“My mother bought it forty years ago,” Herbie said. “Sheila doesn’t have any family, and I didn’t think the plot ought to go to waste.”
The car stopped, and the three of them got out. Herbie led the way, and Stone and Dino followed.
Stone tugged at Dino’s sleeve. “How the hell did Herbie get you to do this?” he asked.
“He paid me,” Dino replied.
“Paid you? How much?”
“That is an indecorous question, under the circumstances,” Dino replied. “A woman is dead.”
“I feel as though I’m in some bizarre dream,” Stone said. “Is this really happening?”
“Seems to be,” Dino replied.
The coffin was perched over the open grave, and a man wearing a black robe stood by it, along with another, shorter man in a black suit. Herbie spoke quietly with the robed man and handed him an envelope.
“Shall we begin?” the robed man asked.
“Just a minute,” Herbie said, looking back toward the road.
Three men in suits were coming their way, looking uncomfortable.
Stone whispered to Dino. “At least one of them is packing,” he said.
“All three of them are,” Dino replied, “but so am I.”
The three men walked around to the other side of the coffin, all three glaring at Herbie.
The robed man began to speak in Hebrew.
Stone and Dino watched the three men, who continued to glare at Herbie. Dino took his badge out and hung it in the breast pocket of his suit. The three men looked even more uncomfortable but stopped glaring.
Stone had a sudden urge to burst out laughing but controlled himself.
The robed man stopped speaking, stepped back and nodded at the other man, who was apparently the funeral director. The shorter man reached down to the frame supporting the coffin and did something, and the coffin began to lower into the grave. Herbie picked up a little dirt from the pile beside the grave and tossed it onto the descending coffin, then the three men did the same.
“God bless you all,” the robed man said, then turned and began walking back toward the road followed by the three men.
Stone, Dino and Herbie gave them a head start, then followed. They got into the Maybach, the robed man tossed his robe into a Toyota and got in, and the three men got into a Cadillac. They all left.
“Who were the three men?” Stone asked.
“The tall guy was her pimp,” Herbie replied. “The other two used to be my bookie and my loan shark.”
“And who was the guy in the robe?”
“He used to be a rabbi,” Herbie said, “but something happened, I’m not sure what. The funeral guy found him. I think Sheila was Jewish.”
“That was thoughtful of you, Herbie,” Stone said. “I thought the three guys were going to start shooting at one point, but Dino stopped them with his badge. Nice move, Dino.”
“It was better than getting shot,” Dino replied.
WHEN STONE GOT home, a small package had been delivered for him. Inside was a small black box and a note from Jim Hackett:
Directions: Go to your master extension-the one that your office phone system is programmed from-unplug your telephone, plug the wire into the box, then plug the wire from the box into the telephone. This will cause all your telephone extensions to be encrypted when you are called from another encrypted phone. Talk to you soon.
Stone did as instructed.
48
Felicity called late in the afternoon. “Can we meet for dinner somewhere different? I’m gaining weight.”
“How about Café des Artistes?” Stone suggested.
“Fine. Eight o’clock? I’ll be working until then.”
“Good.” Stone hung up and asked Joan to book the table.
FELICITY ARRIVED WITH her omnipresent attaché case, and Stone held a chair for her. He ordered them Champagne fraise des bois, glasses of Champagne with a strawberry liqueur at the bottom.
“I’ve heard this place is about to close,” Stone said.
“What? Why?”
“The owner is getting very old, and the lease may be a problem, too. It’s been here for more than ninety years and has had only two owners.”
“How sad.”
They both looked at the Howard Chandler Christy murals of nubile, nude young women greeting conquistadors in a jungle setting.
“Have you noticed,” Stone said, “that while the girls have different faces, they all have the same body?”
“I hadn’t, but you’re right,” Felicity said. “I hope someone will take care of them.”
“So do I,” Stone replied. “What happened today?”
“Today has been devoted to keeping things from happening,” she said.
“Any luck?”
“All I’ve got to fight with is my resignation, and they know that if they accept it I may talk to other people about why.” Stone began to speak, but she held up a hand. “And I still can’t talk about it,” she said.
“If they accept your resignation, then can you talk about it?”
“Maybe.”
“So I’ll just have to sit on my curiosity.”
“All right, I’ll tell you some news, but in the strictest confidence.”
“Of course.”
“The grave Hackett showed you in the churchyard in Maine is empty. That is, there is no corpse or even a coffin or an urn in it. It’s not a grave at all, in fact, just a headstone.”
Stone sucked in a breath through his teeth. “So Hackett lied to me about that.”
“He not only lied to you; he also went to considerable lengths to deceive you by creating a phony grave.”
“And phony photographs of a corpse and phony fingerprints.”
“Did you notice that there were no fingerprints in the army service record he sent me?” she asked.
“Now that you mention it,” Stone replied. “Do your superiors know about all this?”
“Not yet,” she replied, sipping her Champagne.
“Are you going to tell them?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“If you do tell them, are you going to have to resign?”
“Very likely so.”
“I wish I knew some way to get you out of this,” Stone said.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Felicity replied. “Just deliver a living, breathing Stanley Whitestone to any British immigration officer.”
“Or his corpse.”
“If it can be authenticated, and since we don’t have any photographs or fingerprints, that will be extremely difficult.”
“Whom do we have to convince?”
“Only the foreign secretary, the home secretary and their appointed authenticators.”
“Only them?”
“Only them.”
“Order dinner,” Stone said, handing her a menu, “while I think about it.”
They ordered dinner and another glass of Champagne.
“Have you thought about it?” Felicity asked.
“Yes.”
“And have you thought of a way to accomplish this?”
Stone sighed. “What I need to do is to speak to Jim Hackett and tell him to accomplish this.”
“Hackett has already tried and failed, which destroys his credibility in the eyes of my masters.”
“There is that,” Stone agreed.
“Soon they will begin to erode his company’s position in the UK, and eventually they will destroy his business there.”
“Does Hackett have important contracts in the UK?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Government contracts?”
“A few. Those will go first, then the government will begin to let Hackett’s clients know that it would be unwise to continue to engage Strategic Services, and the fruits of Hackett’s labors will wither and die on the vine.”
“Perhaps he should be told that,” Stone said.
“Perhaps so, though I should be very surprised if he hasn’t already thought of it. Will you call him?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because Hackett has disappeared,” Stone replied.
“What do you mean, disappeared?”