“He’ll want to choose the spot.”
“Then tell him to go fuck himself.” Stone hung up.
The phone rang ten minutes later.
“Yes?”
“Five o’clock, at your house,” she said.
“Just him,” Stone replied.
“He wants me.”
“I want you, too, when you’re not killing people. Tell him I’ll frisk him for a wire—you, too.”
“He won’t sit still for that.”
“We’re going to do this my way, or not at all,” Stone said. “What’s it going to be?”
She covered the phone and spoke to someone else, then came back. “See you at five,” she said.
Stone hung up and called Bob Cantor. “The meeting’s at five.”
“That’s going to be tough. How long will it last?”
“Half an hour to an hour is my best guess.”
“I’ll do the best I can.”
Stone went to the dining room. He moved all the chairs back to the wall, except three, then he went to his desk, rummaged through a drawer, and came up with a small scanner. He replaced the batteries and put it into his pocket, then he sat down and called Marie-Thérèse’s cell phone.
“Yes?”
“
Call me from a pay phone,” he said. “I’ve had my phones checked. They were bugged, but they’re clean now.”
“Ten minutes,” she said, then hung up.
Stone waited as patiently as he could, then picked up the phone as soon as it rang. “That you?”
“It’s me.”
“I have a meeting with the English gentleman at five.”
“Good.”
“We have to talk about what you want, so I’ll have something to negotiate about.”
“I want what he offered me, plus as much else as I can get.”
“You mean money? Damages for your parents’ death?”
“That would be nice.”
“Given the attrition you’ve caused in his organization, I don’t think you’d have a leg to stand on. You’ve already realized a good deal more than tit for tat.”
“All right, I want a written apology for the deaths of my parents.”