Hush-Hush
Page 23
“All right,” the man said. He leaned his assault rifle against the vehicle, reached up, unbuckled his chin strap, and shucked off the mask and helmet. It was the Greek.
Stone reached his pocket and pressed the talk button. “If anybody’s there, please shoot the son of a bitch now. The machine gunner, too.”
“Get your hand away from your pocket,” Gromyko shouted.
Stone complied. “Tell you what, why don’t we do this with knives? Mano a mano.”
Gromyko smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Without the body armor,” Stone said. Somebody please shoot.
Gromyko began unbuckling things, and Stone took off his shirt, exposing bare flesh. He wondered if Gromyko had ever been in a knife fight. He knew that he, himself, had not. He found the knife on his belt and pulled it.
Gromyko was ahead of him. He took two steps forward and stopped. “Come to me,” he said.
Stone measured the distance between himself and his discarded machine gun, lying in the driveway. About ten feet, and the Greek was another thirty. Why had he thrown it so far? He took a couple of steps closer to it, and brought his knife up.
Gromyko produced a much larger knife and laughed. “I’m going to cut your head off,” he said, conversationally.
Oh, all right, Stone thought, taking another step.
As he did, there were two quick noises in succession: one that knocked Gromyko down, and another that blew up the Humvee and knocked Stone backward, off his feet.
Stone lay on his back and looked at the sky, then his eyes began filling with blood.
“Talk to me, Stone,” Rawls said.
60
Rawls pulled Stone into a sitting position. “I’m sorry about the RPG,” he said. “You’ve taken some shrapnel.”
“Get me on my feet,” Stone managed to say. He struggled to stand up, with Rawls’s help, found a handkerchief and wiped some of the blood off his face. Hanging on to Ed, he staggered forward toward the Greek, stopping to bend over and retrieve his pistol.
The Greek was holding a hand to his neck, trying to stanch the flow of blood. He was smiling at Stone.
“Don’t die,” Stone said.
“You want me to live?”
“No, I want to kill you myself.”
Gromyko struggled to one elbow, while holding his other hand to the wound. “I will kill you with my fingers,” he said.
“I don’t think so.” Stone pointed the weapon at him and fired a round, which missed and struck the ground behind him.
“You’re a little wobbly,” Ed said. “You want me to do that for you?”
“No, thanks, I’d rather do it myself.”
The Greek got into a sitting position. “Your girlfriend is dead,” he said, still grinning. “One of my men killed her in the hospital about an hour ago. Her brains went everywhere.”
“Now,” Stone said, moving forward and shaking off Rawls. “No more time.” He took aim from about six feet, squeezed the trigger, and the top of Gromyko’s head disappeared.
“Nice shot,” Rawls said, catching Stone again before he could fall. “Come into the house. Let’s get you seen to.”
Stone struggled into the house and collapsed into a chair, while Rawls located a first-aid kit in a tin suitcase.
Ed got a fistful of gauze pads and started dabbing the blood off Stone’s face, chest, and arms.
“Did you hear what he said before he died?” Stone asked.
“No.”
“He said Rocky was dead, that one of his men killed her at the hospital.”
“That’s bullshit. She’s too well-guarded.”
Sally came into the room and set down her deer rifle. “I got the bastard,” she said.
“That was you?”
“It was,” Rawls answered for her. “First shot. From a helicopter, by God. It was a beautiful thing.”
“I liked the effect,” Stone said. “Also, the part about saving my life. That was fun.”
“Ed got the Humvee with the RPG.”
“It was the only thing on the island that would have stopped that thing,” Ed said, “and I only had the one round.” Ed applied some skin-colored tape to several places on Stone’s face. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but you may not be quite as pretty as before.”
“The scars will give him character,” Sally said.
“Where’s the chopper?” Stone asked. “I want to see Rocky.”
“On the front lawn,” Sally replied. “Plenty of fuel.”
Stone’s phone rang. He dug it out and looked at the caller ID: Krause. “Oh, God,” he said. “It’s her doctor, with the news.” Reluctantly, he pressed the button. “Yes?”
“It’s Paul Krause,” the doctor said. “With news.”
“I heard,” Stone replied.
“How?”
“The Greek told me.”
“I’ll tell you again. Rocky began coming to ten minutes ago, and she’s talking a little,” Krause said. “Hold on, she wants to speak to you.”
Stone found that he had been holding his breath, and he let it all out.
“Stone?” a weak voice said.
“Hello, Rocky,” he said. “Welcome back.”
Krause took the phone back. “That’s all she can manage for a bit.”
“Tell her I’m choppering in,” Stone said.
“I’ll do that.”
Rawls took the phone from Stone. “Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“Our boy Stone needs some medical attention when he gets there.”
“It’s what we do,” Krause said, then hung up.
“Do you think you can get me into the chopper?” Stone asked.
“Dino’s already aboard. It will take us all there.”
Rawls hung Stone’s shirt on his shoulders and tied the sleeves in a loose knot. Stone got to his feet and, leaning on Sally, hobbled out to the waiting aircraft.
The engines started.
END
August 13, 2020
Washington, Connecticut
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my website at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
Remember: e-mail, reply; snail mail, no reply.
When you e-mail, please do not send attachments, as I never open these. They can take twenty minutes to download, and they often contain viruses.
Please do not place me on your mailing lists for funny stories, prayers, political causes, charitable fund-raising, petitions, or sentimental claptrap. I get enough of that from people I already know. Generally speaking, when I get e-mail addressed to a large number of people, I immediately delete it without reading it.
Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of Writer’s Market at any bookstore; that will tell you how.
Anyone with a request concerning events or appearances may e-mail it to me or send it to: Putnam Publicity Department, Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
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Those who wish to m
ake offers for rights of a literary nature should contact Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit, 285 Madison Avenue, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10017. (Note: This is not an invitation for you to send her your manuscript or to solicit her to be your agent.)
If you want to know if I will be signing books in your city, please visit my website, www.stuartwoods.com, where the tour schedule will be published a month or so in advance. If you wish me to do a book signing in your locality, ask your favorite bookseller to contact his Penguin representative or the Penguin publicity department with the request.
If you find typographical or editorial errors in my book and feel an irresistible urge to tell someone, please write to Sara Minnich at Penguin’s address above. Do not e-mail your discoveries to me, as I will already have learned about them from others.
A list of my published works appears in the front of this book and on my website. All the novels are still in print in paperback and can be found at or ordered from any bookstore. If you wish to obtain hardcover copies of earlier novels or of the two nonfiction books, a good used-book store or one of the online bookstores can help you find them. Otherwise, you will have to go to a great many garage sales.
Keep reading for an exciting excerpt from the next Stone Barrington novel, Double Jeopardy.
1
Stone Barrington walked into his office on a Monday morning and found three pink memo slips, saying that a John Keegan had called and needed to see him urgently.
Joan Robertson, his secretary, came into the room without being asked, and said, “No, I don’t know who he is. He’s been leaving messages on the machine since early this morning.”
“Perhaps you know why there’s no number to call back on these slips?”
“Oh, I just thought I’d make life more difficult for you. Isn’t that my job?”
“I’m just asking.”
“I can only write down the messages left,” she said. “If there had been a number, I would have written that down, too. If past performance is any indication, he’ll call back.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Stone said. His phone rang. Joan picked it up.
“The Barrington Practice at Woodman & Weld,” she said. “Ah, yes, Mr. Keegan, I have him right here.” She handed Stone the phone with a triumphant grin.
“Good morning, this is Stone Barrington.”
“Thank God,” Keegan said. “My name is John Keegan, call me Jack. I need to speak to you in person as soon as possible.”
“Where are you, Jack?’
“In a cab, on the way in from the airport.”
“A New York airport?’
“Sorry, yes. LaGuardia. I just got off the shuttle from Boston.”
“Do you have my address?”
Keegan spoke it to him.
“May I know what this is about?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Suffice to say, it’s a family matter.”
“I’ll be available when you get here. I hope you brought your raincoat and galoshes.” But Keegan had hung up. It was pouring outside.
A few minutes later, the office doorbell rang. Stone’s office was in a former dentist’s office in a house that he had inherited from a great-aunt many years before and remodeled. He heard the sounds of an umbrella closing and outer clothing being shucked off.
Joan stuck her head in. “Mr. Keegan to see you,” she said, “slightly damp.”
Keegan walked in wearing a good suit and a necktie, and carrying an old-fashioned briefcase, stuffed. He dropped it on the floor with a thump and offered his hand.
Stone shook it and waved him to a seat. “I expect you could use some hot coffee,” Stone said.
“Oh, yes.”
“How?” Joan asked.
“Black, please.”
“It’s strong. Do you want it weaker?”
“Strong is good.”
She left and returned with a steaming mug and set it on a small table beside him. He sipped it gratefully.
“You said this was a family matter,” Stone said. “I have only one family member, a son, Peter, who lives in Los Angeles. Is this about him?”
“No, sorry. The other side of the family.” He handed a card over: “Keegan, Kay, and Williams, Boston.”
“And you’re Keegan,” Stone said. “Just a wild guess.”
“I and my father before me. All three of us partners had fathers who preceded us in the firm.”
“Neat and tidy. The other side of the family? The Stones?”
“Yes.”
“They’re all dead, except two of them, who are . . . unavailable.”
“Mr. Barrington . . .”
“Call me Stone.”
“Stone . . .” He hesitated.
“Yes?”
“I’m new to this case, and it would be helpful to me if you could recount your knowledge of your Stone relatives, particularly with regard to your residence on Islesboro.”
“How far back do you want me to go?”
“Grandparents.”
“My mother, Matilda, was a Stone. She and my father, a Barrington, were both from western Massachusetts, both families in the weaving business, mostly men’s suitings. My parents fell in love as teenagers; she was studying art at Mount Holyoke and he, law, at Yale. Her parents objected to the pairing.”
“On what grounds?”
“My father had leftist political views. He had even joined the Communist Party for a brief time, mostly to annoy his father, I think. They married anyway—eloped. As a result, they were both banished from their families: he for his politics, she for marrying him.”
“Did you have any cousins on the Stone side?”
“Two first cousins, Caleb and Richard.”
“Did you know them well?”
“Not until, at eighteen, I was invited to spend a summer on Islesboro with them, during a brief thaw in family relations.”
“And how did you get on with them?”
“Splendidly, with Dick, poorly with Caleb, who was both a bully and an ass, as bullies usually are. I finally had occasion to punch him in the nose, earning the displeasure of his mother, who thereafter declared me persona non grata on the island. I was not invited back.”
“Did you see them after that?”
“I saw Dick once, when he came to New York on business. We had dinner and renewed our warm friendship. That was the last time I saw him.”
“Did you communicate on any sort of regular basis?”
“Not really. I never met his wife.”
“And did the Stone brothers have progeny?”
“Dick and his wife had a daughter. Caleb, twin sons.”
“Did you ever hear from Dick again?”
“I received a package from him, with a letter instructing me to put it in my safe and to open it only in the event of his death.”
“What happened after that?”
“He died.”
“Murdered, along with his wife and child, I am informed.”
“You are correctly informed.”
“Did you learn who killed them?”
“I deduced who did. The law did not.”
“What was your deduction?”
“That Enos and Eben Stone murdered all three, along with a number of local, Boston, and New Haven women. Oh, and both their parents. I believe the twins are serving life without possibility of parole in the state prison.”
“That is not quite correct,” Keegan said.
“How not so?”
“The Stone twins confessed to the killing of their parents, pled guilty, and were sentenced to life.”
“What about no parole?”
“Their first parole hearing is the day after tomorrow.”
2
Stone blinked. “Whatever happened to, ‘without parole’?”
“Wasn’t that good enough for life without parole?”
“It should have been, but two factors intervened: first, the boys claimed, convincingly, that their father had sexually abused them as children and that their mother knew about it but did nothing. Second, the state was deeply embarrassed about its failure to charge them on all counts, and they just wanted the case to go away. So, aided by a clever attorney—my father—they pled guilty to the murders of their parents, in exchange for life with the possibility of parole, something the prosecution thought never would happen.”
“And you,” Stone said. “Are you telling me all this because of the guilt of your father’s participation?”
“Yes. I tried to talk him out of it, but he thought it would be a feather in his cap. As a result, he was asked to resign from his clubs, and he never took another criminal case. Also, the twins were a couple of years behind me at school, and I had always thought they were evil little shits. My great regret is that Maine got rid of the death penalty in the 1870s.”
“All right, we’re both up to date, I think,” Stone said. “Now tell me why we are telling each other all this.”
“I can’t very well show up at the parole hearing and beg the board to deny.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would further humiliate my father to oppose him in a case that has already caused him such pain. He loved his clubs, and he is quite old now and has already had one stroke.”
“So, you’d like me to appear and plead the case against parole?”
“If you would be so kind; I would be very grateful.”
“And have you been able to come up with any convincing evidence for me to present?”
“I fear I have not.”
“Let me guess: the twins have been ideal prisoners and they charmed all they have met.”