Vanessa and Viv got themselves together to leave the yacht, and Stone took Viv aside. “Did you see the huge yacht outside the harbor?” he asked.
“I did. Is it Chekhov’s?”
“I expect so, and I expect the McIntoshes and Vanessa’s mother, Betty, to be aboard her by dinnertime, perhaps sooner.”
“I’ll watch myself and Vanessa, too,” she said, patting her waist where her pistol resided.
“Vanessa is packing, too, and she seems to know how to handle it.”
“Good.”
“Don’t shoot each other,” he said, then watched them walk down the boarding steps and off toward the center of Edgartown.
Dino stepped up beside him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yes,” Stone replied. “Let’s go.” He put on a light jacket to conceal his weapon, and they went up the dock and ashore, then looked around. “Do you see them?”
“No,” Dino said. “How could they disappear so fast?”
“Into a shop,” Stone said. “Let’s have a seat.” He pointed at a bench. The two settled there and had a clear view of downtown Edgartown.
Dino got fidgety. “Where the hell are they?”
“Have you forgotten how long it takes two women to shop?” Stone asked.
“Four times as long as one woman,” Dino replied.
“They’re in one of the shops we can see. They didn’t have time to get any farther.”
A tall, elderly man, clad in white trousers, deck shoes, a blue sailing jacket, and a rumpled tennis hat blocked their view. “Shove over,” he ordered.
Stone and Dino moved over, and he sat down.
“I believe we have a mutual acquaintance, Mr. Barrington.”
“Oh?”
“I’m Percy Willard,” he said, not offering a hand. “Your women are in the shoe shop over there.” He nodded rather than pointed.
“Oh, God,” Dino said, “not the shoe shop! They’ll be in there all day.”
“You would know better than I,” Percy said. “My wife’s been dead for fifteen years.”
“I hear you’re station chief here, Percy,” Stone said.
“Not much of a station,” he replied. “Just me. And call me Perce.”
“I’m Stone, he’s Dino.”
They sat silently and waited, while Perce pretended to read a New York Times.
“Will you join us for dinner aboard Breeze?” Stone asked.
“I’m a Connecticut Yankee,” Perce replied, “and as such, I never turn down anything free. What time?”
“Come at six-thirty for free booze.”
“How dressed?”
“Up.”
“May I bring a date?”
“Of course.”
“You talked me into it. You’ve seen Tsarina?”
“Hard to miss her,” Stone said.
“Wretched excess,” he replied.
“It’s what Russians do with stolen money.”
“Quite right.”
They were silent for a moment. “What would you do with stolen money?” Stone asked, to pass the time.
“Hide it somewhere and buy better scotch and wines, then drink the evidence,” Perce replied. “I see a blonde and a redhead with shopping bags.”
“Those are ours,” Stone said, making to rise.
“Stay where you are,” Perce commanded. “Let’s see where they go next. Are you expecting either of them to drop or pick up something?”
“Nothing they can’t get in a store.”
“And that’s a lot,” Dino said.
“I apologize for my friend,” Stone said. “He’s very rich, but he hasn’t gotten used to it yet.”
“I understand that. My wife’s family had money, and I’ve still got most of it. I did spring for a nice Concordia.”
“I’ve got one of those, in Maine,” Stone said.
“I heard somebody’s big yacht turned it into toothpicks in a fog,” Perce said.
“That happened, but the offenders replaced it with an even nicer one.”
“Lucky you.”
“Where did they go?” Dino asked.
“Into the art gallery on your right,” Perce said.
“Wake up, Dino,” Stone chimed in.
“What for? There are two other sets of eyes on the job.”
The three of them sat for another hour, watching the women enter and depart every other shop in sight, then turn toward them, festooned with shopping bags.
“See you at six-thirty,” Perce said, then got up and disappeared into the afternoon crowd.
Stone and Dino watched them pass, ignoring their men, then walk out onto the dock where Breeze lay.
The women were already sipping something tropical-looking when Stone and Dino returned to the yacht. The two men accepted their usuals from a stewardess. “We’ll be two more for dinner,” Stone said to her. “The pilots will dine with you.”
They finished their drinks then went to change. Stone wore his reefer suit, with a little diamond and sapphire replica of the Royal Yacht Squadron burgee stuck in his black necktie. Everybody else wore Sunday best.
They had hardly gotten settled when the stewardess announced, “Mr. Percy Willard and Ms. Christina Cabot.” They shook hands, sat down, and were brought drinks. “She’s a cousin of our acquaintance,” Perce confided to Stone.
Christina Cabot was a striking woman of, perhaps, fifty, with beautiful gray hair setting off her tan. Her breasts swelled under a strapless white dress.
Stone noticed that Perce had an earpiece in his left ear, and he suspected it was not a hearing aid.
“What do you hear from Tsarina?” Stone asked him.
Perce nodded toward a small group of people walking down the dock to where a large tender awaited them and their luggage. The McIntoshes and Betty Baker led the way.
“Vanessa?” Stone said quietly, then nodded toward the group, as the tender took them away.
“Well,” Vanessa said. “It’s a relief to know where they are.”