by Stuart Woods
“Thank you, Mr. Barrington,” the man said, “that will be all. We are grateful for your testimony.”
Before Stone knew it, he was back in the alley, in the car. Fifteen minutes later, he was back at the Connaught. As he walked into the room, the phone was ringing. He picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Thank you,” Carpenter said.
“Did you get the job?”
“I’ve been acting in the job since returning to London,” she said. “This morning’s proceeding was part of an investigation to determine whether I shall keep it.”
“I lied,” Stone said. “You didn’t have to kill her.”
“Yes, I did,” Carpenter replied. “But thank you. I hope I’ll see you again before long.”
“Good luck.”
“Thank you. Goodbye.” She hung up.
Stone was back at home in Turtle Bay by late afternoon, New York time.
Holly greeted him warmly. “That was quick,” she said. “What was it about?”
“I have a feeling I’m not supposed to tell you,” he said. “You want to go to Elaine’s for dinner?”
“Dino called and suggested we meet there; so did Lance. I said yes to both of them.”
20
LANCE’S CADILLAC WITH the diplomatic plates was double-parked outside Elaine’s, and the man with the briefcase with a hole in it was back in his old spot by the awning. Lance got out of the car almost as soon as Stone and Holly got out of the cab. They all shook hands, and, as they entered the restaurant, Lance whispered something to Holly.
Before they could sit down at their table, Holly said, “Excuse me, I have to go to the powder room.”
Stone and Lance sat down. “Did you send her to the powder room?” Stone asked.
“Yes. How’d it go in London this morning?”
“You mean you don’t already know?”
“I’d like to hear it from you.”
“I lied for her. You knew I would, didn’t you?”
“You might recall that not only did I not ask you to lie, I didn’t even tell you why you were going. Should anyone in an official position ever inquire about the hearing, you might remember to mention that.”
“Is anyone in an official position likely to inquire?”
“In the words of the immortal Fats Waller, ‘One never knows, do one?’ ”
“Will she get the job?”
“There will have to be a cabinet meeting on the subject, but I’m reliably informed that she is being favorably considered. Your testimony this morning was the final piece of evidence taken. She will be the first woman to hold the job, but her credentials are as top-notch as those of any man they could have considered, including the fact that both her father and grandfather were in the service, going back to the Second World War.”
“She mentioned that once.”
“The father mostly fought his battles with the IRA. It was the grandfather who was the swashbuckler. Did she tell you about him?”
“Not much.”
“He spent half his childhood in France—his father was a diplomat assigned to the Paris embassy—so he had the language. He was parachuted in not long after France fell, with instructions to organize and arm resistance units. He was captured twice by the Gestapo, with all that that entailed, and escaped twice. On both occasions he killed several of his captors with his hands. On D-Day, units he organized blew up roads and railways that the Germans could have used to bring in reinforcements and armor. I met him once; he was the perfect English gentleman: erudite, courteous to a fault, and, it was said, the most cold-blooded killer anybody could remember from the war.”
“I guess that’s where Carpenter gets it,” Stone said.
“She won’t be Carpenter anymore; she’ll be Architect, if all goes well, and it should. I’d like you to make it your business to keep in as close touch with her as you can manage. Consider it an assignment.”
“At my contract daily rate?”
“I won’t be charged for phone calls; you’re not being used as a lawyer. But I’ll consider dinner with her a day’s work. Anything beyond that you can think of as a bonus.”
Holly came back from the ladies’ room. “Was I gone long enough?” she asked Lance.
“Quite,” Lance said, offering her a wide grin. “Stone has been debriefed.”
“So happy to have been of service,” she said. “By the way, when will I actually be of service?”
“Be patient,” Lance said. “Your time will come.”
“Is patience the most important attribute of an agent?” Holly asked.
“No. Suspicion is. One must doubt everybody.”
“That sounds like a corrosive way to live.”
“If you say so.”
They were ordering drinks when Dino arrived, looking tired. He sat down and loosened his tie. “A double Johnnie Walker Black,” he said to the waiter.
“What’s happened?” Stone asked.
“A cop got killed today, in Little Italy.”
Holly spoke up. “Not at the La Boheme coffeehouse, I hope?”
“No, but not far away.”
“Somebody undercover?” Stone asked.
“Nope, a beat patrolman. He’d parked his squad car and was ordering coffee at a deli, when somebody walked in and put one in the back of his head. An assassination, pure and simple.”
“Of a beat cop?” Stone asked. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“No, it doesn’t. We’re looking at, maybe, a gang initiation, or maybe just somebody who hates cops.”
“How are you involved with something so far downtown?” Stone asked.
“I’m not, really. I was at a meeting with the chief of detectives when the call came in, so we both went to the scene. I loaned them a couple of detectives. How was London?”
“Quick. In and out.”
“Did you see Carpenter?”
“I spoke to her, briefly.”
“What were you doing there?”
“You’ll have to ask Lance.”
Dino looked at Lance.
“None of your business,” Lance said. “Why don’t we order dinner?”
Holly spoke up. “Did you get a description of the shooter?”
“White male, six feet, maybe more; well built. Black ponytail.”
“It’s Trini Rodriguez,” she said.
“Why the hell would your perp kill a New York City cop?” Dino asked.
“For the fun of it,” she replied.
“Excuse me.” Dino got up and walked away, his cell phone clamped to his ear.
Stone looked at Holly. “Your chances of nailing Trini have just gone up,” he said.
“No,” she replied, “Dino’s chances have. I’ll never take him home now.”
21
STONE WAS HAVING breakfast the following morning when Holly and Daisy returned from the park.
“I had a call on my cell phone this morning,” she said. “My FBI ex-friend, Grant Harrison, is in town, and he wants to see me; says it’s business.”
“So, see him,” Stone said. “You want to ask him over here?”
“I said I’d meet him for lunch, but I didn’t know a good place.”
“Tell him La Goulue, Madison at Sixty-fifth. I’ll book a table for you.”
“Will you come along?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I’m just not comfortable with this. He’s less likely to shout at me if you’re along.”
“Oh, all right.”
Grant Early Harrison was standing in front of La Goulue when their cab stopped.
“That’s him,” Holly said, pointing.
He was better-looking than Stone had imagined.
They got out of the cab and approached him.
“Hello, Grant,” Holly said, “this is my friend Stone Barrington.”
Grant managed a perfunctory handshake. “I thought I was seeing you alone.”
“Why did you think that?” Holly asked. “Anywa
y, anything you have to say, you can say in front of Stone. He’s also my lawyer.”
Grant cut Stone a sharp glance. “Do you need a lawyer?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Holly said.
Stone kept a straight face. “Shall we go in?”
They were greeted by Suzanne, and Stone gave her a kiss. “Something in the back, I think,” he said.
“Right this way.” She led them to a table.
“Does this place get crowded?” Grant asked.
“It’ll be jammed in fifteen minutes,” Stone replied.
They ordered a glass of wine and looked at menus. When they had ordered lunch, Grant started in. “I got a call from our New York office last night,” he said. “The NYPD is all over them about Trini Rodriguez. What did you have to do with that?”
“Last night, Trini apparently shot a New York City cop, in a deli in Little Italy,” she said. “I had nothing at all to do with that.”
“Why do they think it was Trini?” Grant asked.
“Oh, I had something to do with that. The perp’s description matched Trini’s, and I mentioned that to an NYPD detective.”
“Great, thanks a lot.”
“What, you wanted nobody to bother Trini? Gee, I’m awfully sorry about that.”
“He’s working something very important to us.”
“So, he killed a cop on his coffee break?”
“You don’t know it was Trini.”
“You don’t know it wasn’t.”
“He denies it.”
“So you’ve talked? What did you expect him to say?”
Grant turned to Stone. “How do you come into this?”
“Holly is staying at my house,” Stone said, “and I sometimes give her legal advice. Otherwise, I’m not in it.”
“Then that’s where you should stay,” Grant said, “not in it.”
“Leave Stone out of this, Grant,” Holly said.
“That’s what I’m hoping to do.”
“Tell me, exactly why is the FBI so interested in keeping a cop killer on the streets?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Grant said.
“Is what he’s doing more important than the lives of cops on the street?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why haven’t you turned him in to the NYPD?”
“We only need another day or two to wrap up this whole thing, then they can have him, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You’d better hope to God the newspapers don’t get wind of this,” Holly said.
“Oh? Are you going to tell them?”
“I hadn’t planned to, but . . .”
“That’s what I thought. If you blow this case, Holly, I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what?”
“Hey, hey,” Stone said. “Let’s hold it down, all right? People are staring at us.”
Grant threw his napkin on the table and stood up. “If you screw up this case, I’ll have you for obstruction of justice, and I may throw in that money thing, too.”
“Oh? What money thing is that?”
“Your five million dollars.”
“What five million dollars?”
“Just remember what I said,” Grant said, and stalked out of the restaurant.
Stone thought the other customers looked relieved. “Now why did you want to go and piss him off?” he asked.
“I enjoy pissing him off,” Holly said.
A waiter brought three lunches and went away.
“Holly, speaking as your sometime lawyer, he has a point about interfering with a federal investigation.”
“Oh, sure. You think he’s going to arrest me and let it get out that the FBI has been harboring a cop killer?”
“Well, probably not.”
“That was just a lot of bluster. Grant blusters a lot.”
“Especially where you’re concerned, I’ll bet. And he knows about the money?”
“He’s known about it almost from the day I put it in the tree.”
“Does he know which tree?”
“He has no idea where it is. He can’t even prove that it exists, and even if he could, he’d have a hard time explaining why he’s known about it for months and didn’t report it. Don’t worry, Grant isn’t going to cause any trouble for himself.”
“Holly, I’ve been thinking about this, and I think you should leave the money in that tree.”
“And wait for the putative lumberjack to discover it?”
“If somebody finds it, then you can confiscate it as the fruit of a crime.”
“Anybody who found it would be a fool to tell anybody.”
“And you’d be a fool to go back to the tree. Right now, you’re clean. Only Grant knows about it, and, as you’ve pointed out, he’s unlikely to mention it to his superiors. But if you go back to the tree and get it, there’s always the chance that someone will see you do it or that something else might go wrong. You just can’t take the chance.”
“Okay, I’ve had your full views on this subject. Can we change it now, please?”
“Sure, what would you like to talk about?”
“How can I take Trini before the NYPD does?”
“Holly, you’d better forget about Trini. Let them take him, then you can get in line to prosecute him.”
“Which means never.”
“Lots of people could match that description, surely you know that.”
“It’s Trini. I know it in my bones.”
“If it is, wouldn’t you just as soon see him get the death penalty in New York as in Florida?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I want to sit in a Florida prison and watch him take the needle.”
“Dino can arrange for you to sit in a New York prison and watch. Wouldn’t that do?”
“No. I want to arrest him.”
“You want to kill him, don’t you?”
“If he gave me an excuse, I would.”
“Don’t you realize that he’d have as good a chance of killing you, maybe better?”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“So you’re going to pursue Trini with reckless abandon.”
“Right up until the moment somebody takes him off the street, and I hope it’s me.” Holly set her empty plate aside and started eating Grant’s lunch.
22
STONE WAS ABOUT to ask for a check when Lance strolled up to their table.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked, sliding into the banquette seat next to Holly.
“We’ve just finished lunch,” Stone said.
“I won’t keep you long. Let me buy you coffee.” He was sitting too close to Holly for Stone’s comfort.
A waiter appeared, and Lance looked at Holly.
“Decaf cappuccino,” Holly said.
“Stone?”
“Double espresso, please. The real thing.”
“Same for me,” Lance said.
“How did you know we were here?” Holly asked.
“The CIA knows all,” Stone said wryly.
“Oh, not all, perhaps,” Lance said. “Truth said, one of my people followed Agent Harrison and called me.”
“And why is the CIA following the FBI?” Stone asked.
“We have come to expect a certain . . . how shall I say? . . . lack of candor from our colleagues at the Bureau,” Lance said.
“Even after nine/eleven?” Holly asked.
“They’ve become more candid about certain things since nine/eleven,” Lance said, “and less candid about others.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because they’re the Bureau,” Lance said.
“Oh. I knew that.”
“Frankly, in part because of this behavior, I don’t expect them to survive as a discrete entity much longer.”
“Oh, come on,” Stone said. “Congress would never allow the Bureau to expire as an agency.”
“Mark my words, Congress will insist on it,” Lance replied. “They have become too devious for their own good. When senior
officials start lying to congressional committees, the Bureau does not enhance its longevity.”
Stone snorted. “Whereas Congress expects the Agency to tell the truth?”
Lance nodded gravely. “Certainly not. They simply expect a certain lack of frankness, given the work we do.”
“So why are you here, Lance?” Stone asked. “Certainly not for the coffee.”
Lance sipped the cup that had been set before him. “A plentiful reason for being here,” he said, looking around. “I’ve always liked this place. It’s like Paris without the French.”
Holly laughed, but Stone restrained himself. “Come on, cough it up.”
“I merely came to suggest that you watch the six o’clock news this evening.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want me to take all the fun out of it by telling you in advance, do you?”
“Yes,” Stone replied. “Besides, wouldn’t you enjoy watching the expressions on our faces?”
“Well, there is that,” Lance said, smiling. “Oh, all right: On tonight’s local news you’ll learn that the killing of the policeman in Little Italy was the result of a random gunshot from the street, not an execution.”
Stone and Holly gaped at him.
“You’re right, Stone, the expression on your faces was worth it,” Lance said.
“Tell me,” Holly said, “how do you get a witness’s description of the shooter from a random incident?”
“An excellent question,” Lance said.
“So who is manipulating the media, and why?” Stone asked.
“An even better question. Look at it this way: Who benefits from the altered perception of the incident?”
“Trini Rodriguez,” Holly said quickly.
“Of course, but not just Trini.”
“I think I’m picking up the thread,” Stone said.
“Enlighten us.”
“If the cop was killed as a result of a stray bullet, then the NYPD is no longer investigating an execution, but an accident—manslaughter, not murder.”
“Very good!”
“So what?” Holly said.
“Detectives loaned from other precincts will be sent home, and the investigation will become much less intense,” Stone explained. “And that takes some of the pressure off Trini, at least for the moment.”
