“Wanta bet?”
“I don’t think so,” Dino said resignedly.
“Good move,” Stone chipped in.
Arrington moved over to the stove and pretended to watch Stone work on the clam sauce. “Who is Mary Ann’s father?” she whispered.
“Why?” Stone whispered back. “You want somebody in cement shoes?”
“Oh.” She went back and sat down at the table. “Smells wonderful,” she said.
“I’m having a hard time with this,” Mary Ann said.
“With what?”
“With this extremely white-bread person over there making me Italian food.”
“I’m pretending to be a guinea,” Stone said.
“I hope it works.”
“We’re about to find out,” Stone said. He drained the pasta and dumped it in with the sauce, moving it around with a fork and spoon. He set the steaming platter on the table, where a salad and garlic bread already rested.
Everybody watched as Mary Ann expertly twirled some linguine around her fork and popped it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Not enough garlic,” she said.
“There’s twelve cloves in there,” Stone said, sounding hurt.
“Just kidding,” Mary Ann said, “my mother couldn’t have done it better. Well, not much better.”
Everybody pitched into the pasta. A commercial interrupted the game, and Dino switched to New York One, the all-news local channel.
“Don’t do that,” Mary Ann said.
“Why not? There was a commercial on the game.”
She turned to Stone and Arrington. “He turns on New York One in the hope that he’ll learn about a recently committed crime and he can leave his dinner and rush out to solve it.” She turned back to her husband. “You can do that at home, but not when you’re at somebody else’s house.” She picked up the remote control and switched back to the game.
“Wait!” Arrington cried. “Turn it back!” She grabbed at the remote control and started changing channels desperately.
“Channel ten,” Dino said helpfully.
She found it.
“What’s going on, Arrington?” Stone asked.
“I saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“He’s there, look for him!”
“Look for who?”
“Shut up.”
Stone shut up and watched. Arrington turned on the sound.