Standup Guy (Stone Barrington)

by Stuart Woods

  They laughed and went on their way.

  “They’re jealous,” Hillary said.

  53

  Stone had managed to doze off. He awoke slowly and kept his eyes closed, so as not to inhibit their conversation.

  “Looks like we’re making good progress now,” Hank said.

  “Yeah, we’ve cracked four million. We’ll be there in another hour. Let’s take a break.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m starved,” he said. “It’s five-thirty, and I haven’t eaten since five o’clock this morning.”

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s get these four bags into the van, then we’ll get something to eat and come back and finish.”

  “Deal,” Parese said.

  They zipped up the four suitcases, stood them on their wheels, and began rolling the first two out of the office. A minute later, they came back for two more.

  “Is one more bag going to be enough?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we’ve got less than seven hundred grand to go, then we’ll be done.”

  “Okay, let’s go. Stone!”

  Stone appeared to jerk awake. “Huh?”

  “We’re going to get some dinner. We’ll be right back.”

  “Just a minute,” Parese said. He picked up a roll of duct tape and walked over to Stone. He passed three lengths around the sofa and across Stone’s chest, pinning him there, then he ripped off a short strip and slapped it over Stone’s mouth. “There, that’ll hold him.”

  The two left the office by the street door.

  Stone waited a full minute to let them clear the block, then he started his struggle. He leaned as hard as possible against the tape across his chest, trying to stretch enough to give him some wiggling room. It seemed to work, but he remained taped to the sofa. Then he started thrusting his feet and pelvis forward, to get more stretching and to make it possible for him to slide under the tape and onto the floor. This took a good ten minutes, but he remained stuck to the big piece of furniture. He had his old handcuff key from his cop days somewhere in his desk, but he couldn’t get up and walk over there to get it. He was huffing through his nose and sweating. Half an hour after they left, they came back with cartons of Chinese food.

  “Hey, there,” Hank said. “You doing okay?” She came over and ripped the tape off his face.

  Stone took some deep breaths. “Yeah.”

  “You want some Chinese?”

  “Not hungry.”

  “Suit yourself.” She went back to the desk, and they made room for the food, then served themselves and opened a couple of beers.

  Stone watched them and tried to relax.

  They finished and Hank resealed the cartons. “In case you want some later,” she said to Stone.

  “Okay,” Parese said, “it’s six-fifteen. I want to be done and out of here by seven. We’ll be out of the state by eight-thirty.”

  “Then let’s do it.” They resumed their stacking, counting, and sorting, and the last suitcase began to fill up. Stone watched them helplessly. Promptly at seven, Parese closed the last suitcase. “You wheel this to the van, and I’ll get the machine. Who knows, somebody might want a recount when we do the swap.”

  “Okay.” She wheeled the suitcase out of the office, and Parese picked up the machine, which looked heavy.

  “Need a hand with that?” Stone asked.

  Parese set down the machine and laughed. “You’re something, Stone. Hank told me you was a card.”

  “A laugh a minute,” Stone replied.

  Parese picked up the machine again. “I’ll be back in a minute to say goodbye.” He staggered out of the office with his load. Three minutes later, they were back.

  Parese got into his coat.

  “We’ll get out of your way,” Hank said, putting on her coat.

  But then Parese had a Glock in his hand. “Time to say bye-bye,” he said to Stone.

  Hank put her hand on the gun and pushed the barrel down. “No. I said no, Marty, and I meant it. We’re leaving no corpses behind. Nobody will see him until Tuesday morning, and if he could get out of that tape he would have while we were gone.”

  “Sorry, babe, but there will be no witnesses.” He racked the slide on the Glock.

  Stone looked around desperately for help, but there was none. Then the phone rang. Parese turned and looked at it, and on the third ring the voice mail kicked in.

  “Hi, Stone, it’s Kate Lee. Will and I are going to be in New York over the weekend. Can you have dinner with us at the Carlyle on Sunday night? Call me on the private cell number, don’t go through the White House switchboard. Hope to see you Sunday!” She hung up.

  Parese was still staring at the phone. “Was that who I think it was?”

  “Now are you getting the picture?” Hank asked. “The feds will be after us, too!”

  “This is a mistake,” Parese said, but he shoved the gun back into its holster on his waist. “All right, let’s go.”

  “You first,” Hank said.

  He started for the door.

  Hank ran across the room, took Stone by the chin, and kissed him on the lips. “Bye-bye, darlin’,” she said. “It’s been more fun than I can tell you.”

  “A word of advice, Hank,” Stone said.

  “What’s that, darlin’?”

  “You’d better kill Parese before he can kill you.”

  “That crossed my mind,” she said. “Don’t you worry about me, and thanks for all that money!” She turned and ran out of the office. A moment later, Stone heard the racing of a motor, then the vehicle drove away.

  He started with the tape again, thrashing around with all his strength, and finally he was able to slide under the tape to the floor: a triumph! Except that he was still handcuffed and his feet taped together. He returned to a sitting position, then stood up and hopped toward his desk, flopping down in his chair. There were two things he wanted: the handcuff key in one of his desk drawers and Joan’s .45, which lived in the middle drawer of her desk, always loaded. In case they came back. He decided to find the key first. That would make everything else easier.

  He swiveled to his left in the chair and reached as far sideways as the handcuffs would allow, then got his desk drawer open. He rummaged among the drawer’s contents with his nose and chin, checking every cranny, but he found no key.

  He started with the left-hand top drawer and repeated the process. It had to be here somewhere. Half an hour later, he still had two drawers to go, and he was exhausted. Then he heard the door open: they were coming back. He laid his head on the cool desktop and waited for Parese and his Glock.

  54

  “What the fuck?” a man’s voice said. He walked across the room, took hold of Stone’s shoulder, and sat him up in his chair.

  Stone looked up at the man with bleary eyes. “Dino?”

  “You’re some kind of host, you know that? We let ourselves in, as usual, and went to the study—no lights on. We went upstairs hollering for you, and then we come down here and find that you’re playing some sort of sex game. Where’s Hank? Gone out for lubricant?”

  “Dino, please uncuff me.”

  “Won’t that spoil things for Hank?”

  “Dino, please.”

  Dino rummaged in his pocket for his keys, came up with a ring, selected the smallest key, and unlocked the cuffs. “There you go. You want me to leave your feet taped?”

  Stone shook his head wearily, rested his elbows on the desk, and put his face in his hands. Dino took a box cutter from a coffee mug on Stone’s desk, emblazoned with the legend NEW YORK CITY MORGUE, and cut through the duct tape binding Stone’s feet.

  Viv came through the door. “What’s going on?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Dino said. “Stone and Hank have been playing games. He was wearing the cuffs.” He held them up.

  “Oh, stop it, Dino. Stone, what’s happened?”

  “I hardly know where to begin,” Stone said. He reached across the desk,
grabbed a Chinese takeout carton and a pair of chopsticks, and shoveled some fried rice into his mouth. “Starved,” he mumbled. “Nothing since breakfast.”

  Dino went to Stone’s office bar, filled three glasses with ice, poured them all a drink, and brought them back to the desk. He took away the fried-rice carton and handed Stone a Knob Creek. “Wash it down with this, and tell us what the fuck happened.” He and Viv took chairs and sipped their drinks, waiting for Stone to swallow.

  “Okay,” Stone said finally, after taking a big breath and a big swallow of bourbon. “Hank and her boyfriend, Marty Parese, just stole five million dollars from me.”

  “What five million dollars is that?” Dino inquired.

  “The five million I was going to use to ransom Hank from Bats Buono—or to pretend to ransom, until I got a shot at him.”

  “You said Marty Parese—we’re looking for him already. He blew when the chop shop got raided.”

  “Hank and I had dinner last night, came home, went to bed, as usual. This morning Eggers called and asked me to fax him a document. I got dressed and came down here and somebody—make that Parese—hit me with something and knocked me out cold. When I woke up, Parese and Hank were using a counting and sorting machine to put the five million in order. My bank had scrambled it, and they wouldn’t take it back until it was sorted.”

  “When did they leave?”

  “Just after seven. You were due here at seven, weren’t you? Where the hell were you? You might have grabbed them.”

  “The vagaries of being a public servant,” Dino said. “I worked a little late.”

  “They sorted and banded the money—it was in two large leaf bags—and packed it into five or six suitcases on wheels. They took the machine with them, too. Parese wanted to kill me, but Hank stopped him.”

  “I guess she’s just a sentimental softy,” Dino said. “Except for the part about stealing your money. Any idea where they went with it?”

  “I figure they can’t take a plane, the bags might get X-rayed. They were in a van.”

  “Make, model, and color?”

  “I never saw it. They said it was a van.”

  “Any idea where they’re driving to?”

  “Parese said he had a week’s groceries in the van, so someplace with a kitchen.”

  “Can you narrow that down for me?”

  “Parese said they’d be out of the state by eight-thirty.”

  “So, they weren’t going to New Jersey. That pretty much leaves Connecticut, if we’re talking bordering states. You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “The lake cabin? That’s the only thought I’ve had.”

  “A good choice, probably. They reckon that the Connecticut State Police, having gone over the place thoroughly, won’t be going back there. Oh, I forgot to tell you, they found Bats Buono’s head in the Mercedes when they floated it.”

  “Did the head have a nine-millimeter slug in it?”

  “Good guess, Stone.”

  “When you catch up with them, run Parese’s Glock through ballistics.”

  “I’ll see that that happens. You want some more Chinese now?”

  “I want a steak,” Stone said. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

  Stone found steaks in the fridge and, after seasoning the meat, threw them onto the Viking grill, while Viv boiled some potatoes and made a salad. Dino was on the phone with Dan Sparks, in Hartford.

  “Oh, Dino,” Stone said, “I forgot to mention that one of them is probably going to kill the other, as soon as they’re at a safe place.”

  Dino covered the phone. “You got a bet on who does the killing?”

  “My money’s on Hank,” Stone said. “But you never know.”

  “Right,” Dino said, “you never know.” Then he went back to his conversation with Sparks.

  “Dino,” Stone said, and Dino covered the phone again. “Now what?”

  “I got the impression they were planning some sort of money laundering, swapping the small bills for larger ones. Ask Dan if there’s anybody anywhere near the cabin that would deal in large sums of cash.”

  Dino asked Dan Sparks and got an answer, then he hung up. “Dan says there are a couple of Indian-owned casinos within an hour or two’s drive of the cabin. The Indians don’t necessarily run them, they hire experienced managers, people with casino experience.”

  55

  Hank and Parese were driving north on the Sawmill River Parkway in the van.

  “Slow down, Marty,” she said. “There’s a fifty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit up here, and we don’t want to get pulled over tonight of all nights.”

  Parese slowed a little. “Awright.”

  “See that switch on the steering wheel? That’s the speed control. Set it at fifty-five and leave it there.”

  “Awright, awright.” He looked at the steering wheel and nearly missed a curve.

  “Watch the road, I’ll do the speed control.” She leaned over and turned it on, then slowed the van to fifty-five and pressed the SET button. “There, take your foot off the accelerator.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “You’re always right, babe.”

  “I’m not smarter than you,” she said, softening her voice, “I’m just better at details.”

  “I’m not going to argue that point,” he said.

  “So, Marty, tell me how we’re going to do this.”

  “Why don’t you just leave it to me, baby?”

  “Details, Marty, I need to know the details.”

  “All right: did Bats ever mention a guy named Tommy Dion to you?”

  “Sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “Tommy is an old-school Vegas guy. He grew up working the casinos out there, ended up managing a couple of them. When the Indians started opening casinos upstate, he signed on as a consultant to a couple of them, and they were so impressed they made him a manager. Tommy and my old man were tight all their lives, and I’ve done a deal with him.”

  “What’s the deal?”

  “He brings us four and a half million dollars in hundreds, and we give him five million in tens and twenties.”

  “We’re giving him half a million dollars?”

  “It’s a good deal, trust me.”

  “The thing is, can we trust him?”

  “He’s making half a million bucks in one night, and it’s all his, tax-free. He just borrows the cash from the casino for a few hours, and he returns it in small bills. It’s a wash, literally, no bookkeeping problems.”

  “And you really trust him?”

  “Trust is a relative word when you’re talking this much money,” Parese said. He looked at his watch. “I’m due to call him now.” He took out his cell phone and pressed a button.

  Hank kept her hand on the wheel and her eyes on the road.

  “Hey, Tommy, it’s me. We’re on. You got the cash ready?” He listened for a moment. “Good work. We’ll be there in an hour. Okay, got a pencil? I’ll give you directions.” Parese dictated precise driving instructions. “You got that? Repeat it to me.” He listened some more. “Now listen to me, Tommy. You know I trust you, but you can only be two guys. We’re two, you’re two. Got that? Good. Now, if there’s more than one guy besides you, and if anybody but you gets out of that car, he will die.” He listened some more. “I’m glad you understand. Did you get the suitcases? The ones with wheels? How many? Two is good. We’ll give you five. Now we’ve done a complete machine count of the money, and it’s exactly five mil. I’ve got the printouts for you to see, but if you want a recount, the machine will be there, and you can run it yourself. All right, two hours. Don’t be early or late. We’re gonna be nervous, and we don’t want any mistakes. See ya, pal.” Marty hung up.

  “Are you satisfied that he’s going to do the right thing?” Hank asked.

  “I’m satisfied, but there are two shotguns and an Uzi in the back of the van, where the spare tire lives. We’ll be ready for anything.”

  “I suppose you’ve thought of ki
lling him and keeping both his money and ours.”

  “I thought about it, but it wouldn’t be good practice, you know? We do that and we’ll have not only the cops looking for us, we’ll have a lot of made guys all over the country watching for us, and probably a lot of Indians, too.” He laughed.

  “Tell me about tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is pretty straightforward. We drive to Oxford Airport, maybe half an hour’s drive from the house. Nobody’s looking for the van, so we just leave it there. The airplane is a Hawker 400, has enough range to get us all the way to South America, but we’re going to stop in the Cayman Islands, just south of Jamaica, and open a bank account. Then we’ll go on to South America. Rio okay?”

  “I think Rio sounds lovely. What’s the airplane costing us?”

  “A hundred and fifty grand.”

  “Jesus! Can’t we fly commercial from the Caymans?”

  “We don’t want to leave a paper trail from there. Sure, we’re overpaying for the airplane, but it’s a long flight, and the pilots have to be taken care of up front.”

  “What’s to keep them from abandoning us when we leave the airplane in the Caymans to go to the bank? They could just take off again and fly home, and we’d be out a lot of money.”

  Parese thought about that and sighed. “All right, we’ll give them half up front and half when we land in Rio. Worst case, we’ll give them the second half when we’re ready to take off from the Caymans. Oh, we have to buy fuel, too. That could run another eight, ten grand.”

  “What time are we meeting the airplane at Oxford?”

  “Nine AM.”

  “Where at the airport?”

  “At the main terminal.”

  “Are we clearing out with customs?”

  “No, the pilot files a form with the feds before the flight.”

  “Does it have our names and passport numbers on it?”

  “Yes, no getting away from that. But it shows us going only to the Caymans. Once we land out of the country, we can fly anywhere with no record of it. The pilots will say they picked up somebody else in the Caymans for the Rio leg.”