“You are a prince, sir. Good-bye and God bless thee.” Cantor hung up.
“That’s pretty good service,” Carla said.
“It’s pretty expensive service, but it’s worth it, so that we won’t be disturbed.”
“Do we have to do anything while we’re here except make love?”
“Well, between times, when I should be resting, I have to go and see a client who lives a few miles from here. You might enjoy seeing his place.”
“Well, all right, as long as I can spend most of my time enjoying you.”
“You may certainly do that.”
“After all, it’s why we came, isn’t it?”
“It’s one of the reasons,” he replied.
“What are the others?”
“You’ll have to discover them one at a time.”
“May I begin now, so that I will have something to freshen up from when we have dinner? Remember, you owe me one.”
“I can arrange immediate repayment,” he said, taking her hand and leading her upstairs.
32
Stone and Carla went to the Mayflower Inn for dinner, and as they entered, piano music was coming from the bar.
Carla perked up. “Who’s playing?” she asked.
“David Grossman plays in the bar on weekends,” Stone said. They stopped at the bar’s entrance, the dining room still ahead of them.
“Can we eat in the bar?” Carla asked.
“Sure.” Stone let the headwaiter know, and they found a snug table along the wall facing the bar and not too far from the pianist, who was playing standards twice as old as he with great fluency. They ordered drinks and menus.
“I like this inn,” Carla said.
“Lots of people do. It was designed as a school by the same architect who did my cottage and the big house next door, called The Rocks, and it was redone at great expense by a retired stockbroker and his wife who recently sold it to somebody I don’t know.”
Their drinks arrived, and they began looking at menus. Stone looked up and saw Bob Cantor standing in the hall outside the dining room.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Carla said. “Ladies’ room.”
Stone moved the table out for her and decided to go and speak to Cantor.
“Hey,” Cantor said, as Stone approached. “Let me introduce you to Bonnie Pepper. Bonnie, this is my friend, Stone Barrington.”
Bonnie Pepper was small, blonde and cute. “Hello, Bonnie, it’s good to meet you. Bob, have you already been to the house?”
“Oh, yeah, it only took me ten minutes to change the circuit board and reprogram the system.” He dug into a pocket and produced a card with a four-digit number written on the back.
Stone looked at the card. “These are the last four digits of my Social Security number,” he said. “How did you know that?”
“There’s nothing I don’t know or can’t find out about you, Stone,” Cantor said.
“You want to join us for dinner in the bar?” Stone asked.