What?”
“Stone, it’s Bob Cantor. Carrie has been shot; she’s in the Lenox Hill Hospital ER.”
“I’m coming,” Stone said, then hung up. He went to his dressing room and started pulling on clothes, noticing that a lacy pair of Carrie’s panties still hung from a hook there.
“What’s going on?” Mitzi asked, sitting up.
“I’m sorry,” Stone said, “a bit of an emergency has come up, and I have to go out.”
“At five thirty in the morning?” she asked. “What kind of emergency comes up at this hour?”
“Gotta run,” Stone said, grabbing a jacket. “Go back to sleep, and when you wake up, Helene will fix you some breakfast.” He trotted down the stairs and out the front door just as, miraculously, a cab drove by. He stopped it in its tracks with a loud whistle.
AT SIX in the morning the Lenox Hill ER was already getting busy. As Stone strode toward the admitting desk he was intercepted by Willie Leahy.
“Hang on, Stone. They said we can see her in a few minutes.” Willie dragged him toward a chair and sat him down.
“What happened?” Stone asked.