by Stuart Woods
“Too late to change plans now,” Mitzi said. She went to the big Sub-Zero fridge, opened the freezer, and took out a large plastic bag.
“That’s your safe?” Stone asked.
“I’ve got a real safe,” Rita said. “My jewelry’s in it, but there’s room for that, too.”
Stone took the bag and fished out a bundle of hundred-dollar bills. He flipped through them like a deck of cards. “I can’t see anything. I don’t suppose you have an ultraviolet light?”
“Nope,” Rita said.
“Where’s the safe?”
“In the study,” Rita replied.
“Why don’t you put this in the safe and let Sharpe see you take it out? It’ll be good for his morale.”
“What would be good for his morale is for me to fuck him,” Mitzi said. “He’s already made a big pass at me, and I’m expecting more of the same this morning.”
“Slap him hard across the chops,” Stone said.
“I think that would just make him mad.”
“Rita, does the phone system in the apartment allow you to call between extensions?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the extension number for the study?”
“Eleven.”
“Okay, Mitzi,” Stone said, “I’m going to give you three minutes with Sharpe, then call that extension. Answer it, say, ‘Send him up,’ and tell Sharpe your driver is on the way up.”
“Okay.”
“What if she’s unable to answer the phone?” Rita asked.
“Then I’ll interrupt you,” Stone said. “By that time you should have completed the deal. Make sure you do that immediately after he arrives. Tell him you have to be somewhere. Make up something.”
“What if Sharpe wants to meet your friends from Charleston?” Rita asked.
“I’ll tell him they’re just in town for the day and have a full schedule,” Mitzi replied.
“I’m sure you can handle anything he throws at you,” Stone said.
“I’m moved by your confidence in me, sir,” Mitzi said, curtseying.
Rita spoke up. “If he throws his dick at you, there’s a large pair of scissors on the desk in the study.”
“Always use the right tools,” Mitzi said. “That’s what my daddy always told me.”
The phone rang, and Rita answered. “Send him up,” she said.
Stone looked at his watch. “Already?”
“It’s Tom,” Rita said. “Don’t have a heart attack.”
“What do you want me to do?” Emma asked.
“Put on your maid’s uniform, just in case Sharpe comes to the kitchen.”
Emma put down her coffee cup and left the room. “Be right back,” she said.
Mitzi looked at Stone. “You’re more nervous than I am,” she said.
“I have a better imagination than you do,” Stone replied. “I can think of a dozen things that can go wrong.”
39
TOM ARRIVED AND WAS GIVEN a croissant and some coffee. “Are you playing in this game?” he asked Stone.
“Only if I’m needed from the bench,” Stone replied.
Emma returned to the kitchen wearing a maid’s uniform, but not the one she had worn when she served canapés. The skirt was short, the stockings were black fishnet, and the bodice was tight and featured lots of cleavage.
Stone burst out laughing. “Can you come and play maid at my house?” he asked.
“Emma,” Rita said, pointing at the door, “you get out of that garb right now and put on the uniform I gave you. This is not a French farce.”
“I don’t know about that,” Stone said, watching her go.
The phone rang, and Mitzi picked it up. “Send him up,” she said, then hung up. “It’s Sharpe. He’s half an hour early.”
“Rita,” Stone said, “get that money into the safe and make sure that Mitzi knows how to open it-then get to your room.” The two women ran out of the kitchen.
Emma came back wearing a more prosaic maid’s uniform.
“Emma,” Stone said, “as soon as Rita is back in her room, let Sharpe in, show him to the study, and get back here. You, Tom, and I will be drinking coffee together, should he decide to have a look around.”
“Got it,” Emma said.
“Okay!” Rita yelled from down the hall just as the doorbell rang.
“You’re on,” Stone said to Emma, and she started down the hall.
MITZI SAT DOWN at the desk in the study and began writing a letter to her father on Rita’s creamy stationery. She heard Emma go to the front door, and a moment later there was a knock on the study door. “Come in,” Mitzi said.
Emma opened the door and stepped inside. “Miss Reynolds, Mr. Sharpe is here.” She let him in, backed out, and closed the door.
Sharpe stood by the door holding a large briefcase and looking nervous. “You didn’t tell me the maid would be here.”
“She’s here every day,” Mitzi said.
“Who else is in the apartment?”
“Just the maid and Stone. He’s down the hall in the kitchen having breakfast.”
“I don’t think you understand how sensitive this transaction is,” Sharpe said.
“I don’t think you understand that nobody in the kitchen cares what you and I are doing in here,” Mitzi said. She stood, slid back a shelf of fake book spines, and started opening the safe. “I’m glad you’re early,” she said. “I’ve got things to do this morning. Did you bring the drugs?”
“Do you have the money?”
Mitzi opened the safe, removed a brown envelope, and took out several bundles of bills. “There you are,” she said. “Count it, and let’s get this done.” She left the safe open and kept the desk between them.
Sharpe set his briefcase on the desk, picked up some bills, and began counting them. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said, “but my supplier would take offense if I didn’t show up with the correct amount.”
“I understand,” Mitzi said, sitting down again.
Sharpe continued to count. “So you and Stone are an item, huh?”
“You’ve seen us together before. I like him a lot.”
“Didn’t he used to be a cop?”
“He retired years ago, I believe; now he’s a lawyer.”
“So he’s not going to come in here and bust me?”
Mitzi laughed. “No, he is not.”
Sharpe finished counting the money. He opened his briefcase and put the bills inside, then closed it.
“And where are the goods?” Mitzi asked.
“You’ll get them as soon as I deliver the money,” Sharpe said.
“Our deal was cash on delivery,” Mitzi said. “You’ve got the cash, now deliver.”
“I’ll be back in an hour.”
“I won’t be here in an hour,” Mitzi said. “The deal’s off; leave the money on the desk and go.”
“Now you listen to me…” Sharpe began.
The phone rang, and Mitzi picked it up. “Hello?”
“Everything all right?” Stone asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “Send him up, please.” She hung up. “My driver is on the way up,” she said to Sharpe. “And you’re not leaving here with my money.”
Sharpe opened the briefcase again and extracted two packages wrapped in opaque plastic and sealed with tape. “I was only joking,” he said. “Here are your goods. I’ll be going.”
“Just a minute,” Mitzi said, picking up the large pair of brass scissors on the desk. She began working on the tape of the larger package.
“I thought you were in a hurry,” Sharpe said nervously.
“I am, but I just want to see this stuff.” She got the package open and smelled it. “That smells like marijuana,” she said.
“The finest stuff, I promise you,” Sharpe said.
Mitzi began working on the other package.
There was a knock on the door. “Ms. Reynolds?”
Sharpe looked like a trapped rabbit.
&nb
sp; “Tom, please wait in the kitchen,” Mitzi called back. “I’ll be ready in a minute.” She continued to work on the smaller package and finally got it open. “You’re supposed to taste this, aren’t you?”
“Lick your finger, dip it in, and taste.”
Mitzi did so. “What’s it supposed to taste like?”
“Exactly what it tastes like.”
“Is it pure?”
“Of course not. It would take your head off if it were pure. It’s been cut; all cocaine is cut. Don’t worry, your friends will love it.”
“Okay, if you say so,” Mitzi said. She put the two packages in the safe, closed it, and turned the handle. “Thank you very much, Derek,” she said. “I believe that concludes our business.”
“I believe it does,” Sharpe said, still looking as though he might be arrested.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment.”
“Sure, let me know if you want more.”
“I’ll see what my friends think,” she said. “Come, I’ll show you out.” She walked him through the living room and to the front door. “See you soon,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
Sharpe seemed too nervous to kiss her back or grope her. “Bye-bye,” he said.
Mitzi closed the door behind him, leaned on it, and heaved a big sigh. Then she walked down the hall to the kitchen, where Tom, Emma, and Stone were waiting.
“He was as nervous as a cat,” she said, “and he tried to hold out on me, but we got it done.”
“He won’t be so nervous next time,” Stone said.
40
DEREK SHARP STARTED sweating in the elevator, and when he hit the lobby he had to will himself not to run. His car was waiting where he had left it, guarded by the doorman to whom he had given a hundred-dollar bill.
He looked up and down Park Avenue for something that could be an unmarked police car. Across the avenue a garbage truck was loading the trash from another building, and one of the sanitation workers seemed to look at him for a long time. The man wiped his face with his sleeve and seemed to pause for a moment with his wrist to his lips. Was he speaking into a microphone?
Sharpe’s hands were shaking, and he had trouble getting the key into the ignition, but he finally got the Mercedes started. He pulled into traffic, and, looking more into the rearview mirror than ahead, he made it down Park a couple of blocks to where the light was just turning red. He floored the car and, tires squealing, made a hard left turn before the uptown traffic could block his progress. Anybody following him would have to wait for the light to change to make that turn.
He drove across town to Second Avenue and turned downtown just as the light changed, still watching his rearview mirror. It seemed safe, but that was what they wanted him to think, wasn’t it? Now he would have a ten-block head start, chasing green lights, which were set to a thirty-mile-an-hour speed. He was feeling very pleased with himself until he finally had to stop for a light, and a blue Crown Victoria with two men dressed in business suits in the front seat pulled up beside him. It was an unmarked police car, no doubt about it.
Sharpe contemplated making a left and running, but he was frozen with fear. Then the light changed, and the blue car pulled away from him and continued down Second Avenue. He was startled by a horn from behind him and got the car moving again. He cut across three lanes of traffic and made a right. When he got to Lexington Avenue, he turned downtown again. The cops in that car had probably not been looking for him, he thought, then he started looking down Lex for the car, wondering if they were going to drive across town and cut in front of him.
When he finally got downtown to his building, after suspecting a dozen other vehicles along the way, he drove around the block twice before using the remote control to open the garage door on the ground floor of his building. Only when the steel door had closed behind him did he feel safe.
He took the big lift up to his studio and let himself in. Hildy was stretched out on a sofa at the end of the big room, which covered the width of the building.
“How did your business go?” she asked, yawning.
“Very well,” he replied. “Has anyone come to the door?”
“No, it’s been very quiet.”
“Any phone calls, especially with the caller hanging up?”
“The answering machine took a couple of calls,” she said. “Messages were left.”
Sharpe went to the machine and replayed the messages, both routine calls from an arts material supplier and a stationer. He walked from the studio into the office, where two middle-aged women worked keeping books and paying bills, then on to the lower level of his apartment.
He went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, grabbed a handle inside, and rolled the big unit away from the wall. Behind it was a cutout in the Sheetrock, with the cutout replaced. He took a small knife from his pocket and pried out the loose area, revealing a large Fort Knox safe. He entered the code into the keypad, spun the wheel, and swung open the double doors. Inside were stacks of tightly packed plastic bags in the lower half and papers and stacks of cash above. He opened his briefcase, removed the brown envelope, and stacked the newly earned money on a shelf. Then he took a ledger from the safe and made a coded entry. He closed the door, replaced the Sheetrock, wheeled the big refrigerator back into its place, and then leaned against it and mopped his brow.
He was getting paranoid, he thought. He had never made such a large delivery so far from his base, and the experience had wrecked him. The thought of the money in the safe made him feel better, though. How could he have thought that Mitzi Reynolds could be a cop?
Sharpe went upstairs and changed into paint-stained work clothes, then he went back to the studio, where he found Sig Larsen seated next to Hildy on the old sofa waiting for him. “Hildy, make yourself scarce,” he said to her. “Sig and I have to talk.”
Hildy left the room without a word.
Sharpe collapsed on the sofa. “Jesus,” he said, mopping his brow again. “I must be getting old.”
“What’s wrong?” Larsen asked.
“I made that delivery to Mitzi uptown,” he said, “and every cell in my body was in alarm mode. Once I was there I thought I’d be busted with all that product. For a minute, I even thought that Mitzi might be a cop.”
“That’s called paranoia,” Larsen said. “If Mitzi is a cop, then I’m Warren Buffett.”
“Or maybe Stone, who used to be a cop,” Sharpe said. “He was there for the buy, but he was in the kitchen. He must have stayed the night.”
“But you got out okay?”
“Yeah, but then I thought every car I saw was the cops.”
“Derek, you need to take some time off,” Larsen said. “Why don’t you take Patti to a hotel and fuck her for a couple of days? She could use it and, apparently, so could you.”
“So could Hildy, but it’s so boring with her, why bother?”
“When does she come into the money?”
“In a few weeks. She’s cagey about when her birthday is, so I don’t know exactly.”
“I can’t wait,” Larsen said. “I want her out of our lives.”
“So do I,” Sharpe replied. “You can’t imagine.”
“I can imagine. Patti’s got to go, too; she’s beginning to take being called my wife seriously. If we can scam both Hildy and Mitzi we’ll have enough to get out of this town to some place with nice weather and no extradition treaty with the United States.”
“And where is that going to be?”
“How does Brazil strike you?”
“I could never learn to speak Portuguese,” Sharpe replied.
“How about Spanish?”
“I’ve got my Tex-Mex from back home; I could get by on that.”
“Let me do some research.”
“You’d better research some passports for us, too.”
“The trick is to leave legally, with our own passports, before the Feds or the cops shut us down.”
“We’ve go
t to move some cash soon,” Sharpe said. “The safe is full.”
“Sell the product that’s in there, and I’ll take a couple of suitcases down to the Bahamas and make the hop to the Caymans.”
“Not without me, you won’t,” Sharpe said. “Anyway, the jet charter is cheaper per person, if you have a few people aboard.”
“You don’t think like an accountant, Derek.”
“Have you sent that prospectus to Stone Barrington?” Sharpe asked.
“It’s on the way uptown as we speak.”
“You think he has any money?”
“Not enough for us to bother with,” Larsen said.
41
STONE HAD MADE IT HOME and was at his desk when Joan buzzed him.
“A man to see you. He says he’s from Sig Larsen,” Joan said on the intercom.
“Send him in,” Stone replied.
The man did not look like someone from a messenger service; he looked like someone from the Russian mob, tall and thick. “Good morning,” he said in unaccented English. He handed Stone an envelope. “Mr. Larsen says you can read this, but you can’t copy it; I have to take it back with me.”
“Would you like some coffee?” Stone asked.
“Yes, thank you.” The man took the offered chair. “Black, please.”
Stone buzzed Joan and asked for a large coffee, and she brought it in.
The proposal was forty-one pages long, and Stone began to read every line.
The man finished his coffee and began to look restless.
Stone was on page eight.
“Could I use a restroom?” the man asked.
“Right over there,” Stone said, pointing to a door.
The man got up, went to the toilet, and closed the door.
Stone picked up the proposal and ran down the hall to Joan’s office. She watched incredulously while he shoved the stack of papers into the Xerox machine and pressed the button. “How many pages a minute does this thing copy?”
“I don’t know, maybe twenty-five.”
Stone tapped his foot impatiently, and when the last copy came out he grabbed the original and ran back to his office. He had just sat down when the man let himself out of the toilet.
