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worry. I wouldn’t go back to Atlanta any time soon, though, or if you do, don’t tell anybody who might tell him.”
    “How long will we have to deal with this?” she asked.
    “It could go two ways: Either he’ll mellow with time, like most people, or he’ll obsess about it until he can’t stand it anymore, and then make a move.”
    “Knowing Max, it’s going to be the latter,” she said. “He’s the obsessive type, believe me.”
    “Then we’ll just have to be ready for him,” Stone said.
    “Am I going to have to have bodyguards for long?”
    “Hard to say. Cantor and I may feel better about it in a week or ten days, but when the show opens, that’s when we’ll have to watch ourselves.”
    “You mean, watch me.”
    “Well, yes. In the meantime, I’ll cultivate his dislike for me. I’m already off to a good start, after only one phone conversation.”
    “Why?”
    “We’ll see if we can deflect him from you to me. By the way, on Monday morning we’re going to get you a protection order from the court and have it served on him in Atlanta.”
    “If you say so,” Carrie replied, “but I have to warn you, he has a broad antiauthoritarian streak. I used to have to pay his speeding tickets to keep him from getting arrested, and he missed a couple of court appearances during the divorce process.”
    “Still, if he violates it, it’s an excuse to put him behind bars, and that’s where I’d like him to be.”
    “So would I,” Carrie said.
    “What was in the box you sent him?” Stone asked.
    Carrie sighed. “Two guns he gave me, and some small things of his that somehow got packed with my stuff—neckties, cuff links, socks, things like that.”
    “Maybe you should have kept the guns,” Stone said.
    “I still have one.”
    “Don’t take it out of the house; New York City has a very rigid licensing law, and they turn down everybody who applies, unless you’re carrying around a briefcase full of diamonds or large sums of cash. The city believes that protecting property is more important than protecting life.”
    “But you have a gun,” she said. “I saw you put it in the bedside table.”
    “I have several guns, but retired cops get licenses. Dino’s packing right now, but he’s still on the force, so he has to.”
    “The one I have is small enough to put in my purse,” she said.
    “Have you had any firearms training?”
    “I fired a .22 rifle at camp when I was twelve.”
    “Then you’re more likely to hurt yourself or an innocent bystander than Max.”
    “You underestimate me.”
    “Maybe so, but here’s the sort of thing that happens. Maybe you’re injured in a taxi accident, and the EMTs come. At the hospital they go through your purse, looking for ID and an address, and they find your gun and call the cops. Then we’re in court, and believe me, you wouldn’t want to go through that.”
    “So I’m vulnerable.”
    “You have the Leahys, Dino and me, and Cantor. You have your security system and a phone to call 911. If you have to do that, tell the operator that someone has broken into your house and you’re hiding. That will get immediate attention.”
    Dino gave her his card. “Put my cell phone number into your speed-dial list,” he said. “You can always get my immediate attention, even though you’re not in my precinct.”
    She took out her cell phone and entered the number. “Thank you, Dino.”
    The waiter came with menus, and they talked about other things.

10
    ON MONDAY MORNING the Leahys picked up Carrie and took her to her first rehearsal, and Stone went to work in his office, as usual. Shortly after ten o’clock, Joan buzzed Stone. “Bob Cantor on one.”
    Stone pressed the button. “Good morning, Bob. Did you have a nice weekend?”
    “I did until a minute ago,” Cantor said.
    “What’s up?”
    “I had my people in Atlanta on Max Long all weekend. They found a cooperative guard on the apartment complex gate who let them in for a hundred. He