by Stuart Woods
“Great,” Herbie said. “I’m innocent. Gus killed Cheech.”
“You want to speak against the advice of your attorney?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.”
Stone was half out of his seat.
“Go right ahead. Stone, you sit down and shut up.”
“I was at my place, watching television and eating a pizza,” Herbie said. “I know, Stone, you told me not to watch TV, because they could see it outside, but there was a rerun of The Sopranos on, and I pulled the curtains and everything. Anyway, I heard somebody fooling with the lock on my door, so I hid in the closet in the living room. A second later, Cheech and Gus came through the front door and looked around.
“Then they got into an argument. Gus said they should have covered the back door, and it was Cheech’s fault that I ran. Of course, I didn’t run at all, I was in the closet, and I could see them through a crack in the door.
“They argued some more, and then Cheech slapped Gus, and I mean slapped him hard. Gus just stood there for a moment, while Cheech called him a lot of names, then he went down the hall toward the kitchen, and when he came back, he swung his fist at Cheech, only it turned out he had one of my kitchen knives in his fist, and blood spattered all over the wall, and Cheech and Gus started to wrestle around. They fell on the floor where I couldn’t see anything but their legs, and I heard this sound like somebody being punched, then I heard this gurgling sound and a lot of heavy breathing. Then Gus stood up, and I could still see Cheech’s legs stretched out.
“Gus stood there, looking down for a minute, and then he said, ‘Fuck you, Cheech,’ and he turned around and walked out of the apartment. When I heard the door close, I came out of the closet and looked at Cheech. I was going to call nine-one-one for an ambulance, but then I saw Cheech die. It was like he just deflated, and he was just this dead lump on the floor. I felt for a pulse, and I couldn’t find one, so then I picked up the pizza box and got the hell out of there by the back way.”
Stone stared at Herbie, speechless.
“Okay,” Dierdre said, “I’ll buy that. The charge of murder in the first degree is dropped. You’re free to go, Mr. Fisher, but I’ll need you to testify against Gus at his trial, if he doesn’t roll.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Herbie said, getting to his feet. “Uncle Bob, can you give me a ride home?”
“Sure, Herbie,” Cantor said. The two men left the room.
“Stone,” Dierdre said, “I’ve never seen you at a loss for words.”
“What just happened?” Stone asked.
“Well, your client told me what happened at his apartment, and I believed him, so I dropped the murder charge. I’ll send you a letter confirming that he’s not a target of our investigation.”
“Let me get this straight: you hate Herbie Fisher, because he kicked your little brother, the cop, in the balls, and yet you dropped the murder charge against him, because you liked his story?”
“That’s about it,” she said.
“I’m going nuts,” Stone said. “I’m dreaming.”
“Of course,” she added, “there was the fact that we found Gus Castiglione’s prints on the butcher knife, and when we arrested him early this morning, Cheech’s blood was on his shoes.”
Stone stared at her in disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me that to begin with?”
“Because it was so much more fun watching your face while Herbie told his story,” she said. “Can I buy you lunch?”
42
Stone got out of a cab at the Tribeca Grill and waited for Dierdre Monahan to arrive in her own cab. She had suggested this place, which was way off the beaten path of the courthouse legal fraternity, because she didn’t want to be seen having lunch with him. At least, that was what he figured.
He was not thrilled about this meeting, since he thought he knew what she had in mind, but he didn’t want to make an enemy of a woman who had become an important A.D.A. and with whom he would certainly have dealings in the future.
Dierdre arrived five minutes later, gave him a smile and waved him inside. As they were seated at their table, Stone noticed that she had changed from her A.D.A. standard-issue business suit to a tight dress that showed more than a little cleavage-definitely not your average courtroom costume.
Dierdre ordered a cosmopolitan and Stone ordered fizzy water. Somehow, he felt that he needed his wits about him on this occasion.
“You’re looking very fetching today,” Stone said, sipping his fizzy water.
“Why, thank you, kind sir,” she said, taking a deep swig of her cosmo. “I thought that went very well this morning, didn’t you?”
“Let’s just say that I achieved my objective in a surprising manner. I had no idea what Herbie was going to say, and because of the traffic jam, I didn’t have an opportunity to find out before we landed in your office.”
“Well, it all turned out all right, didn’t it? Your client lives to fuck up another day.”
“And fuck up he will,” Stone agreed. “I just hope I’m a long way away at the time.”
“How’d you get involved in this thing with Dattila the Hun, anyway?”
“I didn’t get involved; Woodman and Weld, in the person of Bill Eggers, suddenly decided it was a good idea that I should sue the most murderous goombah thug in the city, maybe the world. I can’t tell you what a nightmare it’s been.”
“I can imagine,” she said. A waiter appeared at their table. Dierdre handed him the menu. “I’ll have the shrimp pasta dish, no starter, and another cosmo.”
“Same for me, hold the cosmo,” Stone said.
“So, what have you been doing besides suing the Hun?” she asked.
“Well, I had a client murdered last night.”
“This is the one with Devlin Daltry as the suspect.” It wasn’t a question.
“You’re very well informed.”
“Was she really…” She grimaced.
“Headless? Yes, she was. It was an ugly business, and Daltry has an alibi.”
“And I suppose you feel responsible?”
“I thought I had done everything I could do to protect her, but, yes, I can’t shake that feeling. I’m not sure I ever will.”
The waiter came back with the cosmo. Dierdre polished off her first drink and took a swig of the second. “Okay,” she said, when the waiter had gone, “gimme.” She held out a hand.
“Give you what?”
“You want me to subpoena you? Get a search warrant for your house?”
“Dierdre, I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”
“Gimme the Dattila tape, and we’ll go back to your house and I’ll fuck your brains out.”
“That’s the nicest thing anybody has said to me this year,” Stone said, placing his briefcase on the table and opening it. He handed her a dictator with an earplug and pressed the Play button.
Dierdre listened intently. “I don’t believe this,” she said, giggling. “That’s his voice. I only met him once, but I recognize it.”
“And Herbie can put him in the room, along with Cheech and Gus, and swear he said it.”
She popped open the dictator, emptied the tape into her palm and tucked it into her very impressive cleavage. “Do you want lunch before I fuck you, or shall we get on with it?”
“I’m hungry,” Stone said. He wasn’t up for this, and he didn’t know how he was going to get out of it. As if on cue, the waiter set down two plates of pasta.
“Okay, but be quick about it,” she said, digging in. “I haven’t got the whole afternoon; there’s a deposition at three.”
“Are you that fast these days?”
“I’d love the whole afternoon, but duty calls. What else you working on these days?”
“Well, I had a really juicy divorce case, but it blew up in my face.”
“Anybody I know?”
“How about Bernard Finger, Esquire? I was representing his wife.”
“What fun!” she giggled. “Nice fee, I’ll bet.�
��
“I was doing it on a contingency basis.”
“So, you’re going to get ten percent of half of everything Bernie has? Wow!”
“Thirty percent.”
“You’re shitting me!”
“I shit you not. Only thing is, Bernie took her off to Las Vegas for a weekend and they reconciled. And I had the settlement all worked out.”
“Oh, poor baby,” she said, patting his cheek and sticking her shoeless toe into his crotch.
“I’ll live, I guess. Anyway, it can’t last; she’ll be calling me again as soon as she catches him with some doxie.”
“Speaking of that, hurry up with the pasta, okay? I’m getting wet.” She had already finished hers.
Stone scraped the last of the pasta from his plate. As he was about to rise, a belt buckle appeared beside his table. He looked up and found it cinching the waist of the district attorney, the Old Man himself, so called because he was a man and very old, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down. He had just been reelected for the umpteenth time.
“Why, hello, Dierdre,” he said.
She was obviously flabbergasted to see him so far off the reservation. “Uh, hello, Boss. You know Stone Barrington?”
The Old Man offered his hand. “We’ve opposed each other once or twice. It’s one to one, so far, isn’t it?”
“I thought it was two-nil, your favor,” Stone said.
“No sucking up,” the Old Man said. “Come on, Dierdre, I’ll give you a lift back to the office. You’ve got a deposition, haven’t you?”
She was momentarily nonplussed. “Yes sir, I have, and I’d love a lift. It’s so hard to get cabs at this time of day.” She got up and went with the Old Man, but not before she had turned to Stone and mouthed, “Call me!”
Stone sighed, put away his dictator and dug out a credit card. Saved from a fate worse than death by the district attorney. And he had done himself some good, too: He had Dierdre interested not just in Carmine Dattila but in Devlin Daltry, and that could come in useful.
43
Stone arrived back at his house to find Herbie Fisher waiting in his office.
“Hey, Stone!” Herbie cried, as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.
“What are you doing here, Herbie?”
“I didn’t know where else to go, unless you think it’s safe for me to go back to my apartment. I mean, Cheech is dead and Gus is in jail, isn’t he?”
“You think those two guys are the only muscle working for Dattila?”
“Well, I…”
“Exactly.” He pressed a button and Joan answered. “Have we got a thousand dollars in the safe?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Bring me that much in an envelope.” He regarded Herbie. “Do you have any relatives besides your uncle Bob?”
“Well, there’s my mom’s sister, Gladys. She lives out on the Island. Her husband’s a plumber out there, does really well.”
“Is she speaking to you?”
“Are you kidding? I’m her favorite!”
“When did you last see her?”
“I don’t know, maybe a year ago.”
“If you turned up on her doorstep, would she take you in?”
“Sure, I guess so.”
“Then why aren’t you out there? You’ve been on the run for a while now.”
“She’s in East Hampton, and that’s too far out. I don’t like being away from the action, and that’s in Manhattan.”
“Herbie, has it occurred to you yet that just being in Manhattan could get you killed?”
“Well, I guess that after all that’s happened…”
“Exactly.” Joan came into his office and handed him the envelope. Stone handed it to Herbie. “There’s a thousand dollars in this envelope,” he said. “Here’s what I want you to do: go to Third Avenue and take a left; there’s a cell phone store there, almost on the corner. Buy a throwaway, untraceable cell phone with a couple of hundred minutes on it and be sure to ask the clerk if it has a GPS chip in it; don’t buy it if it does. Call Joan and give her the number, then get a cab to Penn Station and take the next train to East Hampton. Throw yourself on your aunt’s mercy, and don’t do anything to make her or her husband mad at you. Call Joan every morning at ten and let her know you’re okay.”
“Gee, East Hampton…I don’t know, Stone.”
“Herbie, the Hamptons are full of beautiful girls, very rich beautiful girls. Be nice to them, and they’ll be nice to you.”
Herbie brightened. “Good point, Stone. I’ll need some clothes.”
“Then sneak into your place and pack a bag, and get out of town. The D.A. is going to want you to testify to back up what’s on the tape.”
“In court?”
“That’s where testifying gets done, Herbie. You’ve been to court; you know about that. And you’re a lawyer, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“The courtroom experience will be good for you.”
“What’s this going to do to our civil suit, Stone?”
“If Dattila is convicted it will improve our chances of getting a judgment against him a lot.”
Herbie managed a smile.
“But I’ve got to be able to get in touch with you on a moment’s notice, so you keep that phone on you at all times, and don’t use up all the minutes.”
“Okay, Stone.”
“Well, get going!”
Herbie shook hands and left the office.
Stone asked Joan to come in. When she had taken a chair he said, “I want you to take a vacation, sort of.”
“What’s a vacation sort of?” she asked.
“That’s where we close the office, and you go somewhere nice, and you have all the office calls forwarded to your cell phone. You can reach me on my cell.”
“Where should I go?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. Isn’t there somewhere in the country you’d like to be, besides behind that desk?”
“What’s going on, Stone?”
Stone took a deep breath. “Devlin Daltry, or somebody who works for him, murdered Celia last night.”
Joan turned white.
“Now don’t faint on me.”
She took a couple of deep breaths. “I’m okay. What happened?”
“He somehow tracked her down in New Jersey and, well, it wasn’t pretty.”
Joan put a hand to her mouth. “Her head. That’s what he did, didn’t he? Like the sculpture.”
Stone nodded. “You don’t want more details, believe me.”
“So, I’m running from Devlin Daltry?”
“I think anybody connected with me might have problems.”
“When can I go?”
“Why aren’t you already gone?”
She got up and headed for her office. “Herbie’s going to call you every day, so we’ll know he’s alive!” he shouted after her. “I think.”
Joan had her bag and was letting herself out the front door. “Bye!” She waved and was gone.
Stone ran to the front door and checked the block while she got into a cab. He waved her off, then he went inside and up to his bedroom. He opened the safe in his dressing room and took out his favorite little.45 and a holster.
He would be going armed for the duration.
44
Stone left the house by the rear door and walked into Turtle
Bay Gardens, the common area behind all the Turtle Bay houses. The paths were lighted, so finding his way in the dark was not a problem. He walked across the garden and used his garden key to open the door leading to Second Avenue. He looked both ways for a full minute, then stepped out into the street and hailed a cab.
Fifteen minutes later he was seated at Elaine’s with a Knob Creek on the rocks before him, and Dino was working his way toward him from the front door, table by table, greeting acquaintances. Finally he plopped himself down and accepted a Scotch from a waiter.
“So, how was your day?” Dino asked.
�
�I hardly know where to begin,” Stone said.
“Just begin, and don’t be a pain in the ass.”
“Okay, Herbie’s off the hook for Cheech’s murder; they’ve arrested his buddy, Gus, whose fingerprints are on the knife. Herbie’s gone to his aunt’s in East Hampton, I hope to God.”
“And?”
“And Joan’s on vacation, sort of, to keep Devlin Daltry from killing her.”
“And?”
“And that’s about it.”
“That’s funny, you seem to be forgetting the part about why Devlin Daltry might want to kill Joan.”
“Oh, that.”
“I know it’s probably of little consequence to you, but when a beautiful woman gets her head cut off, I would have thought that that would have been the first thing on your mind. Charley Sample called me.”
“Oh, and Dierdre Monahan almost got me into bed, but I was saved by the D.A., the Old Man himself.”
“See? You did it again?”
“I don’t want to even think about it,” Stone said, taking a large pull on his bourbon.
“Stone, if you don’t talk about it, get it off your chest, you’re gonna have nightmares for a year.”
“Do I have to?”
“It’s for your own good, pal.”
“Dino, I want to hunt down Devlin Daltry and kill him slow, to quote Carmine Dattila.”
“I know you do.”
“I mean, I really, really want to do that. At lunch today, I was actually thinking about fucking Dierdre Monahan, after she asked me. I was desperate for something to think about besides Celia sitting in that porch chair without a head.”
“Well, fucking Dierdre Monahan is something you’ve done before, and when in your right mind, something you’d do again in a heartbeat, right?”
“Well, sure, I guess so, but how could I think about that when I was fucking Celia only a couple of days ago? I must be a terrible excuse for a human being.”
“Stone, nothing is more human than sex, expecially with women as beautiful as Celia and Dierdre. Thinking about sex with either of them is a great defense against having to think about Celia with no head.” Dino mopped his brow. “Jesus, I want to kill Daltry myself. Maybe if we go down to his studio he’ll give us an excuse.”
