by Stuart Woods
“What sort of things?”
“Mainly, the note.”
“Note?”
“Michael had a small, electric typewriter on his desk. I fed in a sheet of his stationery, then typed a note which said, more or less, ‘I did both Sal Trafficante and Hilda Ross, because I was afraid of them both. I owed a bookie that belonged to Sal, and I thought he would hire Hilda to kill me. I arranged the crime scene, especially the bodies, then I got out and came home. I had expected to find money in Sal’s house, but I didn’t, so I came home empty-handed. I’m broke, now, and my mother will disinherit me as soon as she finds out, so I’m doing this for her, so she won’t have to have the pain of dealing with me anymore.’
“When Mickey came home I was ready for him. I had long latex gloves on and a bib around my neck, and a plastic face shield on. I pointed a gun at him, sat him down at his desk, took his own weapon from his shoulder holster and, without another word, shot him in the right side of his forehead. His fingerprints were already on the weapon, so I dropped it beside him, stuffed my protective gear into a shopping bag, took my briefcase containing his money and left, disposing of the various pieces of my gear along the route uptown. Questions?”
“Jesus, Jack, why did you do it?”
“Because Mickey O’Brien was still a threat to me. And what’s more, I believe Sal hired him, not Hilda, to kill you. Now you and I both are clear of everybody who could have hurt us. I couldn’t tell you this last night, because Dino was there. Any other questions?”
“No.”
“Then resume your run, and I’ll do the crossword.”
Stone got up, and so did Bob. They continued their run.
* * *
—
When he got back to his office, he stopped by Joan’s desk.
“Good morning. Nice run?” she asked.
“Perfect,” Stone said. “Remember all the cash you got from the bank?”
“Yes. I couldn’t forget that much money.”
“It’s in the safe in my study. Please return it to wherever you keep cash. We’ll use it as necessary.”
“Is the money anything to do with this?” she asked, handing him a Daily News with a photo of Sal Trafficante on the front page.
“Jesus!” Stone said, reading the piece while faking surprise. “No, it’s nothing to do with this.”
She looked at him askance. “Whatever you say, boss.”
58
Jack Coulter continued to work on his Times crossword until it was finished, then he got up and walked from his bench out into Grand Army Plaza. As he strolled past the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel, a car with darkened windows pulled up beside him, and the rear door opened. The driver got out and something hard pressed into Jack’s gut, and he was propelled into the car. His upper body was quickly frisked, then the door was closed firmly behind him, and the driver got back into the car. It began to move.
“Good morning, Johnny,” the elderly, well-dressed man beside him said.
“Good morning, Don Antonio,” he replied. “To what do I owe this, ah, invitation?”
“It is time for us to speak,” the Don said, lapsing into his native Sicilian dialect. “Much has happened, much has changed. I know of your part in these changes.”
Jack didn’t bother asking how he knew. “I see,” he said.
“Most of these changes had to be done, in any case, but you were useful in implementing them, particularly the departure of Salvatore.”
“I didn’t send him the girl,” Jack said.
“Please,” the Don said, “lying between us is offensive. Let us be frank with each other.”
“As you wish, Don Antonio.”
“I admire the manner in which you have caused yourself to disappear.”
Jack said nothing.
“I might not have known, had it not been for Michael O’Brien, and you, very kindly, arranging for him to disappear into the city morgue.”
Jack kept quiet.
“It is time for a new beginning,” the Don said. “I am old, and if I am careful and fortunate, I will live, perhaps another two years—or possibly, less, according to the Mayo Clinic, where I have recently undergone a complete evaluation. I could, perhaps, stretch that for another year or two, but it would require major surgery. And the recovery time could be weeks, perhaps even months, and I would be incapacitated for much of that time. I prefer to live out my natural life with my wits about me. I hope you can understand that.”
“Of course,” Jack replied. “It is what I would wish for myself.”
“Because of recent events a vacancy exists in my family which cannot be filled from inside it, because of a lack of suitable talent. I invite you to become a member of my family, and to fill that vacancy, recently occupied by Salvatore.”
Jack became hyper alert. If he did not manage the next couple of minutes well, his body might never be found. Certainly, a resting place for it had already been found and awaited him.
He reflected in a space of seconds that this was the man who had kept him in prison long after he could have been paroled, just so that his sister’s son could serve his time in safety.
“You honor me, Don Antonio,” Jack said finally. “I gratefully accept your invitation.”
The Don let out a long breath, as if he had been holding it. He pressed a button, and the partition between the passengers and the driver lowered a few inches. The Don began rattling off directions to the driver. The car slid to a stop, and Jack could see ahead of them. The car was on an empty street on the West Side, a block from the Hudson.
“And after that,” the Don said, then continued with his instructions.
Jack crossed his legs and hoisted his left trouser leg. He pulled down his sock, and a .22 semiautomatic pistol fell into his hand. He reached out and shot the driver twice in the head, then he swiveled toward the Don. “I lied,” he said. Then he shot the man once in the head, causing him to fall sideways, then fired a second shot.
Jack opened the car door, got out, and walked downhill toward the river, fighting the urge to hurry. There was a car wash to his left, on Twelfth Avenue, and a taxi pulled out of it. Jack flagged him down and got in, noting that there was no chase car behind the Don’s vehicle. “Central Park and Fifty-Ninth Street,” he said to the driver, then settled back for the ride, his mind racing.
Gradually, he relaxed. There had been no entourage to witness his departure from the park or the Don’s car. The Don had been that confident of him.
“Let me out at the Plaza,” he said to the driver. When they arrived there, he paid the man, got out of the cab, and walked into the hotel lobby. He spent a couple of minutes window-shopping the little boutiques, then, satisfied that no one was following him, left the hotel in the direction of the fountain, then walked for another half hour before he felt confident that he was still alone. He reduced the small pistol to its parts and threw them into dumpsters along his route, then he took a taxi further downtown.
* * *
—
Stone was at his desk when Joan buzzed. “Yes?”
“Jack Coulter is here,” she said. “He doesn’t have an appointment.”
Jack entered Stone’s office, with Joan and his coffee close behind.
“Good morning, Jack.”
“Good morning, Stone.”
“What brings you to see me so soon after our earlier encounter?”
“I have news. Its source, let us say, is from my personal grapevine.”
“Uh-oh,” Stone said. “Now what?”
“When I told you that, with Sal Trafficante dead, you and I had no further worries about assassins, I believed that to be true, at the time, but I had reckoned without Don Antonio Datilla.”
Stone slumped.
“We have nothing to fear from the Don. A short time ago, he and his driver w
ere shot dead in his car on the West Side, near the car wash.”
Stone’s eyes widened. “Who would take on the Don?”
Jack shrugged. “Someone who, with Sal gone, no longer feared him. He was, after all, an old man, not well, and he had no one left he could trust. There was a break in his shield, and someone took advantage of it.”
“Any idea who?”
Jack shrugged again. “I have few acquaintances among his younger associates. No one comes to mind.”
Stone looked sharply at Jack. “No one? Truly?”
“Truly,” Jack said. He polished off his coffee and stood. “Well, with my news imparted, I will be going.”
Stone stood with him and shook his hand. “Where are you off to?”
Jack smiled. “Anywhere I like,” he said.
END
January 30, 2021
Key West, Florida
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my website at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is probably because you are among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.
Remember: e-mail, reply; snail mail, no reply.
When you e-mail, please do not send attachments, as I never open these. They can take twenty minutes to download, and they often contain viruses.
Please do not place me on your mailing lists for funny stories, prayers, political causes, charitable fund-raising, petitions, or sentimental claptrap. I get enough of that from people I already know. Generally speaking, when I get e-mail addressed to a large number of people, I immediately delete it without reading it.
Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of Writer’s Market at any bookstore; that will tell you how.
Anyone with a request concerning events or appearances may e-mail it to me or send it to: Putnam Publicity Department, Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Those ambitious folk who wish to buy film, dramatic, or television rights to my books should contact Matthew Snyder, Creative Artists Agency, 2000 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, CA 90067.
Those who wish to make offers for rights of a literary nature should contact Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit, 285 Madison Avenue, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10017. (Note: This is not an invitation for you to send her your manuscript or to solicit her to be your agent.)
If you want to know if I will be signing books in your city, please visit my website, www.stuartwoods.com, where the tour schedule will be published a month or so in advance. If you wish me to do a book signing in your locality, ask your favorite bookseller to contact his Penguin representative or the Penguin publicity department with the request.
If you find typographical or editorial errors in my book and feel an irresistible urge to tell someone, please write to Sara Minnich at Penguin’s address above. Do not e-mail your discoveries to me, as I will already have learned about them from others.
A list of my published works appears in the front of this book and on my website. All the novels are still in print in paperback and can be found at or ordered from any bookstore. If you wish to obtain hardcover copies of earlier novels or of the two nonfiction books, a good used-book store or one of the online bookstores can help you find them. Otherwise, you will have to go to a great many garage sales.
Keep reading for an exciting excerpt from the next Stone Barrington novel, Foul Play.
1
Stone Barrington was headed down Second Avenue in the heaviest rain he could remember. Fortunately, he was in a taxi. He was also about a third of a block from his street. The traffic on the cross street had come to a complete halt, and thus had Second Avenue, and Stone had an appointment with a new client in five minutes.
“I think I’d better get out here,” he said to the driver.
“What’s that? I can’t hear you.” The rain was hammering on the cab’s roof, making a horrific noise.
“I’m going to get out!” Stone shouted, shoving some money through the plexiglass screen.
“You’re gonna drown!” the driver shouted.
“I have an umbrella!” Stone shouted back, opening the rear door. He stuck the umbrella out first and got it open, then he stepped into the street and kicked the door shut behind him. He was ankle deep in water, but he made it to the sidewalk, which was marginally better.
As he rounded the corner, the traffic on the cross street suddenly began to move, and turning onto his street, he looked up the block and saw a man kicking something on the sidewalk. His vision was not helped by the rain, but it looked as though a dog was being abused. Stone simultaneously started to trot and closed his umbrella, wrapping the tab around it and securing it, while the rain began drumming on his hat. Then he realized that the lump on the sidewalk was a man.
“Hey!” Stone shouted at the kicker. The man looked up at him; he was wearing a ski mask. Stone ran at him—giving little thought to the size of the man, which was large—and drew back the umbrella. He swung at the man, connecting with his left arm, near the shoulder, and heard a shout of pain. The umbrella was golf-sized and had a thick wooden shaft, topped by a heavy, brierwood curved handle. Stone swung again, aiming at the head. The handle caught the man on the chin, but not solidly, since he was now withdrawing.
Stone thought of pursuing him, but the man on the ground let out a loud groan, gaining Stone’s attention. He opened the umbrella and held it over the victim. “Can you hear me?” Stone shouted.
“Yes,” the man said, nodding. Blood was being washed off his face by the rain.
“If I help you, can you get up?”
“Maybe.”
Stone held out his left hand, and the man grabbed it and struggled to his feet. “Hold on to my arm,” Stone said. “It’s just a few doors.” They shuffled up the street together, taking small steps. At the door, Stone found he couldn’t ring the bell without letting go of the umbrella, so that was what he did. He leaned on the bell and heard a continuous ringing.
A moment later, Joan Robertson, his secretary, opened the door, sized up the situation, and took the man off Stone’s hands. He grabbed the umbrella, closed it, and stepped inside.
“What happened?” Joan asked. “This man is bleeding.”
“Just get him inside, make him as comfortable as you can, then call 911 and ask for an ambulance. Tell them a man has been beaten up, and ask for the cops, too.”
* * *
—
By the time help arrived, Joan had the man out of his raincoat and jacket, his tie was loosened, and he was sitting up in a chair in Stone’s office, sipping from a mug of tea with an electric heater blowing on him. The EMTs arrived first and gave him a quick going-over.
“I don’t think anything is broken,” said the woman in charge of the team, “but it’s a good thing you arrived when you did, or the man might have killed him.”
The two cops stood by. “Our turn now?”
“Sure,” the woman said. “He doesn’t need to be transported. Whatever the lady put in that tea is probably as good for him as anything we’ve got in the wagon.”
Stone walked them to the door, while the cops started aski
ng questions and taking notes. Soon they finished and took their leave.
All that Stone had heard of the conversation was the man’s name. “You’re Shepherd Troutman, is that right?”
“He’s your eleven o’clock,” Joan said. “He was on time, too.” She had tucked a blanket around him.
“He looks like he’s about the same size as Peter,” Stone said, referring to his grown son, who lived in Los Angeles. “See if you can find him a robe in Peter’s closet.”
Joan headed upstairs to Peter’s room, and Stone sat down on the sofa, across the coffee table. “Mr. Troutman, do you feel like talking a bit?” he asked.
“I guess I can rub a few words together and make simple sentences,” he said. “But don’t ask me to do any math.”
“That’s okay with me,” Stone said, “but with all the excitement, I can’t remember why we’re meeting. Who sent you to see me?”
“My banker,” Troutman said. “I’m new to the city, and I opened an account with him.”
“Who sent you to the banker?”
“A guy who went to college with him, who was my last banker.”
“What’s the new guy’s name?”
“Barton Crisp,” he said.
“He’s my banker, too, or one of them. You did well there.”
“That was my instinct.”
“Where’d you come to New York from?”
“Western Massachusetts.”
“My family springs from that area,” Stone said. “Hence my surname.”
“Great Barrington? I’m from Lenox.”
“Welcome to New York,” Stone said. “We’re normally more cordial than your reception this morning. Do you know who your assailant was, or why he attacked you?”
