by Stuart Woods
“That was the state police. The van was gone when they arrived, but they’ve issued a bulletin on it.”
“There’s no reason to believe they know where I live, so we can relax.”
They returned to their glowing fire and their brandies, which made them glow, too.
• • •
As Stone was going up to bed, Viv’s two colleagues came into the house.
“We’ve had a look around the neighborhood,” one of them said. “No sign of the black van.”
“Good,” Stone replied.
“One of us will be downstairs all night,” the man said. “We’ll do shifts.”
Everybody else went to bed.
39
In the wee hours of the morning Stone felt fingernails running across his bare buttocks. He turned over to give Helga a better field of play. After a brief moment of fondling, she rolled onto her back and pulled him on top of her. Stone was groping for a point of entry when Helga said, “Oh, look, isn’t that pretty?”
“What?” Stone asked, baffled.
“Out the window.”
Stone momentarily abandoned his quest and turned his body so that he could see the window without straining his neck. “Good God!” he shouted. “Wake everybody and tell them to get their things out of the house.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The house is on fire!” Stone said, leaping out of bed and into his trousers. He found his shirt and a jacket, got into his loafers, and ran down the stairs, shouting, “Everybody up! Get out of the house!”
He ran into the kitchen and began looking in cupboards. Dino came padding in, his shoes in his hand. “What’s going on? What are you looking for?”
“The fire extinguisher,” Stone said, slamming a cabinet shut.
Dino opened the pantry door and held up a good-sized red bottle. “This fire extinguisher?”
Stone grabbed it from him and ran to the front door. He could see flickers from the side lights. He flung the door open and was driven back by flames.
“Use the goddamned thing!” Dino shouted.
Stone tore off the seal, pointed the extinguisher at the flames, and pulled the trigger. It worked faster than he had thought. He ran out the door, dousing flames as he went, then ran around to the back of the house. A column of flames was making its way up the rear wall, licking at his bedroom window. Stone pointed the extinguisher at the base of the flames and put them out, then worked his way up the wall of the house. He stopped spraying. “I think that’s it,” he said to Dino. “I wonder why my fire alarm hasn’t gone off.”
But Dino wasn’t there. Stone ran back to the front and found everybody standing on the front walk, looking confused.
“It’s all right,” he said to them. “Let’s go back inside.”
Dino trotted up. As the garage door opened, Viv backed out the Bentley. “Where are you going, baby?”
“For a ride,” she said.
Dino piled into the backseat, and Stone called out to Helga to get everyone inside, then hopped into the front passenger seat.
Viv backed up. “Which way would you go if you had just set a house on fire?” she asked.
“That way,” Stone said, pointing. “The other way is a dead end.”
She drove the block to the main road. “And now?”
“Turn right. Left is into the center of the village.”
She did so and started south out of the village green.
“Now it’s either straight ahead or turn right,” Stone said. “They would have done one or the other. Right is toward New York.”
Viv made the right and floored the Bentley, and it rocketed up a hill and around the curve.
“Our best bet,” she said, “if we’ve taken the correct turn, is to drive like hell.” And she did. “They’ll think they got away clean, and they won’t be going all that fast.” She kept accelerating, hitting the apexes of the sharp turns and sometimes using the opposing lane, if she could see ahead. A big moon came from behind a cloud, and Viv switched off the headlights.
“What are you doing?” Dino hollered from the backseat.
“I can see, and I don’t want them to see me coming.” They rounded another curve and caught a brief glimpse of taillights ahead, before they disappeared around yet another bend.
“You’ve got them,” Stone said. “They won’t see you coming.”
Viv sped up even more. “I’ll catch up to them and ram them,” she said.
“Don’t even think that!” Stone cried. “This is not an NYPD Crown Vic! It’s mine, and I don’t want to lose my insurance company!”
“All right, all right,” she muttered. “There they are!” The taillights were a couple hundred yards ahead. She accelerated.
“What’s your plan?” Stone asked nervously.
“I’m going to scare the shit out of them,” Viv said grimly.
“Oh, swell.”
Viv was gaining fast now. She waited until she was nearly on top of the van, then she turned on the lights and hit the bright switch. “Take that, you sonofabitch!” she yelled. “How do you like them xenon gas lamps?”
The van wobbled, then accelerated, but Viv stayed right on its bumper.
“Don’t hit them,” Stone said, almost to himself. “If you can get alongside them, maybe I can get a shot into the cab.”
“Do you have a weapon?” Dino asked.
“Well, no, there is that.”
“Then shut up and let me do this!” Dino slid across the rear seat and put down his window. “Stand on it, Viv!”
Viv pulled into the passing lane, then whipped the car back behind the van. A car zoomed by, headed in the other direction.
“What’s that guy doing up at this time of night?” Stone asked nobody in particular.
Viv made another attempt to pull alongside, then suddenly steered into another sharp turn. “I didn’t see that coming!” she yelled. “Where’s the van?”
Dino stuck his head out the window and looked back. “They slammed on brakes and took a right into the woods!” he shouted.
Viv came to a short, straight stretch of road, stomped on the brakes, and whipped the car around 180 degrees. Amazingly, it did not roll over. Then they were going back the way they came, and they could see the van in the woods, upside down. Viv pulled into the side road the van had tried and failed to make and slid to a halt.
“You stay behind us, Stone!” Dino commanded as he and Viv led the way toward the upturned van. Viv had produced a small but powerful flashlight from somewhere, illuminating the van. One of its wheels was still turning.
Each of the Bacchettis took a side of the van, with Viv shining her light through the driver’s open door.
“Empty,” Viv said. “They’re gone. Everybody shut up and listen.”
Everybody did. They heard nothing.
“They’re either running or hiding,” Viv said, switching off her light, “and we’re too good a target. Let’s go back to the house and call the state police. They have a trooper stationed in the village.”
They tramped back to the Bentley and were shortly headed back.
“Thanks for not bending the car,” Stone said to Viv.
“Don’t mention it,” Viv replied.
They got back to the house and found the phones dead. “They cut the wires. That’s why the fire alarm system didn’t go off.”
“How far do I have to drive to get a cell phone signal?” Viv asked.
“Go back to the main road and take a left, toward Washington Depot. Halfway down the hill there’s a church on your right. Pull over there, and your phone will work.”
Viv ran back to the Bentley and drove away.
Stone found everybody sitting in the library around a cold fire. “You might as well get some sleep,” he said to them.
40
>
Stone awoke a little before eight to the smell of bacon wafting up the stairs from the kitchen. He showered, shaved, and dressed while Helga slept on like a gorgeous Swedish statue, then he went downstairs. Dino and Viv were at the table.
“Morning,” they said.
“Good morning. Helga is still out like a light. Is Marcel still asleep, too?”
“No, Marcel is awake,” a voice said from the door behind him. Marcel came into the kitchen, sat down, and helped himself to muffins, eggs, and bacon. “I don’t know why,” he said, “but I slept like a child.”
“It’s the country air,” Stone said.
“I suppose so. Anything new?”
Viv spoke up. “I got ahold of the state police last night and went with them to check out the van. It was gone.”
“Gone?” Stone asked. “Where would they have got a wrecker in the middle of the night?”
“We reckoned they must have just rolled the van upright and driven it away.”
“Then there was more than one of them.”
“Probably more than two,” Viv said. “It was a big van.”
“Did you see anything inside it that might help us find it?” Stone asked.
“No, we were concentrating on the people who had been inside. I expected that the state police would haul in the van and go over it properly. They put out an alert for it, but the van was probably back in New York by the time we got to the scene. Oh, I reported your phone out, so somebody should be here soon to reconnect it.”
“Thanks.”
“So what do we do now?” Dino asked.
“How about just enjoy our weekend?” Stone suggested. “My house won’t have any windows in it until Monday morning, so there’s no point in going back to the city.”
“How should we enjoy our weekend?” Dino asked.
“I don’t know—lunch at a country inn and some antiquing?”
“Antiquing?” Dino said. “My favorite thing!”
“Dino,” Viv said, “we’re apartment hunting, remember? We’re going to need new things to fill up a bigger place. Antiquing sounds good to me.”
“Then there’s golf,” Stone said.
“Ha!” Dino said. “Viv, you antique, we’ll golf.”
“I’ll go with Viv,” Marcel said. “I’ve never seen any of New England.”
“Okay,” Stone said, “drinks at six, followed by dinner in Litchfield. I booked a table at the West Street Grill before we left. Viv, you and Marcel take the security guys with you.”
“Done,” Viv said.
“I wonder if Helga plays golf,” Stone said.
• • •
Helga, as it happened, played to a six handicap and won all of Stone’s and Dino’s money. They got back to the house just in time to clean up and have drinks.
“I won!” Helga said as she walked into the library.
“Gloating is unattractive,” Stone said.
“Gloating is fun!” she cried.
“How was the antiquing?” Stone asked Viv. “To change the subject.”
“It was spectacular!” she replied. “I found a couple of good pictures, a beautiful set of china, and a dining room table and twelve chairs! I couldn’t believe it!”
“I don’t believe it now,” Dino said. “We don’t have a dining room.”
“We will have, and they’ve agreed to deliver when we move in.”
“Where are you looking?” Stone asked.
“Upper East Side,” Viv replied. “I’ve already seen a dozen places. Dino has seen two.”
“I work for a living,” Dino said.
“I work for a living, too,” Viv said. “He just doesn’t like the idea of moving.”
“I like my place.”
“It was a great bachelor apartment, Dino, but you’re not a bachelor anymore, and there isn’t enough closet space or a dining room or a study for you and one for me.”
“I would like a study,” Dino admitted.
“Also, now that you’re in the NYPD hierarchy, we’re going to have to entertain a lot.”
“Now and then,” Dino said, “not a lot.”
“She’s right, Dino,” Stone said. “You’re going to have to have the commissioner over a lot, maybe even the mayor, and a lot of people whose friendship the department needs. It will be expected of you.”
“I hate it when they expect stuff from me,” Dino said grumpily.
“You don’t hate going to other people’s houses and eating their food and drinking their scotch,” Viv said.
“Yeah, I like that okay.”
“It’ll be more fun in your own home. I’m looking at a place Monday on Park in the Sixties, and I just have a feeling . . .”
“Uh-oh,” Dino said. “The feeling. I’ve learned that the feeling is irresistible.”
“My lawyers are meeting with Bill Eggers over the weekend,” Marcel said. “By Monday, we should have a contract.”
“You’re very easy to deal with, Marcel.”
“When both sides know they want the same things, it’s easy to agree. I’ve cultivated a reputation for being easy to deal with. It makes others easy to deal with, as well. You don’t learn that in your business schools over here. Your businessmen look upon a negotiation as a fight. I look upon it as making everybody happy. And achieving agreement is cheaper than fighting.”
“You should write a business book, Marcel,” Stone said.
“I’ve already written thirty chapters,” Marcel replied. “And I don’t have to worry about getting it accepted by a publisher, because I own a publishing house.”
Everybody laughed.
“There, laughter,” Marcel said, “that’s a nice sound. I haven’t heard that sound since dinner last night.”
• • •
They had a good dinner, followed on Sunday by sitting around and reading The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, then more golf and more antiquing, followed by dinner at home, prepared by Viv and Helga. They got up early Monday morning, had a good breakfast, and drove back to the city, unthreatened by black vans.
• • •
As they drove up to his house, Stone stopped before opening the garage door and looked at the building. “Nothing has changed,” he said. “They didn’t install the windows.”
“Or,” Dino said, “maybe they did such a good job that you can’t tell the new windows from the old ones.”
Dino turned out to be right.
41
Stone was struck by how quiet the house was. Traffic was roaring away on Second and Third avenues, and he could hear none of it. He figured out how to unlock a window, opened it, and the noise came rushing in. He felt a pane on both sides and reckoned that the glass was at least half an inch thick. He closed the window, locked it, and the noise vanished.
Helga unpacked her clothes and put her laundry in the chute for Helene to deal with. “Time for shopping,” she said. “Where do I shop?”
“The best shopping mall in the world is Madison Avenue between Fifty-seventh and Seventy-second streets,” Stone said, “from Bergdorf Goodman to Ralph Lauren, but you’ll have to wait for Marcel to finish with the car. He has another meeting about the auto show, and late this afternoon we’re scheduled to go over the contracts on our deal and, possibly, sign them. You can have the car and the guards from the time Marcel gets back until we leave for the meeting, say, four hours.”
“I can do much damage in four hours,” Helga said, “but why can’t I take a taxi?”
“Because people are trying to kill you.”
“Oh, that.”
“The Bentley will repel small-arms fire—you will be safe inside it.”
Helga sighed. “I was better off on a remote Swedish island.”
“How was the shopping there?”
“Oh, all right
!”
Joan buzzed Stone. “Yes?”
“Joe is here to tell us how to operate the new security system.”
“I’ll be right down.” He found Joan and Joe in her office, staring at the computer screen.
“Okay, everything is right here,” Joe said. “You can operate the system from any computer in the house, including an iPhone or iPad. Each part of the system is shown on screen. You can choose which parts to turn on, like the doors or windows as a group, or one at a time if you like, or you can click on the ‘arm’ button, which turns on everything, and you have sixty seconds to get out of the house. The code is the one you gave me, and the false alarm code is the reverse of that number. Simple enough for you?”
“I got it,” Stone said.
“Me, too,” Joan echoed.
“I’d like to point out something,” Joe said. “The windows are terrific, but they’re useless unless they’re locked. Please remember that.”
“I’ll remember,” Stone said.
“So will I,” Joan replied.
“Okay, folks, my work here is done. Your old doors are in the cellar. They’re beautiful, so if you ever want to sell them, here’s my number.” He handed Joan his card. “Enjoy the peace and safety of your new system.” He shook their hands and left.
“Why isn’t everything in this house that easy?” Joan asked.
“Because nothing else was installed by the CIA,” Stone explained. “The price was right, too.”
Joan’s outside bell rang, and she used the intercom. “The people are here to transport the Blaise to the auto show,” she said.
“Be sure to get a receipt,” Stone reminded her.
The phone rang, and Joan got it. “It’s Lance Cabot, for you,” she said.
While Joan dealt with the car transporter, Stone went into his office and picked up the phone. “Good morning, Lance.”
“Good morning, Stone. How do you like your new security arrangements?”
“They are superb,” Stone said, “thank you very much.”
“I understand you had a bit of bother in Connecticut,” Lance said.
“How did you know about that?”
