I went into the whole story. I waited for her to start crying. Ruth looked at me gravely and then in an equally grave tone she said,Yes, perhaps youd better. He got off on the forty-first floor and found Wanda Simms about a minute later. She normally got in early, he knew, and she had her office on this floor. She was striding through the halls making sure that everything in her domain was ready to go for when everyone arrived. He imagined her home would be spotless and well organized right down to the kitchen cutlery drawers and the kitty litter box. Wait a minute. What the hells that supposed to mean? He came slowly around the corner of the house, his pistol still in his hand. He looked at the blond man he had shot and then he looked at me. Let em have it and well trump it, Mason announced optimistically. The newspaper people have been here? he asked. I thought those contracts were against the law. Stone returned everything to its original place in the wallet and handed it back to Dino.Frances said Larkin liked the Upper East Side, Stone said. “Dino, did any of your people talk to that real estate agent who had rented to him? Who knows? Maybe somebodys paying him a little money. Or maybe hes just ambitious. Try this one on. Suppose Gallops came to you about September first and said, There wont be any strike if you put it in writing that you’ll make me Secretary of Labor.’ He sat back and thought about this. Morgan and Stanley. Plenty of stuff on both people, now long dead. Same for Merrill and Lynch. The defunct Lehman Brothers, the same. J. P. Morgan was a real guy. E. F. Hutton as well. Hell, even Harley and Davidson, if you ventured outside the financial world. Dino left, and they sat down again, Vanessa in Stones lap. Im glad Dinos gone, she said. “I’ve missed you. She could be working anywhere, you know, with her skills and mind. She could be teaching at UPenn or Stanford. I rest my case, and Im not even a lawyer. Did you make any investigation of the yacht, the Kathy-Kay, owned by the defendant in this case? Mason gave her leg a casual glance, nodded, said,Nice. Start there, Dino said. Find out if the wife has money of her own and which dealer she bought the car from. I want to know if they took out a loan or paid cash. Look for a guy in a business suit and a hat, Stone said. Judge Hoyt frowned. The sheriff, half raising himself from the chair, shouted,I told you we signed it just before the purse was put in it.