Hot Mahogany

by Stuart Woods

  “ ‘And where is my crate?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Oh, some of my employees liked the wood and took it home.’

  “I explained to the gentleman that, if he did not recover my mahogany at once, I would find him and do very bad things to him, and by God he did. It was delivered a few days later, and over the next year, we built our replica of the Goddard-Townsend secretary from that single, very old mahogany log.”

  “What a story!” Holly said.

  “Yes,” Barton agreed. “It’s a pity I can never publish it.”

  “Barton,” Stone said, “you forgot an important detail in your story about the Saint-Gaudens double eagle.”

  “Oh?” Barton asked innocently.

  “What happened to the die that Finkel made for you? The one that the two replica double eagles were struck from?”

  “Oh, that,” Barton said. “It was in a drawer of the secretary that was stolen.”

  “I see,” Stone said. “And I think I’m beginning to get the full picture. And which of the secretaries was stolen? The original or the replica?”

  Barton shrugged. “It hardly matters, does it?”

  17

  That evening Barton took Stone and Holly to dinner in Litchfield, ten miles away.

  “I think you’ll like this place,” Barton said as Stone parked the car on the pretty street. “It’s called the West Street Grill.”

  He led them inside, where they were greeted by and introduced to the owners, James and Charles, and given a booth in the center of the restaurant. They ordered drinks, and menus were brought. They had just ordered dinner when a couple stopped at their table.

  “Good evening, Colonel,” the man said. He was tall and slim, with iron-gray hair. Stone thought he had seen him before. The woman was very beautiful, with shoulder-length chestnut-colored hair and a lithe and curvaceous body.

  “Good evening, Ab,” Barton replied. “Charlotte, how are you?”

  “Very well, Barton; we had a wonderful dinner.”

  “May I introduce my friends Stone Barrington and Holly Barker? This is Abner Kramer and his wife, Charlotte.”

  Hands were shaken all around.

  Barton moved over a bit in the large booth and signaled Stone to do so as well. “Please sit and have a drink with us.”

  The couple sat down, and brandy was brought for them.

  “How have you been, Bart?” Kramer asked.

  “Oh, I was under the weather for a few days, but I’m fine, now.”

  “Are you ready to sell me that Goddard-Townsend secretary?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure I’ll ever part with that, Ab. If you’re very nice to me, maybe I’ll bequeath it to you in my will.”

  Kramer laughed. “I’m not sure I could wait another fifty years for it.”

  “Well, maybe I can find you something to substitute until I kick off.”

  “You’ll outlive me, Bart.”

  “I promise not to do that, Ab. I’ve been telling Stone and Holly about your place up here, and they’ve expressed an interest in seeing it. Would it be convenient if I brought them by for a while tomorrow some time?”

  “I’m afraid not, Bart; we’ve got the painters in as part of an extensive project, and the place is a mess. We only came up here for the night just to have a word with the painting contractor; we’ll go back tomorrow morning. It’s difficult to sleep with the smell of paint in the house, and the stuff has been custom-mixed to match the original eighteenth-century formula and takes forever to dry. Perhaps another time.”

  “Soon, I hope,” Stone said.

  “I’m afraid it may be a while before the house will be viewable.”

  “I have a place in Washington, and I’m up here from time to time. I hope I’ll have another opportunity.”

  “We’ll see that you do,” Kramer replied. “I know your name, I believe.”

  “I’ve had the place here for a while, now.”

  “No. I mean from New York. Are you an attorney?”

  “I am.”

  “Something about your involvement with the death of that Mafia guy… What was his name?”

  “Carmine Dattila?”

  “That’s the one. Dattila the Hun they called him.”

  “I wasn’t involved with his death; I just represented the man who was accused of shooting him.”

  “But he was never tried, was he? Was he innocent?”

  “Innocent is too strong a word,” Stone replied. “Let’s just say that the D.A. decided that they didn’t have sufficient evidence – or perhaps the inclination – to bring him to trial.”

  “That’s an interesting locution,” Kramer said. “Perhaps at our next meeting you would be kind enough to tell me the details.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Stone said. “At least those details that don’t violate the confidence of my client.”

  “The Colonel and I are both very interested in situations where a crime has been committed but gone unpunished,” Kramer said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll get home and try to sleep for a while in our paint-scented atmosphere.”

  Stone shook both their hands. “It was good to meet you. I look forward to seeing your house when it’s back together.”

  “And we look forward to showing it to you,” Kramer said. They shook the hands of Holly and Barton, then left.

  “I wonder what he meant by that?” Holly asked.

  “By what?” Barton asked, innocently.

  “That business about both you and he being interested in unpunished crimes.”

  “Oh, that was just a little joke,” Barton said. “He often talks that way when we’re together.”

  “Barton,” Stone said, “is Ab Kramer the only one of your former men that you see in the ordinary course of things?”

  “Yes, he is, I suppose, and I ran into him only because he bought a place here and asked me to advise him on some of the pieces he was collecting. He has a fine collection of American furniture, perhaps one of the dozen best in a private home.”

  “A home he doesn’t want Holly and me to see,” Stone said.

  “I wonder why,” Holly said.

  “Maybe he has a new piece of furniture in his collection, one that he doesn’t want us to see,” Stone replied.

  “So,” Barton said, “you think Ab Kramer might be behind the theft of the secretary?”

  “It’s cheaper than buying it at auction, isn’t it?”

  “Ab is a very wealthy man; I’m sure he could write a check for the piece if it came on the market.”

  “Yes, if it came on the market. On the other hand, if he thought that you were never going to sell it… Well, it’s one of only two in private hands, isn’t it? And the other is on the West Coast?”

  “You have a point,” Barton said. “Certainly, Ab is accustomed to getting what he wants, one way or another.”

  “Are you aware of any circumstances in which he acquired some possession by means other than strictly legal?” Stone asked.

  “Well, not for the last twenty-odd years,” Barton replied, “but, of course, I haven’t seen all that much of him since Vietnam.”

  “Exactly how much have you seen him?”

  “I was invited to dinner once, along with a large table full of people. I went to the house on another occasion to see a piece he’d bought; I think he wanted to know if he’d paid too much for it. He had. That’s about the extent of our recent acquaintance.”

  “How did he know you had the secretary?”

  Barton looked a little sheepish. “I think I may have mentioned it when I bought it. I was very excited about it, and it was difficult to keep it to myself.”

  “Who else did you tell, Barton?”

  “No one. No one at all.”

  “That’s very interesting,” Stone said. “I wonder how we could get a look inside that house.”

  18

  Saturday morning dawned bright and beautiful, with the nip of autumn in the air, and Stone and Holly slept in each other’s arms.<
br />
  Holly stirred. “Why don’t you stay for the weekend?” she asked. “There’s nothing for you to do in the city, is there?”

  “Except find Barton’s secretary,” Stone muttered.

  “You might be more likely to find it here,” she said.

  Stone opened an eye. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

  “Well, one of the things about attending classes at the Farm is that they turn you into a pretty good cat burglar.” The Farm was the CIA’s training facility.

  “Yeah, but they yanked you out after only a few weeks and put you to work.”

  “That’s true, but I’ve been going back a couple of days a week to complete my training. Lance says it will look better on my record when promotion time comes.”

  “So what have they taught you at the Farm?”

  “Oh, lock picking, safecracking, the foiling of alarm systems, silent killing – all sorts of good stuff. Oh, and I can kill you with my thumb.”

  “Please don’t. Have you killed anybody?”

  “Not yet, but you don’t want to cross me.”

  Stone kissed her. “What can I do to keep you sweet?”

  “You know what,” she breathed in his ear.

  He knew, and he did it.

  After a long lunch at the Mayflower Inn, they called Barton and went back to his house. He took them into the study.

  “We want to get into Abner Kramer’s house,” Holly said.

  “Correction,” Stone said. “She wants to get into Kramer’s house.”

  “I think that’s a terrible idea,” Barton said.

  “How else are we going to know if he has your secretary?” Holly asked.

  “I don’t think Ab has it,” Barton replied.

  “Have you got a better candidate?” Stone asked. “You’ve said he’s the only person you told about it. You’ve also said that, when he wants something, he gets it, and the implication was that he doesn’t care how.”

  “He wouldn’t steal from me,” Barton said. “After all, I gave him the basis of the fortune he’s made.”

  “And you cut him and the others out of the deal on the Saint-Gaudens double eagle,” Stone pointed out. “Ab could be nursing a grudge, and how better to get back at you than to take your most prized possession?”

  “We just want to look around,” Holly said.

  Stone pointed at Holly. “She just wants to look around.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Holly said. “What do you want to do, hold my coat?”

  “I’d be happy to hold your coat,” Stone said.

  “Holly,” Barton said in a fatherly tone, “why do you think you can even get inside the place? Ab, no doubt, has state-of-the-art security in place.”

  “I’ve been trained by the best to breach state-of-the-art security,” Holly said. “All I need is a few tools that I can buy at the local hardware store.”

  “Come on, Barton,” Stone said, “let her at least case the joint.”

  “Is there some vantage point from which we could take a look at the estate from a distance?” Holly asked.

  “As a matter of fact, there is,” Barton replied.

  They followed Barton’s directions, turning off the highway and onto a dirt track that wound for miles through the woods. Twice they had to get out of the car and move fallen tree limbs aside in order to pass. Finally they got out of the car, and Barton, carrying a binocular case, led them a few yards into the trees.

  The hillside fell away, and they found themselves looking across a small lake at the back of a large house, perhaps half a mile away. A barn and some outbuildings stood to one side, enclosed by a stone wall.

  Barton took his binoculars from the case and handed them to Holly. “Here you go. They’re fifteen power at full zoom, so you’ll need to brace against a tree to hold them steady.”

  Holly braced herself and synchronized the two eyepieces. “Wow,” she said softly. “These things are great.”

  “Let me take a look,” Stone said. He received the binoculars and braced against a tree. “ ‘Wow’ is right,” he said. “I can see a picture on a wall, right through a window.”

  “Do you see a large mahogany secretary?” Barton asked.

  “Sorry, no.”

  Holly tugged at his sleeve and demanded the binoculars back. “He wasn’t lying about the painters,” she said. “I can see a corner of a van behind the stone wall, and a man in white coveralls just came and took a bucket out of it and went back into the house.”

  “There’s got to be a caretaker,” Stone said.

  “There is,” Barton replied. “I know the fellow. He would probably live in the little house you can see a part of behind the barn.”

  “So when the painters leave, there’ll still be somebody there.”

  “Of course. You don’t just drive away and leave a house like this, containing an important collection, all by itself.”

  “What kind of security is there likely to be, Holly?” Stone asked.

  “Oh, every door and window in the house will be wired, and there’ll be motion detectors galore, sensors under the rugs. Like that.”

  “Will there be battery backup?”

  “Of course, and maybe a generator, too.”

  “So, if we could cut the power, the generator would come on automatically?”

  “Yes.”

  “So we could fix the generator so it wouldn’t come on, then cut the power?”

  “But there’d be a battery backup. It would be crazy not to have that.”

  “Where would the batteries likely be?”

  “Inside the house, probably. But the generator would be outside, since it’s noisy when it comes on.”

  “How noisy?”

  “Probably like a big truck idling. They’d have a big one for a place like this, at least twenty kilowatts, I’d imagine.”

  “Right,” Stone said. “When you’ve got that much money, you don’t tolerate the slightest inconvenience. The power goes off in the middle of your favorite TV program, you want it back on instantly.”

  Holly panned the scene with the binoculars. “I see a power transformer on a pole about a hundred yards from the house,” she said. “We’d have to knock that out in such a way that it would appear to be a normal failure. Short it out. Could take them a while to reset it.”

  “Then what?” Barton asked.

  “I want to watch the painters leave for the day,” she said, “and then I want to go to the hardware store before it closes.”

  “Impossible to do both,” Stone said. “Give me a list, and I’ll go now. I can be back in an hour.”

  Holly took a notebook from her pocket and began scribbling. She handed it to Stone. “No shortcuts, no substitutions.”

  “Right.”

  “Stone,” Barton said, “there’s a gate where you can drop us along the way. It’s closer to the house.”

  “All right.”

  Stone dropped them a mile back down the dirt road.

  “We’ll leave the gate open,” Barton said. “You can drive closer to the house with your lights off, but don’t slam any car doors.”

  “I’ll be back shortly,” Stone said. He drove away reminding himself that he was not – not – going to enter that house.

  19

  Stone drove into town to the Washington Supply and walked around, filling Holly’s order. He picked up a small screwdriver set, needle-nose pliers, wire cutters, electrical tape, a small roll of wire, an electrical meter, some alligator clips, two tiny flashlights and lithium batteries and, of course, a roll of duct tape. He also bought her a nylon tool belt with a pouch, and three pairs of paper socks that workmen wore over their boots to keep from tracking up nice houses. As an afterthought, he grabbed a box of latex gloves, then he went to the cashier’s counter.

  “Stocking up, huh, Mr. Barrington?” the man at the counter asked.

  “Yeah, just a few things for around the house, do a few repairs.” He charged the goods to his account and le
ft. Half an hour later, he turned off the dirt road and through the opened gate onto an almost grown-over lane. It was getting dark, and he switched off his lights to avoid being seen from the house. The lane ended in a little clearing, perhaps a hundred yards from the house. He stuffed all his purchases into the tool belt and its pouch, then, carrying the socks and the latex gloves, he followed Holly’s and Barton’s tracks through some fairly tall grass until he found them behind the barn.

  “Hey,” Holly whispered. “Did you get absolutely everything?”

  “Of course. That and a bit more.” He handed her the tool belt and issued everybody latex gloves and paper socks. “Wait until we’re inside the house before you put on the socks over your shoes,” he reminded them.

  A vehicle door slammed, and they peeked around a corner of the barn.

  “The painters are packing up,” Holly said.

  “Hey, Randy!” somebody yelled.

  A door opened at the caretaker’s house, and a man stepped out. “Yeah?”

  “We’re done for the day; you can lock up and do the security thing.”

  “Okay, as soon as I finish dinner. See you guys on Monday.” He went back inside and closed the door. The van drove away.

  “Holy shit,” Holly said. “The house is wide open, and the alarm hasn’t been set. Let’s go!”

  “I’ll wait here,” Stone said.

  “Oh, come on. I don’t even have to do the burglary thing.”

  “Oh, all right.” He followed along behind Holly and Barton, keeping low behind the stone wall. All the lights in the caretaker’s house seemed to be on, and there were one or two, probably night-lights, on in the big house. Holly led them straight to the back door, and they simply opened it and walked inside. They were in a mudroom, and half a dozen pairs of gumboots were lined up against the wall under a row of pegs holding various outerwear.

  “Okay, socks and gloves on,” Holly said, and they all slipped the paper things over their shoes and pulled on the latex gloves. “There’s the security box,” Holly said, pointing, “and I’ll bet the backup batteries are in that cabinet below. You lead the way, Barton; you’ve been here before.”