Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

“That’s right.”

“My name is Barrington. This is Lieutenant Bacchetti, NYPD. You armed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Try not to shoot anybody, if you can help it.”

“I’ll try.”

They got into the car and drove away.

“What are you shopping for?” he asked Dino.

“A dinner jacket.”

“Why don’t you ask Mary Ann to ship yours down here? There’s time.”

“That’s a question only a lifelong bachelor could ask,” Dino said. “If you’re in Palm Beach, and she’s not, you don’t call home and say, ‘Honey, send my dinner jacket, will you?’ It would take too long to explain why to her, and in the end, she’d never believe you. Besides, I need a new one, anyway. Somebody threw up on the last one at a wedding last year, and the cleaners could never get it all out.”

“Where you want to shop?”

“They got an Armani here?”

“They do.”

“Giorgio always does my dinner jackets.”

Stone found a parking spot on Worth Avenue. He put the top up to keep the sun from overheating the black leather upholstery, and they walked to the shop.

Dino conferred with a salesman, and shortly, a fitter was marking up a white dinner jacket. “You like the white?” he asked Stone.

“I like. Very elegant.”

“I thought you would. I’m getting this just for you.”

“You’re sweet.”

The fitter looked at them oddly. “What about the lump, sir?” he said, nodding toward the pistol on Dino’s belt.

“Allow for that,” Dino said. “I’ll be wearing it to the party.”

“Well, this is a first for Palm Beach,” the man muttered, but he did his work.

When they returned to the car, the driver’s side window was a web of pieces, held together by the lamination.

“Looks like a golf ball hit it,” Dino said.

Stone looked up and down the street. “That’s not funny.”

“Sure it is,” Dino laughed.

“You see her anywhere?”

“No, but a silver Volvo sedan has been following us.”

“Why didn’t you mention it sooner?”

“What good would it have done? It would have just ruined your day.”