Fast and Loose

by Stuart Woods

  “My guess would be in the twenties,” Stone said. “Lots of money around then and not much in taxes. Some robber baron must have built it to show the world how rich he was.” They browsed among the books.

  —

  AT THE TOP of the stairs Charley saw the open door. “I’m glad the maids have been in,” he said. “I don’t have a key for this door yet.” He led Kaley into the apartment and they stood, admiring the finely carved fireplace and the pictures on the walls.

  “That’s a Picasso,” Kaley said, pointing, “and that’s a Matisse.”

  “Wow,” Charley said, taking off his jacket and tossing it onto the sofa. “Hot in here. Will you open a window? I need to use the john.”

  Kaley opened one of the French doors leading to an outside balcony, and fresh autumn air poured in. Then she followed him into the bedroom. Charley was walking into the bathroom.

  Charley had just stepped onto the marble floor when a figure in dark clothes and a cloth cap appeared before him, wearing a handkerchief tied over his face. His first thought was a Western movie he had seen as a child. Then the figure swung an arm, and he felt a searing pain across his abdomen. His hand went to the wound automatically, and it was warm and wet. The figure brushed past him, and he heard Kaley scream before he collapsed onto the bathroom floor, blood pooling around him.

  He heard heels on marble and Kaley shouting his name.

  38

  Stone heard Kaley screaming and started for the stairs, then he saw the elevator, its door standing open. He pulled Marisa in and pressed the button for the top floor. As the car rose, he saw through the stained glass of the doors a figure running down the stairs and out the front door. At the top, they got out and ran into the apartment, looking for Kaley and Charley.

  They found them in the bathroom, Charley lying on his back, glassy-eyed, while Kaley tried to stanch the flow of blood from his belly with a towel.

  “Let me in here,” Marisa said, pushing Kaley aside. She examined the wound, then applied a fresh towel to it.

  “I’ll call nine-one-one,” Stone said, whipping out his cell phone.

  “No,” Marisa barked, “dial this number.” She recited it for him. “Now give me the phone.” She listened for a moment. “This is Marisa, give me Nihls, now.” She waited. “Nihls, I’m bringing in a man with a major abdominal knife wound. Send an ambulance to this address.” She recited it. “Prep OR 1 and start scrubbing. Wait.”

  Charley was trying to say something. Marisa bent over him and listened.

  “A positive,” Charley murmured, then closed his eyes.

  Marisa went back to the phone. “Order four units of type A positive for the ambulance and eight for the OR, stat!” She hung up. “Nihls is the best trauma surgeon in the city,” she said. “He did his surgical residency at Bellevue, and he’s seen more knife wounds than anybody.”

  Somewhere out in the street, an ambulance siren could already be heard. “I’ll get them up here,” Stone said, and ran down the stairs.

  —

  NEARLY FOUR HOURS LATER, Stone was shaken awake by Kaley. He had fallen asleep in a chair in a waiting room. Nihls Carlsson stood before him, his surgical scrubs mottled with blood. He looked exhausted. “He’s stable and in recovery,” he said. “There wasn’t too much organ damage, just an awful, twelve-inch wound. He’s young and strong, and he’ll make it.”

  Stone shook his hand. “Thank you, Nihls. When can we see him?”

  “Give him until tomorrow morning,” Nihls said. “He needs to rest.”

  “Will you ask someone to tell him Kaley and Stone were here, and we’ll be back tomorrow morning?”

  “Of course.” Nihls went looking for a nurse.

  —

  STONE AND MARISA dropped Kaley off at her apartment. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked her.

  “Sure, now that I know he will be.”

  “We’ll pick you up at nine tomorrow morning.”

  “Make it ten,” Marisa said.

  “All right, ten.”

  She closed the door to the cab, and they continued downtown to Turtle Bay.

  “I’m really glad you were there,” Stone said.

  “So am I,” Marisa replied. “If it had taken five minutes longer to get him a transfusion, he wouldn’t have made it.”

  “It’s a good thing you requested blood in the ambulance.”

  “A nine-one-one ambulance might not have had it aboard.”

  —

  OVER DINNER, Stone didn’t have much to say. Now that Charley’s recovery seemed assured, he started to think about how to proceed without him. “How long will his recovery be?” he asked Marisa.

  “Assuming no infection or other complications, he’ll be out of the hospital in four days or so, and he’ll need to recover at home, with a daily visit from a nurse to change his dressings, for another week. Then he’ll be ambulatory. They’ll remove the stitches about two weeks out—the nurse will know when it’s time—and then he’ll need some rehab to get his abdominal muscles in shape again. He can work during that time, if he feels like it. In a month to six weeks he should have a full recovery.”

  “Send his medical bills to me,” Stone said. “We haven’t had time to arrange for company insurance.”

  “I’ve already spoken to Dad. The costs are on us, in gratitude for all you did for us during the takeover bid.”

  “That’s very kind of all of you. I know Charley will be grateful, too.”

  He was already thinking about how to handle the closing, with Charley out of commission. He and Herbie could get it done, and he had already moved the money and asked the bank for a cashier’s check.

  —

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Charley looked better than Stone had expected. He had been moved to a lovely private room, which, magically, had been filled with flowers. His bed had been raised a little, to make it easier for him to talk. “How’re you feeling?” Stone asked.

  “Exhausted.”

  “You were on the table for three and a half hours,” Stone said. “That’s hard work.” He told Charley what Marisa had said about his recovery schedule. “Charley, was it Macher or Herman?”

  “It wasn’t Herman,” Charley said. “Not big enough. It could have been Macher, but there was a handkerchief tied over his face, so I couldn’t make him.”

  “Never mind.”

  “Can you and Herb close the deal without me?” Charley asked.

  “Sure, did you think you were indispensable?”

  Charley smiled. “Well, yeah, sort of. Stone, will you give Kaley and me a few minutes?”

  “Sure, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “No, you’ll be closing. Just call and let me know how it went.”

  “Okay. Talk to you then.” Stone left.

  —

  CHARLEY PRESSED THE button that raised his bed a little more. “Listen,” he said, “I was going to say this yesterday, but I got interrupted.”

  “Yes, you did, and you scared me to death.”

  “I’m sorry about that. What I was going to say to you was, why don’t you move into the new apartment with me? Let’s live together for a year or so, and if we can still stand each other, let’s get married.”

  Kaley smiled. “What a good idea! Yes, on all points!”

  “Quit your job, if you like. You’re not going to need the money.”

  “I like my job, so I’ll keep it. Maybe I’ll take some time off to get us moved in, so it will be ready when you are. In the meantime, I’ll stay with you in Stone’s apartment, to see that you’re taken care of.”

  “That would be great,” Charley said. “Now I need to get some sleep, right after you kiss me.”

  Kaley kissed him, and he closed his eyes. She tiptoed out of the room.

  39

  Stone got to his desk on time the next morning and rang for Joan.

  She picked up the phone. “Yes, boss?”

  “Will you please run over to the bank, see Mr. Baird, and
pick up a cashier’s check for me?”

  “Sure thing. Be right back.” She hung up.

  Stone reviewed his copy of the sales contract and closing statement, and by the time he had finished, Joan was back with the check.

  “That’s a very nice round number,” she said, handing him the check.

  “It’s going to buy a dozen or more companies,” he replied, “for Triangle.”

  “How’s Charley doing?”

  “He was fine when I saw him yesterday. He ran me out and told me to call him today when we’ve closed.”

  “Good luck,” she said, and went back to her desk.

  Stone gathered his papers together, put the check in his inside pocket, and got into the Bentley for the trip to the St. Clair mansion.

  —

  AS HE WALKED up the front steps, he was joined by a young man with an elderly yellow Labrador retriever leashed to his wrist.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Eliot Crenshaw, the new corporate counsel for St. Clair. We’re here for the closing.”

  Stone scratched the Lab behind an ear. “Who’s your colleague?”

  “This is Bessie,” he said. “Sometimes I take her to work. Do you mind?”

  “Not in the least. I’ve one at home a lot like her, named Bob.”

  “Then you must be a very happy man.”

  They went into the building and into the library, finding themselves the first there. Crenshaw unleased Bessie and told her to go lie down. Instead, she began circling the room, sniffing.

  The three members of the board of directors and Herb Fisher arrived, and Stone shook all their hands. “I’m sorry that Charley Fox couldn’t be with us this morning. He had an accident over the weekend and is spending a few days in the hospital.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” Elihu Barnes said.

  “It was, but he received quick attention, and he’s recovering normally.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” They all took seats at the table.

  “I’ll turn this over to Herb Fisher, of Woodman & Weld,” Stone said.

  Bessie began to growl at the fireplace.

  “Does she detect an intruder?” Stone asked Crenshaw, interrupting Herbie.

  “Bessie doesn’t do intruders,” he replied. “She spent eight years at JFK as a sniffer dog.”

  “Drugs?”

  “No, her specialty was bombs.”

  Stone froze. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, “but would you all grab your papers and get out of the building as quickly as possible?”

  “What?” Barnes asked.

  “Get out of the building now!” Stone commanded.

  “Let’s go, gentlemen,” Herbie said, and began herding them toward the door. Only Crenshaw stayed.

  Stone walked toward the fireplace, surveying the area. Bessie seemed to be concentrating on the wood box. The logs, Stone noted, were stacked neatly beside it, instead of inside it. He reached out for the latch and opened the lid a quarter of an inch, then he looked around the gap for any sign of wires. Nothing. He opened the lid.

  There was no ticking clock, but there was a cell phone taped to a large brick of what looked like modeling clay. “Eliot,” Stone said, “take Bessie and go, right now.” Crenshaw hurried for the door, but Bessie had to be dragged.

  Stone looked at his watch: two minutes before twelve; people had arrived a little early. He would normally have called Dino and asked for the bomb squad, but he had the very strong feeling that this phone was going to ring at noon. He ran over to the desk and found a large pair of scissors, then returned to the wood box. He snipped the tape that clamped the phone to the brick, and it came away attached to a single wire, running from the earbud receptacle on the bottom of the phone to a cylinder he believed was a detonator, pushed into the soft material. He unplugged the wire from the phone, and as he did the instrument lit up and rang.

  Stone jumped back and dropped the phone, expecting the explosive to detonate. Then the phone rang a second time, and a third. He picked it up and pressed the send button. “Hello?”

  “What number is this?” a male voice asked.

  “What number did you call?” Stone asked.

  There was a dead silence at the other end of the phone, then the man spoke in a half-whisper. “Barrington?”

  “Yes, Mr. Macher. Who or what were you expecting, Mr. Boom?” The connection was broken.

  Stone got out his own phone and pressed the favorites button, then another.

  “Bacchetti,” Dino said.

  “It’s Stone.”

  “Is it important? I’m with some people.”

  “Is one of them a bomb expert?” Stone asked.

  “Funny you should mention that,” Dino said.

  —

  STONE LEFT THE phone and the bomb in the wood box and joined the others on the street.

  “Mr. Barrington,” Elihu Barnes said, “would you mind explaining what’s going on here?”

  Stone went over and hugged Bessie against his leg. “This young lady, Eliot’s Bessie, who is a retired sniffer of bombs at the airport, has just saved all our lives, and probably those of half the neighborhood.”

  Approaching sirens could be heard.

  —

  TWO HOURS LATER, sitting at a lunch table with the others around the corner from the house, Stone answered his phone. “Stone Barrington.”

  “Mr. Barrington, this is Lieutenant Marconi. Nice job on deactivating your bomb. We’ve secured it and searched the building for any other explosives. We didn’t find anything else, so you can return to the building whenever you wish.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Stone said, “and please thank your squad for arriving so quickly and making us feel safe again.” He put the phone away. “Gentlemen, I am informed that the house is now safe, and we may resume our business there.”

  Everybody got up, Stone paid the bill, and they walked back to the mansion together. Forty minutes later, all i’s had been dotted and t’s crossed, and a check for half a billion dollars had changed hands.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Barrington,” Barnes said, “you and your partners have just become the owners of a fine business.”

  “Thank you,” Stone replied, and began escorting everyone out.

  Along the way, Barnes leaned over and whispered into Stone’s ear, “Was it Macher?”

  “Yes,” Stone replied, “but it’s going to be hard to prove.”

  40

  Stone went straight to the hospital to see Charley Fox.

  “When you didn’t call I began to think something had gone wrong,” Charley said.

  “You could say that,” Stone replied. He related the events of midday.

  “Macher!” Charley said.

  “Of course, who else?”

  “Can we nail him for it?”

  “I’ve already talked to Dino, who has talked to the DA. There were no prints on the bomb, and the phone was bought at a convenience store in New Jersey. And I can’t swear it was Macher on the phone. It’s called ‘insufficient evidence to indict.’”

  “I’m glad there’s a guard on my room,” Charley said.

  “There are a dozen Strategic Services people in the building. You’re quite safe.”

  “When I’m out of here,” Charley said, “Macher and I are going to have a reckoning.”

  “Don’t let that weigh on your mind,” Stone replied. “You’ll internalize your anger, and it will affect your recovery.”

  “I feel an intense need to deal with it on a personal level.”

  “I can understand that, but it’s not the way to go about it. The DA is still considering whether to charge Macher with the murder of Christian St. Clair, so he’s far from out of the woods.”

  “Something else,” Charley said.

  “What?”

  “He’s not going to stop.”

  “Charley …”

  “No, I’m happy about that—it will give us other opportunities to kill him legally.”

 
“Not while I’m your attorney,” Stone said.

  “Then at some point I’ll just have to fire you.”

  “You know who we should talk to about this?”

  “Who?”

  “Ed Rawls.”

  Charley managed to sit up a little straighter in his bed. “You’re damned right,” he said. “Ed is smarter than any of us, and he knows more ways to skin a cat than anybody alive.”

  “What can I get you to make your stay more pleasant?” Stone asked. “Magazines? Books?”

  “They have a very good library here. A lady comes around every day with a cartful of reading material.”

  “Anything else?”

  “A bottle of single-malt scotch and a straw.”

  “All in good time.”

  “I must be getting better—I’m horny.”

  “Maybe you should discuss that with Kaley,” Stone said.

  “Don’t you worry, I will. Oh, I didn’t tell you—Kaley’s going to move into the mansion with me.”

  “Now that’s good news.”

  “She’s out shopping now for enough new furniture and stuff so that we can forget Macher ever lived there. She’s going to keep her job at Strategic Services.”

  “By the way, there’s a locksmith at the mansion as we speak, rekeying the locks, and Mike’s people will change the alarm code. I’ll send everything over to Kaley as soon as the locksmith drops off the new keys.”

  “I think you’d better call the old employees—the accounting people and the cleaning and cooking staffs—and tell them to come back to work tomorrow.”

  “All that’s in hand. There’ll be somebody there to let them in. There’s enough cash in the company accounts to pay their salaries and other operating expenses, for the moment. I’ve already sent the bank new signature cards with my and Mike’s signatures. We’ll add yours later.”

  “Right. Stone,” Charley said, “there’s something else you can do for me.”

  “Anything at all.”

  “Your pistol and my knife are in my desk drawer in the apartment. Could you get them over to me? I’d be more comfortable with them on hand.”

  “Did you get your application in for the carry permit?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll ask Dino if he can rush it, and I’ll get the knife to you. That’ll have to do until you’re licensed.”

  “Oh, all right. I was always better with the knife than the gun when I was in training.”