L.A. Dead

"Dino…" Stone warned.

Esposito helped the chauffeur stow the luggage into a forward area of the interior.

The party stepped into a cabin that looked like the living room of a New York City town house.

Stone was flabbergasted. "Where's the fireplace and the grand piano?" he asked.

An Armani-clad stewardess took their hand luggage and showed them through the airplane. Besides the big cabin, there was a conference room and, behind that, two sleeping cabins, each with its own bathroom.

Dino shook his head. "The wages of sin," he said under his breath, avoiding Stone's glance.

As if from a great distance, there was the sound of jet engines revving, and almost imperceptibly, the big airplane began to move.

Chapter 2

Somewhere over the Atlantic, Stone stirred in his sleep and turned over, bringing his chest against Dolce's naked back. He reached over her and cupped a breast in his hand, resting his cheek on the back of her neck. With thumb and forefinger, he lightly caressed the nipple.

At that moment, a chime sounded and the soft voice of the stewardess spoke. "Ms. Bianchi, we're two hours from our destination. If you and your party would like breakfast, it will be ready in half an hour."

"I think we're going to be late for breakfast," Stone breathed into Dolce's ear.

She turned over, put her feet on the floor, and stood up. "No, we're not," she said.

"You mean you're spurning your intended?"

"I mean I've decided to be a virgin until we're married."

"Isn't it a little late for that?"

"I can start over whenever I like," she said, "and I've just started over."

Shortly, they joined Dino and Mary A

"That was the best nights sleep I've ever had on an airplane," Dino admitted.

"We didn't sleep all that much," Mary A

Stone indicated the large moving map at the front of the cabin. "We' re just crossing the Portuguese coast," he said. "Nice tailwind; we're doing over six hundred miles an hour."

The moving map dissolved, and CNN International appeared on the screen.

"Turn that off," Dolce said to the stewardess. "I don't need news for a while.

The stewardess pressed a button, and Vivaldi came softly over hidden speakers. "Better?" she asked.

"Perfect," Dolce said. She turned to Stone and the others. "I have a little a

"Shoot," Stone replied.

"Papa is giving us the Manhattan town house for a wedding present."

Stone stopped eating. His fiancee was referring to a double-width brick-and-granite mansion in the East Sixties that Eduardo Bianchi had built. He took Dolce's hand. "I'm sorry, my dear, but I can't accept that. It's very generous of Eduardo, but I already have a house, and we'll be living there."

"Don't I have any say in where we live?" Dolce asked.

"You've never asked me very much about my background," Stone said, "so it's time I told you about my family."

"I know all about that," Dolce replied.

"Only what you read in the report Eduardo had done on me. It doesn't tell you everything."

"So, tell me everything," she said.

"My parents were both from wealthy textile manufacturing families in western Massachusetts, the Stones and the Barringtons; they knew each other from childhood. Neither of them liked the plans their families had made for them. When the crash came in 'twenty-nine, both families were hit hard, and both had lost their businesses and most their fortunes by the early thirties.

"My parents used this upheaval as an opportunity to get out from under their parents' thumbs. My mother left Mount Holyoke, where she was studying art, and my father left Yale, where he was meant to study law, although the only thing he had ever wanted to do was carpentry and woodworking; they married and moved to New York City. My father's family disowned him, because he had joined the Communist party; my mother's family disowned her, because she had married my father.

"They found themselves very broke and living in a Greenwich Village garret. My mother was doing charcoal drawings of tourists in Washington Square for fifty cents a shot, and my father was carrying his toolbox door to door, doing whatever handyman's work he could find, for whatever people would pay him. He was about to go off and join the Civilian Conservation Corps, just to stay alive, when a wonderful thing happened.

"My mother's aunt-her mother's sister-and her new husband bought a house in Turtle Bay, and my aunt hired my father to build her husband a library. That job saved their lives, and when it was done, Aunt Mildred and her husband were so pleased with it that they also comissioned my father to design furniture for the house and my mother to paint pictures for some of the rooms. When their friends saw the house, they immediately began offering him other commissions, and before too many years had passed, both my parents had won reputations for their work. I didn't come along for quite a long time, but by the time that accident had occurred, they could afford me."

Dolce started to speak, but Stone stilled her with a raised hand.

"There's more. Many years later, when Aunt Matilda died, having been preceded by her husband, she left the house to me. I was still a cop then, working with your brother-in-law, and I poured what savings I had into renovating the house, doing a great deal of the work myself, using skills learned in my father's shop. Finally, after leaving the NYPD-by popular request-I was able to earn a good enough living as a lawyer to finish the house. So, you see, the house is not only a part of my family history, it is all I have left of my parents and the work they devoted their lives to. I have no intention of moving out of it, ever. I hope you understand, Dolce."

Nobody moved. Stone and Dolce stared expressionlessly at each other for a very long moment, then Dolce smiled and kissed him. "I understand," she said, "and I won't bring it up again. I'll be proud to live in your house."

"I'll be happy to explain things to Eduardo," Stone said.

"That won't be necessary," Dolce replied. "I'll explain it to him, and, I promise, he'll understand completely."

"Thank you, my dear," Stone said.

"So," Mary A

"We'll go directly from the airport to Papa's house," Dolce said. "We'll have di

"Sounds good," Mary A

"Who's the cardinal?" Dino asked.

"Bellini," Dolce replied.

"Doesn't he run the Vatican bank?"

"Yes, he does."

"How like Eduardo," Dino said, "to have his daughter married by a priest, a prince of the Church, and an international banker, all wrapped up in one."

"Why two ceremonies?" Stone asked.

Mary A

"It's the Italian equivalent of a royal wedding," Dino said. "It's done these days only for the very important, and, as we all know, Eduardo…" He trailed off when he caught Stone's look.