Michelle is going to stay here for a bit, in my room. All tapping had ceased, and the rest of the Burners stopped working to listen. Not exactly, I said. Stone found his own phone and called Fred. Well talk about it tonight. Im at work right now and I need to go. Dinos phone rang. Bacchetti. He listened. “Thanks, keep calling. He hung up. “The woman had a couple grand in hundreds in her bag,” he said. “Youre cheap game, apparently.” Now, did you notice anything about whether she was carrying a purse when she left the apartment? I hand you this revolver which has been introduced in evidence and ask you if you have ever seen it before. Mr. Mason, you arent buying this stock with the idea of making some sort of a combination and getting control, are you? You knew that he had sold his stock in the Sylvan Glade Development Company? There were two things I could do. I could set up a howl or I could pay. But I wasnt in Birmingham to set up a howl. I was there to pick up eight votes. So I paid, silent and perhaps shame-faced, and when I did she grinned spitefully, the way some people do when theyve taken money away from a coward, and said, Maybe thatll teach you to take blue-gummed niggers to lunch. Me with my binoculars and my damn curiosity, leading with my chin. The whole thing was perfectly timed. After her discovery, the girl had just enough head start to reach the water in front of my canoe before they turned the dog loose. And the dog was right at her heels. Naturally I pushed the dog away and invited the girl to get in. She was good-looldng, casually flippant—she didnt seem like a thief—and you have to admit the approach was unusual. I asked the security guard later after you left and I slipped away from the ambulance guys. I went back to the building. He said you had come inside earlier, right after I did. Dennis is dead. He passed away nearly nine months ago. Viv is on board for that, Dino said. I imagine that Vanessa would be for it..