Unintended Consequences

take the security guys with you.”
    “Done,” Viv said.
    “I wonder if Helga plays golf,” Stone said.
    •   •   •
    H elga, as it happened, played to a six handicap and won all of Stone’s and Dino’s money. They got back to the house just in time to clean up and have drinks.
    “I won!” Helga said as she walked into the library.
    “Gloating is unattractive,” Stone said.
    “Gloating is fun!” she cried.
    “How was the antiquing?” Stone asked Viv. “To change the subject.”
    “It was spectacular!” she replied. “I found a couple of good pictures, a beautiful set of china, and a dining room table and twelve chairs! I couldn’t believe it!”
    “I don’t believe it now,” Dino said. “We don’t have a dining room.”
    “We will have, and they’ve agreed to deliver when we move in.”
    “Where are you looking?” Stone asked.
    “Upper East Side,” Viv replied. “I’ve already seen a dozen places. Dino has seen two.”
    “I work for a living,” Dino said.
    “I work for a living, too,” Viv said. “He just doesn’t like the idea of moving.”
    “I like my place.”
    “It was a great bachelor apartment, Dino, but you’re not a bachelor anymore, and there isn’t enough closet space or a dining room or a study for you and one for me.”
    “I would like a study,” Dino admitted.
    “Also, now that you’re in the NYPD hierarchy, we’re going to have to entertain a lot.”
    “Now and then,” Dino said, “not a lot.”
    “She’s right, Dino,” Stone said. “You’re going to have to have the commissioner over a lot, maybe even the mayor, and a lot of people whose friendship the department needs. It will be expected of you.”
    “I hate it when they expect stuff from me,” Dino said grumpily.
    “You don’t hate going to other people’s houses and eating their food and drinking their scotch,” Viv said.
    “Yeah, I like that okay.”
    “It’ll be more fun in your own home. I’m looking at a place Monday on Park in the Sixties, and I just have a feeling . . .”
    “Uh-oh,” Dino said. “
The feeling
. I’ve learned that
the feeling
is irresistible.”
    “My lawyers are meeting with Bill Eggers over the weekend,” Marcel said. “By Monday, we should have a contract.”
    “You’re very easy to deal with, Marcel.”
    “When both sides know they want the same things, it’s easy to agree. I’ve cultivated a reputation for being easy to deal with. It makes others easy to deal with, as well. You don’t learn that in your business schools over here. Your businessmen look upon a negotiation as a fight. I look upon it as making everybody happy. And achieving agreement is cheaper than fighting.”
    “You should write a business book, Marcel,” Stone said.
    “I’ve already written thirty chapters,” Marcel replied. “And I don’t have to worry about getting it accepted by a publisher, because I own a publishing house.”
    Everybody laughed.
    “There, laughter,” Marcel said, “that’s a nice sound. I haven’t heard that sound since dinner last night.”
    •   •   •
    T hey had a good dinner, followed on Sunday by sitting around and reading
The New York Times
and
The Wall Street Journal
, then more golf and more antiquing, followed by dinner at home, prepared by Viv and Helga. They got up early Monday morning, had a good breakfast, and drove back to the city, unthreatened by black vans.
    •   •   •
    A s they drove up to his house, Stone stopped before opening the garage door and looked at the building. “Nothing has changed,” he said. “They didn’t install the windows.”
    “Or,” Dino said, “maybe they did such a good job that you can’t tell the new windows from the old ones.”
    Dino turned out to be right.

41
    S tone was struck by how quiet the house was. Traffic was roaring away on Second and Third avenues, and he could hear none of it. He figured out how to unlock a window, opened it, and the noise came rushing in. He felt a pane on both sides and reckoned that the glass was at least half an inch thick. He closed the window, locked it, and the noise vanished.
    Helga unpacked her clothes and put her laundry in the chute for Helene to deal with. “Time for shopping,” she said. “Where do I shop?”
    “The best shopping mall in the world is Madison Avenue between Fifty-seventh and Seventy-second streets,” Stone said, “from Bergdorf Goodman to Ralph Lauren, but you’ll have to wait for Marcel to