Lucid Intervals (Stone Barrington 18)

“Yes, it could.”

“I’m so glad.”

Dino pulled an envelope from his pocket. “The FBI photo comparison program pulled this from a bank security camera two blocks up Park Avenue from the Seagram Building.” He laid the photo on the table. It was that of a stocky man in a good suit, wearing a hat, entering the bank. “It was a good match.”

Stone looked at the photo. “It’s no better than the one we got from the Seagram Building,” he said.

“Wait, there’s another angle,” Dino said, producing another photograph and laying it on the table. This one was full face, but from farther away.

Stone and Felicity peered at it.

“Can they enhance it?” Felicity asked.

“This is the enhanced version,” Dino said.

“It gives an impression of the same man,” Stone said, “but it’s too blurry for identification. The Seagram stuff was much sharper.”

“The bank equipment isn’t as recent,” Dino said. “Would you rather have a blurry photograph or no photograph at all?”

“Hobson’s choice,” Felicity said.

“What?” Dino asked.

“It’s Britspeak for no choice at all,” Stone replied.

“May I keep these?” Felicity asked.

“Sure,” Dino said. “Anybody hungry?” Without waiting for a reply, he waved at a waiter for menus.

“I need red meat,” Felicity said. “Sirloin, please, medium rare, pommes frites.”

“It shall be so,” Stone replied, ordering two.

“Make it three,” Dino said.

“DO YOU EVER think of retiring, Dino?” Felicity asked when thei

r steaks were ruins of their former selves.

“Never,” Dino said. “I’m going to do the full thirty, and then we’ll see.”

“You’ll have to take a promotion,” Stone said.

“Nah, I have an understanding with the commissioner.”

“Dino doesn’t want to be a captain,” Stone explained to Felicity. “He likes to pretend he’s still a street cop.”

“I don’t pretend,” Dino said. “I am a street cop.”

“Yes, but you never see the street, except from the rear seat of your cop-chauffeured car,” Stone pointed out.

“I understand, Dino,” Felicity said. “Sometimes I wish I were, well, a street agent again.”

“They got you cuffed to a desk?” Dino asked.

“A very good description,” she replied.

“I wouldn’t like that.”