Standup Guy (Stone Barrington)

by Stuart Woods

  “There’s a guy up in Delray Beach named Harry Moss. Write this down.” Manny gave him everything he had. “He’s a retired FBI guy. A friend of mine wants to know everything there is to know about him.”

  “Everything? Like what?”

  “Everything you can find out by the end of the week. Think of it as an employment investigation. My friend especially wants to know the dirt.”

  “I’m gonna need expenses.”

  “I think my friend will spring for another grand.”

  “Okay, I’m on it.”

  “Call me when you’re done. I’ll give you my friend’s number.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “Don’t ask.” Manny hung up.

  • • •

  Crowder hoisted himself out of bed and looked around. Good thing the woman was coming in this afternoon. He picked up the beer bottles and treated himself to his first shave and shower in three days, ignoring the thirst that lived at the back of his throat.

  That done, he stuck a couple of days’ clothes into a duffel and ripped the plastic wrap off a dry-cleaned suit. He left the woman’s money under the pepper mill on the kitchen counter, and filled his pockets with the usual crap. He hesitated when he came to the 9mm and decided to go with his old snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Airweight revolver that he had worn on his ankle for years as a backup piece. He Velcroed it in place, put on a necktie, grabbed a straw fedora and his duffel, then went down to his car, a 1968 Mercedes convertible that made him look classy to the women. On his way up U.S. 1, he ran it through a car wash, which felt almost as good as his shower.

  After that, since he had hocked his laptop, he stopped in a computer café and rented himself an hour of running down his target on Google and Facebook. He was amused that Harry Moss had what had to be a fifteen-year-old photograph posted, along with a plea to hear from eligible ladies. That done, he drove to Delray and found the elderly beachfront apartment building that was home to Mr. Moss.

  Question: how did the guy buy this place and handle the property taxes on an FBI pension? A trip to the courthouse solved that riddle. Then he looked for the nearest coffee shop that a sixty-one-year-old guy would have breakfast at every day. He found just the right place, went in, sat at the counter, and ordered a big breakfast. An attractive black woman in a neat uniform took his order, then succumbed to his charms and started talking.

  “You a cop?” she asked.

  “You’re smart—ex-FBI, retired a couple years ago. I’m Will, Madge.” Her name was on a plastic tag pinned to her yellow uniform.

  “Hey. I got another regular customer used to be FBI. Maybe you know him?”

  “Name?”

  “Harry Moss.”

  “Sure I knew him a little: not too tall, balding, early sixties?”

  “He’s not balding anymore, he’s bald.”

  And in forty-five minutes, between eggs and bacon and the occasional other customers’ needs, he got a lot. He left a big tip.

  “You come back, now, hear?”

  “I hear ya. You want to have dinner one of these nights?”

  She handed him a card. “Call me and find out.”

  • • •

  Crowder hung around the apartment building long enough to see Moss leave the building. He followed from way back and watched the man park at a shopping center and go into a Publix market. He left with half a basket of what Crowder thought was probably frozen dinners.

  Crowder didn’t wait for him to go out in the evening; he could make that up later. He drove home, found his apartment clean and neat, then sat down and wrote out his report. He hung his suit in the closet and fell into his reclining chair in his shirt and shorts with a large bourbon. Tiger Woods was playing in California, and he was looking good.

  • • •

  Harry Moss walked into the diner at five o’clock for his usual slice of key lime pie and coffee. “Hey, Madge,” he said, climbing onto a stool.

  “Hey, Harry,” Madge said. She put the pie and coffee on the counter without being asked. “Friend of yours came in here this morning.”

  “Friend?” Who would that be?

  “Well, he said he knew you a little from the FBI days. Name of Will. Black dude.”

  Moss paused with the first bite of pie nearly to his mouth, then he put down the fork. “I only ever knew two or three black agents, and none of ’em was Will.”

  Madge shrugged. “I guess he got the wrong guy, then. He described you like he knew you, though.”

  Moss made a second attempt to eat the first bite of his pie, but his mouth tasted funny, and he put it down again. “Madge, you been talking about me to somebody?”

  “Nah, he brought you up,” she lied.

  “What’d he ask you?”

  “He wanted to know if you lived around here, said he wanted to look you up.” She was getting into the swing of her lie, now, to see if she could get a rise out of Harry. She did.

  Moss’s face was turning red. “What did you tell him?”

  “Just that I knew you. I told him I don’t know where you live.”

  “You sure you didn’t tell him that?”

  “Now that I think of it, I don’t know where you live.”

  “What was he driving?”

  “An old Mercedes convertible, real old. He parked it across the street.”

  “What color?”

  “Kind of off-white.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Big black dude, six-two, on the heavy side. Sharp dresser.”

  Moss tried again with the pie and got down a bite. Who the hell was this guy?

  43

  Stone got downstairs to his office at the usual time, and there was a pink memo slip on his desk: call Dan Sparks. Stone called. Out of the office, leave a message. He did. A week had passed since he had been up to Connecticut, and he hadn’t seen Hank, which was okay with him. He was oddly disturbed that she had been sleeping with her captor. What was that? Stockholm syndrome?

  He called Dino. “Morning.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “You heard anything from Dan Sparks?”

  “I had a message on my desk when I got in. He was out when I called back.”

  “Me, too. You think his people picked up Buono?”

  “I’d be real surprised if Bats was still in Connecticut. You see him on the news?”

  “I saw a report.”

  “I ran him against the database, and he had no arrest record,” Dino said.

  “I would have thought he did,” Stone said. “I mean, the guy’s a career criminal, and he’s, what, forty? How’d he avoid arrest for so long?”

  “He must be real careful. You know, it’s funny, his uncle Eduardo never got busted, either, until his pals gave him up after his big heist.”

  “Maybe caution runs in the family. He’s got a father named Gino, lives in Queens. Run him, will you?”

  “Hang on.” There was the sound of computer keys clicking.

  “Nada,” Dino said. “He’s clean.”

  “That’s puzzling. You think it means anything?”

  “Means what? I can’t think of anything. Either they were all three extremely smart and careful, or they all got very lucky.”

  “That’s too lucky,” Dino said. “Hang on, Dan Sparks is returning my call. I’ll tie you in, if I can remember how to work this phone.”

  There was a click. “Dan?”

  “Yeah, Dino.”

  “I’ve got Stone on the line, too. Save you a call.”

  “Thanks, I need to talk to the two of you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “My crime-scene team went through the house on the lake, and they found traces of blood in the kitchen drain.”

  “I don’t think Hank was hurt,” Stone said.

  “Well, it’s not a mystery. We found a body about fifteen yards into the trees.”

  “What kind of a body?” Dino asked.

  “White male, five-eight, maybe, a hundred and forty, ma
ybe, sporty clothes.”

  “Did you take prints?” Stone asked.

  “Yeah, we can scan and run ’em pretty much instantly these days. No hit on our computers or the national.”

  “What about dental?”

  “That’ll be tough,” Sparks said. “The guy has no head.”

  It got real quiet for a few seconds.

  “Cause of death?” Dino asked.

  “Multiple knife wounds in his back. A knife in the kitchen matches the wounds—that’s one possibility. An ax was leaning against a woodshed at the side of the house—that’s another.”

  “Any sign of the car?” Stone asked.

  “Sign, yeah. There were tracks running into the lake.”

  “Could you see anything in the water?”

  “Nah, lake’s about thirty feet deep there. We’ve got divers on the way. They can probably float it.”

  “How do they do that?” Stone asked.

  “They’ll take big bladders down there, put ’em in the car and inflate ’em from compressed-air bottles. That should pop it right up, and we can tow it to shore. You fellas thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Probably,” Dino said.

  “Maybe,” Stone chipped in.

  “My guess, the lady didn’t take kindly to being kidnapped, so she took the first opportunity.”

  “She didn’t want to drive away in the car,” Dino said. “She knew he drove stolen cars from his chop shop.”

  “Nice point,” Sparks said.

  “If I were a lawyer,” Stone said, “oh, that’s right, I am—I could make a case for self-defense in court.”

  “I would buy that,” Sparks said, “if the guy still had a head.”

  “Kidnapping rage?” Stone suggested.

  Both Sparks and Dino laughed heartily.

  “You got an APB out on her?” Dino asked, when he had recovered himself.

  “Yeah, but we’re playing that tune softly: we’re seeking her for information about a possible crime.”

  “That’s polite,” Dino said.

  “We thought so. I’d like to hear her story, before we paint her as an ax-wielding, backstabbing homicidal maniac.”

  “Very restrained,” Dino said. “Stone? You still there?”

  “I’m thinking,” Stone said.

  “Good idea,” Dino replied.

  “Was there a cell phone in the house?”

  “No,” Dan said, “but there was one in the corpse’s pocket.”

  “Who did it belong to?”

  Short silence. “Good question. I’ll have to check.”

  “I’d really like to know.”

  “Hang on.” He put them on hold.

  “This doesn’t sound good,” Dino said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Maybe my guys should talk to Hank before Dan’s do.”

  “It couldn’t hurt.”

  Dan came back on the line. “I was wrong,” he said. “There were two cell phones—one his, one hers.”

  “So she wasn’t able to call for help,” Stone said. He wanted to make that point.

  “Well,” Dan said, “I can see how a lot of things could happen in a situation like hers. A lot of people would panic in the circumstances, and rage can be a product of panic. My money’s on you in court, Stone.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “She’s going to need a lot better lawyer than Stone,” Dino said.

  “From what I’m hearing, she could do a lot worse,” Dan replied.

  “Thank you for that vote of confidence,” Stone said.

  “I’m just saying a jury might be very sympathetic to her plight.”

  “But not to her skill with tools,” Dino said. “And there’s the cleanup to consider, and the fact that she didn’t confide in Stone.” He paused. “Did she, Stone?”

  “She did not.”

  “You want a couple of hours to feel her out?” Dino asked.

  “That won’t be much fun.”

  “Not as much fun as feeling her up, I’ll grant you.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass, Dino.”

  “I don’t have to send out the detectives just yet.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” Stone said, and he hung up.

  44

  Stone thought about it for a few minutes before he made the call. He tried the office number and asked for Hank.

  Another woman came on the line. “Who’s calling?”

  “Stone Barrington. I’m a friend of Hank’s.”

  “She called in sick some time back. I haven’t heard from her, and her cell phone went straight to voice mail.”

  “I see. Thanks for your help.” He hung up and called Hank’s home number. It rang four times, then went to voice mail. “It’s Stone. We need to talk right away, before you talk to anybody else.” He left his office number, though he knew she had it.

  Half an hour later, Hank called back. “Hi, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m just a little shaken up, and I’m not thinking very clearly.”

  “Are you at home?”

  “Yes. I was in the shower when you called earlier. I just saw the flashing light on the phone. Can we get together? I need to talk with you.”

  “Then you’d better talk to me now, because soon you’ll be talking to the police, and it won’t be fun.”

  “I don’t mind talking to them, I’m the victim, remember? Not a perp, to put it in yours and Dino’s graceful and expressive language.”

  “You’d better be prepared to convince the police of that, or not talk to them at all.”

  “Are you giving me legal advice?”

  “I will, if you like, on the basis of a client-attorney relationship.”

  “Should I hire you?”

  “You should hire somebody. Do you know any very good attorneys?”

  “I don’t know any attorneys at all, except for you.”

  “I think it would be a good idea for you to be represented by someone else, in the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “An attorney who might be more sympathetic to your plight.”

  “What plight? What are you talking about, Stone?”

  “All right, let me ask you one question—as an attorney.”

  “Okay.”

  “Where’s the head?”

  “The head of what?”

  “The head of Bats Buono.”

  “As far as I know, he’s self-employed.”

  He thought she seemed perfectly calm, maybe a little exasperated with him.

  “I’m talking about the head that used to rest on his shoulders.”

  “You’re saying that Onofrio has lost his head? Metaphorically?”

  “Not metaphorically—actually.”

  “Stone, you’re not making any sense.”

  If this is a performance, he thought, it’s a good one.

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “No, should I be?”

  “Yes. The Connecticut State Police sent a crime-scene team to the lake cottage. They found traces of blood in the kitchen sink.”

  “And what conclusion did they draw from that?”

  “That somebody did some bleeding.”

  “I didn’t, I’m wound-free.”

  “Did Bats cut himself shaving?”

  “Not that I noticed. What aren’t you telling me, Stone?”

  “They searched the property and found a corpse in the woods.”

  She gave a little gasp. “Onofrio’s?”

  “It was carrying his wallet and two cell phones, yours and his.”

  “He took it away from me. He’s actually dead?”

  “Yes, and his head is missing.”

  “Oh, shit!”

  “Well, yes. His car was missing, too, and there were tire tracks leading into the lake. A dive team is on the way there now to raise it.”

&
nbsp; “And you’re saying the police think I had something to do with his death?”

  “They’re considering it. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “Look, he was alive when he drove away from the house. That was the last I saw of him, and he hasn’t called.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t, would he?”

  “Now that you mention it, I guess not. Am I really a suspect?”

  “I think they would probably describe you as ‘a person of interest’ in the case, but that’s only one bad answer from ‘defendant,’ so when they come calling, tell them the truth.”

  “I am telling the truth. I always tell the truth.”

  “They’re going to ask you about the protection order you took out against Buono.”

  “Now, look, Stone . . .”

  “Stop right there. Consider your answer.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “All right,” she said finally, “I almost took out the order, but I didn’t actually do it.”

  “Then why did you lie about it? Don’t you know there are court records of protection orders?”

  “I was on the point of doing it, but he suddenly stopped calling, so I waited for a couple of days, and when he didn’t call again, I didn’t take out the order.”

  “All right, I’ll accept that answer.”

  “That’s very good of you,” she said, and there was acid in her voice. “You checked up on me, did you? Or Dino?”

  “Yes. Do you blame me?”

  “I apologize for lying to you.”

  “Thank you. The good news is, the cops, generally speaking, don’t know about your lie. The bad news is, Dino does.”

  “And he would rat me out about that?”

  “I don’t know. At least you haven’t lied directly to a cop, only to me. Keep it that way.”

  “All right. Any other advice?”

  “Do you want me to find a lawyer for you?”

  “I thought you would represent me.”

  “That is not in your best interests, given our personal history, however short. I say again, I think you need to be represented by another attorney.”

  “Do I really need a lawyer right now?”

  “That’s my best advice.”

  “But then he’ll tell me not to answer any police questions, won’t he?”

  “Very possibly.”

  “And if I don’t, that will make me look guilty, won’t it?”