“Did you talk to him?”
“I looked away for a minute, trying to figure out what to do, and when I turned back, he was gone.”
Stone nodded, he hoped sagely.
“Stone?”
“Yes?”
“How is the Colonel?”
Stone told him.
“I’m glad he’s all right,” Cantor said.
“Bob.”
“Yeah?”
“If you see this guy again or hear from him, you should get in touch with me right away.”
“Why?”
“To make sure the Colonel stays all right.”
10
Stone went back to his office and tried to get some work done, but it took him more than two hours to write a brief that should have taken half an hour. There were times when he wished he had an associate to dump these things on.
Joan buzzed him. “Cabot on line one,” she said.
“Which Cabot?”
“There’s more than one?”
Stone picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“It’s Lance.”
“How did it go this morning?”
“We had a very nice lunch together at the Mayflower Inn, in Washington. He seemed not to want me in the house.”
“So, did you detect any sign of a woman there?”
“Don’t try and be funny, Stone.”
“You seemed miffed that I didn’t detect that; I just wanted to see if your powers of deduction exceeded mine.”
“Barton seems to have mostly recovered his memory.”
“What do you mean by mostly?”
“He doesn’t remember anything about the night he was attacked, but it’s common for trauma victims not to remember the trauma.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You sound skeptical.”