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Chapter 1

Elaine’s, late The place had exhausted its second wind, and half the custoiven Stone Barrington quite so good a table – nuht as you enter Stone knew Elaine, had known her for years, but he was not what you would call a regular – not what Elaine would call a regular, anyway

He rested his left leg on a chair and unconsciously ot down froister, walked over, and pulled up a chair

“So?”

“Not bad,” he said

“How about the knee?” Anybody who knew him knew about the knee; it had received a22-caliber bullet eleven weeks before

“A lot better I walked up here from Turtle Bay”

“When’s the physical?”

“Next week I’ll tap-dance through it”

“So what if you fall on your ass, tap dancing?” Elaine kne to get to the point

“So, then I’m a retiree”

“Best thing could happen to you”

“I can think of better things”

“Co to be a cop Too smart, too You went to law school, didn’t you?”

“I never took the bar”

“So take the bar Make a buck”

“It’s fifteen years since I graduated”

“So? Take one of those cram courses”

“Maybe You’re co on kind of motherly, aren’t you?”

“Sootta tell you this stuff”

“I appreciate the thought Who’s the guy at the bar?” To a cop’s eye the man didn’t fit in somehow He probably wouldn’t fit anywhere Male Caucasian, five-six, a hundred and seventy, thinning brown hair, thick, black-rilasses adhesive-taped in the middle

“In the white coat? Doc”

“That his naame?”

“Both He’s at Lenox Hill, I think He’s in here a lot, late, trying to pick up girls”

“In a hospital jacket?”