Cold Paradise 07

by Stuart Woods

  “You told me you’d never heard of Paul Manning, and then you told me you knew him. One of those was a lie.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll deal directly with Manning.”

  “For whatever reason, Paul doesn’t wish to deal with you.”

  “Then I’ll deal with a reputable lawyer who represents him.”

  James was silent for a moment. “I am Paul Manning’s attorney,” he said finally.

  “You’re a novelist,” Stone said.

  “So is Scott Turow, but he’s a lawyer, too.”

  “I take it your name is not Frederick James, then?”

  “A nom de plume.”

  “What is your real name?”

  “I’m not prepared to divulge that.”

  “And you think I’m going to deal with somebody who says he’s an attorney but won’t tell me his name? Either get serious, or go away.”

  “But I—”

  “I don’t know who you are, where you are, if you’re an attorney or even if you really know Paul Manning.”

  “I assure you, I do.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “What exactly do you want, Mr. Barrington?”

  “I want to know that I’m dealing with the real Paul Manning and that he’s represented by an attorney whose identity I can confirm.”

  “And what proof of those things would you accept?”

  “Bring Manning to a meeting, and let him authorize you to represent him in my presence.”

  “Paul won’t meet with you.”

  “Then I’m not going to remove the threat of his arrest on insurance fraud, and I’m certainly not going to give him any of my client’s money.”

  “There must be some way we can resolve this.”

  “I think you understand my concerns, Mr. James. Why don’t you go away and think about it for a bit, discuss it with your client and get back to me?”

  “All right,” James said and hung up.

  “He’s playing games?” Dino asked.

  “I don’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

  “Manning’s afraid you’re going to set him up for an arrest.”

  “A reasonable fear,” Stone said.

  “Can you really get him off on the insurance fraud charge, or are you just blowing smoke up his ass?”

  “I’ve already gotten him off,” Stone said. “But I’m not going to tell him that.”

  “How did you get him off?”

  “I negotiated a deal for Allison with the insurance company, whereby they agreed not to prosecute in order to get some of the money back.”

  “And the deal includes Manning? Why?”

  “I didn’t want to admit to them that Allison was still alive, so I wrote the agreement without reference to names. Now they can’t prosecute anybody.”

  “That’s pretty slick, Stone.”

  “I’m a pretty slick lawyer,” Stone replied.

  “Yeah, sometimes,” Dino admitted.

  They were back on the yacht, having a drink with Callie, when Stone’s phone buzzed again. “Hello?”

  “It’s Frederick James.”

  “What did you come up with?”

  “I propose that you and I meet, in order for me to establish my credentials.”

  “Okay, where?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in New York, but I have to go to Miami on business later in the week. Is there someplace between New York and Miami we can meet? Preferably in an airport?”

  “I’m on the west coast of Florida,” Stone said. “How about Palm Beach International? It’s a couple of hours’ drive for me.”

  “Agreed. Now, what do you need from me?”

  “In what state are you licensed to practice?”

  “New York.”

  “Okay. Bring a copy of your New York law license, your New York driver’s license and your United States passport. Also, I’ll need a photograph of you with Paul Manning, taken no earlier than today and no later than tomorrow, and I want a copy of the day’s New York Times prominently displayed in the photograph.”

  “I can do all that, I think, although Paul doesn’t like to be photographed.”

  “I can imagine. Then I’ll need a copy of Manning’s U.S. passport, with his current identity recorded therein, and I want that clearly visible in the photograph, too.”

  “Whoa, whoa, he’s not going to go for that.”

  “I’m giving him nothing unless I’m convinced he’s who he says he is, and in order to do that, I’ll need to know who he says he is. He’s going to have to prove it to me.”

  “You’re throwing in a whole lot of stuff, here,” James said.

  “If you’re a lawyer, you’ll know very well that I have to protect my client, just as you have to protect yours. That’s all we’re talking about.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” James said and hung up.

  “Any progress?” Liz asked.

  “By inches,” Stone said. “Manning is being very cautious.”

  “He’s got a lot to be cautious about,” Liz replied.

  An hour later, Stone’s phone vibrated again. “All right,” James said. “The day after tomorrow at one P.M., at Signature Aviation, Palm Beach International.”

  “Fine,” Stone said. “I’ll see you then, but if my concerns are not met, there’ll be no discussion of terms.”

  “I understand,” James said.

  Stone hung up. “We’re on.”

  43

  LATE THAT NIGHT, AFTER A BIG DINNER AND MORE WINE than he had intended to drink, Stone fell into bed, exhausted. He had barely fallen asleep, when he was wakened by a knock on the door—at first, softly, then loudly. Annoyed, he got out of bed, put on a robe and went to the door.

  “Good evening,” Dolce said. She stood there with two brandy snifters in one hand and a pistol in the other. “May I come in?” she asked, unnecessarily.

  Stone looked at the gun and backed into the room. “Of course,” he said.

  Dolce kicked the door shut and offered him a snifter. “I brought you a drink,” she said.

  “Thanks, but I’ve already had too much to drink this evening,” he replied.

  “I said, I brought you a drink,” she said, through clenched teeth.

  Stone took the glass.

  “Sit on the bed,” she said, “where I can see you.”

  Stone sat on the bed.

  Dolce lifted her glass. “To many more happy moments like this,” she said.

  Stone sipped at his brandy. It had an uncharacteristically bitter taste.

  “Drink it!” she said, tossing down her own drink.

  Stone tossed down his own. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked.

  Dolce smiled, revealing her startlingly white teeth against her olive skin. “A pleasure, is it? I had somehow gotten the impression that seeing your wife was no longer such a pleasure. How long has it been?”

  “Too long,” Stone said. He felt dreadful; the brandy on top of everything else he had had to drink at dinner was too much. He moved to set down his glass on the bedside table, and to his astonishment, he missed the table entirely. The glass dropped to the floor, missing the rug, shattering into tiny pieces. “I’m drunk,” he said.

  “Not exactly,” Dolce replied. “You’re just feeling the first effects of the Thorazine.”

  “What’s Thorazine?” Stone asked, and he had to try hard to pronounce the words.

  “It’s a little something that an enlightened medical profession has devised to help those of us who are—how shall I put this?—psychiatrically challenged easier to manage. Do you know that one of Papa’s doctors actually said those words to me? Psychiatrically challenged! You have no idea what those of us who do not meet society’s standards of behavior have to endure at the hands of those who wish to make our company more acceptable.” She smiled. “But you’re about to find out.”

  “Huh?” Stone said, dully. Hi
s mind seemed fairly sharp—certainly, he could understand her—but there was something blocking the connection between his brain and his lips, something that slowed everything to a molasseslike flow.

  “Don’t worry, my darling. It won’t last long,” she said, rising and approaching the bed. Her shoes ground the broken snifter into the floor with a loud noise. She placed a finger in the middle of Stone’s forehead and pushed gently.

  Stone fell back onto the bed. It was where he had always wanted to be, here on this bed, staring at the beautifully crafted ceiling of his beautifully crafted cabin.

  Dolce lifted his feet onto the bed, untied his robe, then rolled him over and stripped it off his body. She rolled him onto his back again and tucked two pillows under his head.

  Stone lay there, naked, indolent to a degree he would not have dreamed possible. He had no wish to do anything except lie there and let this happen.

  Dolce went back to her chair, picked up the handbag that had hung on her arm, opened it, took out a wad of something and returned to the bed. She sat down on the edge and shook the little bundle into long lengths. “You know,” she said, smoothing them out, “science has never solved the problem of what to do with old nylon stockings. There’s no recycling of them, and they seem too good to throw away. One little run, and they’re useless.” She smiled again. “Or are they?” She rolled Stone’s limp form through three hundred and sixty degrees, until he was centered on the bed, then she tied one end of a stocking to a wrist and the other end to a bedpost.

  Stone watched her do it, unconcerned, and continued to watch as she tied his other hand and both feet to bedposts. He was spread-eagled, naked, on the bed, before a trickle of concern made its way from somewhere in his brain to his forehead, where it manifested itself in beads of sweat that popped out. Wait a minute, he thought. Something is wrong here. He tugged at the bedposts, but the sturdy mahogany bed would not move, and neither could he.

  “Well,” Dolce said, “I believe your tiny dose of Thorazine is beginning to wear off. A psychiatric dose would have lasted much longer. It took me several months to learn to control my dosage—without the knowledge of my nurses, of course—to the point where I could manage a clear thought sooner, rather than later.” She drew back a hand and slapped him smartly across the face. “There, feel that?”

  “Yes,” he said, and his lips moved better than they had a few minutes before.

  “Oh, good, because I want you to be wide awake and feeling everything that is going to happen now.”

  “Dolce,” Stone said, “what are you doing?”

  “I thought it would be good,” she said, “if you had some personal experience of a loss of control over what happens to you, and, particularly, if you experienced a sense of loss over, oh, I don’t know, maybe a body part or two?” She opened her handbag and removed an old-fashioned straight razor.

  Stone tried harder to free himself from the stockings and the bedposts, but to no avail.

  “You’re wasting your time, my dearest,” she said, daubing the sweat from his brow with a corner of the sheet. “Nylon stockings make excellent restraints; they’re extremely strong, stronger than you, in fact.” She opened the razor, and the blade caught the light.

  “There’s a very nice little shop in town,” she said, “that sells men’s shaving products, and they had this very beautiful example of German steelmaking.” She pulled a hair from Stone’s head and let it fall on the blade. It separated into two pieces and fell to the floor.

  “It has never been used,” she said, “and it will never be sharper than it is at this moment. Just as well, too, since I didn’t manage to steal a local anesthetic from my captors, only the drug. You’ll hardly feel a thing, just the warm trickle—or rather, gush—of blood as it flows across what I believe the poets call the loins.” She reached out and took hold of the tip of his penis. “Let’s get it excited,” she said. “It makes a better target.” She drew back the hand holding the razor and swung it in a slow arc toward its destination.

  Then Stone was screaming, and someone was hammering on the door.

  “Stone, open the door!” a woman’s voice called.

  Stone was sitting straight up in bed, still dressed in his robe. He stumbled to the door and opened it.

  “What’s wrong?” Callie asked, alarmed. “You’ve been screaming at the top of your lungs.”

  Dino appeared behind Callie. “You all right, Stone?”

  Stone went and sat on the edge of the bed, while Callie got a towel and wiped the sweat from his face and upper body.

  “I had a dream,” he panted.

  “More like a nightmare,” Callie said.

  “Yes, more like a nightmare.”

  44

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, STONE MADE THE CALL HE had been dreading and could no longer postpone.

  “Hello, Stone,” Eduardo Bianchi said.

  “Good morning, Eduardo. I hope you’re well.”

  “I have been better,” Eduardo said, then was silent.

  It was up to Stone. “I understand that Dolce has … left your house.”

  “I am afraid that is so,” Eduardo replied.

  “Do you have any idea of where she might be?”

  “Stone, my friend, I think she would like to be wherever you are.”

  “I’m in Palm Beach, Florida, on business,” Stone said. “Dino is with me, and he feels that Dolce may be in Palm Beach; that she may have been following me.”

  Eduardo heaved a sigh. “I will send people at once,” he said.

  “Eduardo, I cannot guarantee you that she is here. It’s just a feeling.”

  “I respect what you feel, Stone, and if there is any chance at all that she is in Palm Beach, then that is where I must look for her.”

  “Eduardo, speaking as an attorney, I must ask if you have taken any legal steps toward guardianship?”

  “No. This is a family problem, you understand, and I have no wish to bring the courts into it.”

  “I understand your feelings, but simply sending people to find her and return her could present legal difficulties that might be more invasive of your family privacy than taking steps to have her declared incompetent.”

  “She is not an incompetent person,” Eduardo said stiffly.

  “I’m sorry. I meant incompetent in the legal sense, not otherwise. Unless you are willing to make a case to a court that she is not currently able to account for herself and her actions, then she is legally entitled to do and go as she pleases. Removing her to New York from another state could pose problems.”

  “Stone, I understand this, and I am grateful for your advice, but you must understand that, in my family, we are accustomed to solving our problems without the help of, ah, public officials. If I can locate Dolce, I can achieve the reunification I desire.”

  “Of course, Eduardo. I don’t doubt for a moment that you can.”

  “You say that Dino is with you? I had not heard this.”

  “Dino came down to help me with another matter, one not connected to Dolce.”

  “I see. Well, it is good that he is there; you may well need his help. I need hardly tell you that Dolce may be a danger to herself and to you.”

  “I hope you are wrong, but I understand,” Stone said. “If I should locate Dolce, what would you have me do?”

  “Simply call me, and I will do the rest,” Eduardo said. “Please don’t try to deal with her yourself. From what her doctors have told me, she could be very dangerous.”

  “Eduardo, if Dolce should be traveling under a name not her own, is there a name she might choose to use?”

  Eduardo was silent while he thought. “Once, when she was sixteen, she ran away after a quarrel with me. At that time, she used the name Portia Buckingham. It was a ridiculous name for a schoolgirl to choose, I know, but it was a kind of fantasy identity she made up as a child. She might possibly use it again.”

  “Would you like me to make some discreet inquiries?” Stone asked.

&
nbsp; “Only if you can do so without involving the local police,” Eduardo replied. “I do not wish for Dolce to be brought to the attention of the authorities, unless she tries to harm someone.”

  “There’s not much I can do on my own,” Stone said, “but I’ll try.”

  “Ask Dino for his help. She is his sister-in-law, after all.”

  “I’ll do that.” Stone told Eduardo how he could be contacted.

  “Goodbye, Stone, and thank you for your concern for Dolce.”

  “Goodbye, Eduardo.” Stone hung up.

  Dino sat down beside him. “You called Eduardo?”

  “I felt I had to. He’s sending people down here.”

  “Great, now we’ll have goombahs roaming the streets of this piss-elegant town.”

  “Dino, you know Eduardo is more subtle than that.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “He wants your help in finding her.”

  “What can I do?”

  Stone handed him a Palm Beach classified directory. “Start calling hotels. Flash your badge. Inquire about her under her own name and under the name Portia Buckingham.”

  “Portia Buckingham? Give me a break!”

  “It’s a name she used to fantasize about having when she was a child, Eduardo says.”

  Dino shook his head and took the phone book. “I’ll use the phone in the saloon,” he said.

  “Don’t alarm anybody, just find out if she’s registered.”

  “Thanks, Stone. I needed that advice.” Dino went into the saloon.

  “Leave a description with the desk clerk, too,” Stone called after him.

  Stone called his office. “Hi, Joan, it’s me. What’s happening?”

  “Amazingly little,” she said.

  “Patch me into the dictator,” he said. “I have some documents I’d like you to type up and FedEx to me today.”

  “Sure. Anything else?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Here you go.”

  Stone heard the beep and began to dictate. When he had finished and given Joan her instructions, he hung up and went into the saloon. Dino was just hanging up the phone.

  “I need the phone book for a minute,” Stone said.

  Dino tossed it to him. “I’ve called half a dozen places, starting with the Breakers.”

  “No luck, I suppose?”

  “She’s already checked in and out of two—the Breakers and the Brazilian Court, under Rosaria Bianchi.”