by Stuart Woods
He parked his car and was met at the front door by Pete, the short, thick former hoodlum who served as Eduardo Bianchi’s butler and bodyguard.
“Long time,” Pete said.
“Yeah,” Stone said, and followed the man through the house and out into the back garden, where Eduardo sat at a wrought-iron table, wearing a dark suit, as was his custom. He rose to meet Stone, and it took him a little longer than on Stone’s last visit. “How are you, Stone?” Eduardo asked.
“I’m fine, Eduardo. Are you well?”
“I’m better than a person of my years can reasonably expect to be. Please sit down. Lunch will be here soon.”
“You look wonderful.” Stone paused. “And how is Dolce?” Dolce was Eduardo’s youngest daughter, to whom Stone had once been married for a few minutes before she had degenerated into a murderous psychotic.
“I wish I could tell you she was well,” Eduardo replied, “but she’s not. Her condition has worsened to the point where she has tried to kill everyone who has anything to do with her, including me. She has a degenerative brain disease, something like Alzheimer’s, that has caused all her behavior. Now she doesn’t even recognize her family. I’ve had to have her removed to a facility where she can be made comfortable and where she can be secured from harming herself or others.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Stone said. “She was a beautiful and intelligent girl.”
“My mother died the same way,” Eduardo said, “and an aunt of hers, as well. Of course, they didn’t understand the reason in those days. It seems to be passed down to one daughter in each generation, so Anna Maria will be all right.” Anna Maria, who was married to Dino, preferred to be called Mary Ann.
“It’s a tragic situation.”
“Yes, and thankfully, rare. Anna Maria has told me that she plans to have no more children, for fear of having a daughter, so the disease will die out with Dolce.”
“I didn’t know about this.”
“Neither does Dino,” Eduardo said. “I would be grateful if you would not tell him. I don’t want him to be worried.”
“As you wish.”
Lunch arrived, and Stone labored through three courses of old-fashioned Italian cooking, doing the best he could.
When the dishes had been cleared away, and Pete had brought them small glasses of Strega, Eduardo turned to Stone. “Now, why have you come to see me? I believe you must need my help.”
“Yes, I do,” Stone said, “for a friend. I want to locate someone who is hiding in the . . . Italian community in New York.”
“For what purpose?”
“So that he can be tried and imprisoned.”
Eduardo shrugged. “I appreciate your candor, but that is not the sort of reason that would engender cooperation in the community.”
“I know that, but you must understand that this man is a multiple murderer, who kills without thought or feeling, and who does not limit his killing to reasons of business. He once put a bomb in a coffin and exploded it during a funeral.”
“That is an outrage,” Eduardo said.
“Do you know a man named Ed Shine?”
Eduardo permitted himself a small smile. “I’ve known him since the day he got off the boat from Italy. He was a valuable man to friends of mine. Of course, he is in prison now. Ed could not remain retired. He could have lived out his life in peace, but he got greedy.”
“Yes. The man my friend wants to find is Shine’s out-of-wedlock son with a Cuban woman in south Florida. He goes by the name of Trini Rodriguez.”
Eduardo nodded. “I’ve heard of him, and I haven’t liked what I’ve heard, but he was under Ed’s protection.”
Suddenly, Stone had a thought. He might end this whole business by simply imparting a small piece of information to Eduardo. “Have you ever wondered who else’s protection he might be under?”
Eduardo looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Hasn’t it occurred to the people who are helping him that he would not be a free man without the protection of. . . well, those who would, normally, put him away?”
“And that would be the federal men, would it?”
Stone shrugged. “He would be far too important a fugitive to be allowed to roam New York City without the protection of someone.”
“You have a point,” Eduardo said. “It makes you wonder.”
“I wonder, too.”
“Perhaps it is because he has convinced them that, while he may be protected by these federal people, he is not truly working for them.”
“Perhaps. It’s my understanding that he is helping them root out a Middle Eastern terrorist organization that wants to use his friends to help them launder large amounts of money.”
“Certainly, no one I know would knowingly help such an organization,” Eduardo said smoothly.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Perhaps this is complicated,” Eduardo said.
“I’ve no doubt of that.”
“I do very little business these days, but I will ask a few questions and see what this man means to the people who are helping him.”
“I’m sure the answers would be interesting,” Stone said. “I think there is one thing of which you may be sure: that Trini Rodriguez is acting in his own interests, and not those of either the federal people or those who are helping him.”
Eduardo stood up. “Thank you for coming to see me, Stone. Perhaps you will come again soon, now that Dolce is not in the house. I know her presence made you uncomfortable.”
“I hope you will forgive me that, Eduardo. I would like very much to come again soon.”
“Someone will call you to arrange a meeting, when I have something to tell you,” Eduardo said. “It should not be long.”
The two men shook hands, and Stone followed Pete back through the house to the car.
30
STONE LEFT THE Bianchi house and drove back toward Manhattan, thinking about his conversation with Eduardo. The old man had seemed genuinely concerned about the situation with Trini Rodriguez, but that didn’t mean he was going to help. Over the years he had distanced himself from his past criminal associations, concentrating on the work of his foundation and his membership on the boards of the museum, the opera, and others of the city’s cultural institutions, and he seemed reluctant to revisit old acquaintances.
Dolce had helped him in these endeavors until she had begun to behave erratically, then violently. Eduardo was a lonely man now, Stone reflected, and he really should make an effort to see him at a time when he didn’t want something from the old man.
Stone had made his way across Brooklyn in fairly light traffic, making good time. He paid little attention to other cars along the route, but now a motorcycle cop caught his eye in his rearview mirror. Instinctively, he slowed down, and as he did the bike drew alongside him.
Stone was reaching for his badge when an alarm bell went off in his mind. There were two men on the motorcycle, and cops didn’t ride tandem. They were no more than three feet from his window. They wore black leather and white helmets with goggles, and one of them had something in his hand.
Simultaneously, there was a loud noise, and two splatters appeared in the window’s glass. Stone braked sharply, and the motorcycle shot past him, then slowed, as the man on the passenger seat twisted around for another shot. Two more splatters appeared, this time in the windshield, but the bullets did not penetrate the armored glass.
Stone, unarmed, fought back with the only weapon he had at his disposal: his car. He slammed the accelerator to the floor, and the tachometer needle shot up as he aimed at the rear of the motorcycle. The driver hadn’t been expecting that, and he failed to react quickly enough. Stone’s car struck the motorcycle hard, propelling the bike across the central divider of the bridge, directly into the path of an oncoming cement truck. The cycle and its two riders ricocheted off the grille of the truck, and Stone lost sight of them. Behind him he could hear the screech of brakes and the blowing of h
orns.
He braked to a halt and got out of the car, looking back. The driver of the car behind him had done the same thing, and traffic had come to a halt on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Stone watched the detective as he laboriously wrote the last of his notes. He had been in the police station for more than four hours.
“Anything else you can remember?” the man asked.
“No. Did somebody call Lieutenant Bacchetti?”
“Who knows? You think you need the help?”
“That depends on your attitude,” Stone said. His badge and ID card lay on the table between them.
“Not my call,” the detective said, standing up and stretching. “That’s my watch commander’s, but just between you and me, I think you did the world a favor by what you did. There’s a few greasy spots on the Brooklyn Bridge, but what the hell?”
The door opened, and Dino walked in. “First, Central Park, now Brooklyn,” he said. “Is there a precinct left where you aren’t up to your dick in homicides?”
“Dino, it was a hit. They tried to kill me. Twice.”
“Yeah, I saw your car outside. Nice to know that armored glass helps.”
The detective spoke up. “I forgot to ask: How come you drive an armored car?”
“It’s not an armored car,” Stone said. “It’s lightly armored. It will repel small-arms fire. I was car shopping, and it was in the showroom, and I thought, what the hell, why not?”
“Well,” the detective said, “it was a good idea, because if that had been regular glass between you and the shooter, it would be your brains spattered all over the Brooklyn Bridge instead of the two guys on the motorcycle.”
“You get an ID on them yet?” Dino asked.
“Nah. They weren’t carrying anything. Maybe their prints will ring the bell.”
“Don’t count on it,” Stone said to Dino. “The guy that Holly shot in the park still doesn’t have a name, does he?”
Dino shook his head. “He ain’t going to, either. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
“I don’t have to talk to anybody else?”
“Nah, I had a chat with the watch commander. They’ll call you if there’s anything else they want to know.”
The two walked out of the precinct together, and Stone took another look at his car. “Follow me to the Mercedes garage?” he asked.
“Why not?” Dino replied. “It’s not like I have to work for a living.”
The car sat in the middle of the shop, surrounded by half a dozen Mercedes-Benz mechanics in blue coveralls.
“This is my first one of these,” the service manager said. “We’ve sold a few of these cars, but it’s the first time one of them ever came back with bullet holes in it.”
“How about the bumper?” Stone said.
“We’ll have one here tomorrow, but it’s got to be painted. The armored glass is going to take longer, maybe two or three weeks. It has to come from Germany, and there’s customs and all of that.”
“Put regular glass in it,” Stone said. “I’ll bring it back when the armored stuff comes in.”
“In that case, we’ll have it together by the end of the week,” the service manager said.
“Can we go now?” Dino asked.
Stone signed the service order and followed Dino back to his car.
“You thought about how you’re going to explain this to your insurance company?” Dino asked as they drove away.
“I don’t think I’ll mention it to them,” Stone said, “because I didn’t mention to them in the first place that the car was armored. I thought it might upset them.”
“Stone, maybe you ought to take Holly and get out of town for a while,” Dino said.
“That’s an attractive idea,” Stone replied, “and I’ll talk to Holly about it, but I don’t think she’s going to want to go. She’s mad now, and she’s going to get madder when I tell her what’s happened.”
“Better mad than dead,” Dino said. “Whoever’s doing this has wasted three men trying, and you may have pissed him off by now.”
“You think it’s Trini?” Stone asked.
“You got somebody else in mind?”
“Maybe,” Stone replied.
31
DINO SLOWED DOWN as he turned into Stone’s block, pointing ahead at a cluster of people outside Stone’s house. “You must be dead, because you’re attracting flies.”
Stone groaned. “Stop here.” Dino pulled over. Stone got out his cell phone and called his secretary.
“The Barrington Practice,” Joan Robertson said.
“Joan, it’s me.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m right outside. I want you to go to the garage, count to five, and open the garage door. As soon as we’re inside, close it.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Slowly,” Stone said. Dino edged his unmarked car up the block and, when he saw the garage door start to move, accelerated. He turned into the drive, crossed the sidewalk, and braked before he could run into the rear wall. The door closed behind them.
Stone had seen at least two television cameras in the mob. “Come on in, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I can’t get out anyway, without running down a few members of the fourth estate.”
“What happened on the Brooklyn Bridge?” Joan asked. “It’s all over the TV.”
“Come on upstairs, so I won’t have to explain it more than once,” Stone said.
Holly and Ham met them at the top of the stairs. “You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine, except I just killed two men.”
“That ain’t good,” Ham said.
Stone led them into his study and poured everyone but himself a drink, then he explained what had happened. “Holly, I think we’ve got to get out of town.” He held up a hand. “I know you don’t want to get any farther from Trini than you already have, but that crowd outside makes staying here impossible. We won’t be able to move without them tagging along.”
“Why don’t you go up to Connecticut?” Dino asked.
“Can’t do that. Some of the people who’ve been following us know about the house.”
“Yeah,” Holly said, “but they’re FBI. You think they’re trying to kill us?”
“I doubt it, but somebody on their team may be talking to somebody on Trini’s team, or we may be dealing with another team entirely.”
“And what team would that be?” Dino asked.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out the hard way.”
“Then let’s go to Florida,” Holly said. “I have a perfectly good house, and if we get rumbled there, we can go to Ham’s place.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ham said. “You two can sleep in the hammock on the porch. Hasn’t been anybody there to feed the mosquitoes.”
“You make it sound irresistible, Ham,” Stone said. “How quickly can you two get packed?”
“Ten minutes,” Holly said.
“Dino, can you give us a ride to Teterboro?”
“Sure.”
Stone picked up a phone and called Atlantic Aviation. “Please top off my inboard and outboard caps,” he said. “Be there in half an hour.” He hung up, then dug out a chart, called Flight Services and got a weather report, then filed a flight plan. He went upstairs, threw some things into a couple of duffels, and came back down to find everybody waiting for him. “Okay,” he said, “let’s run the gauntlet.”
They trooped downstairs and got into Dino’s car while Joan stood by the garage door switch.
“I’ll be on my cell phone,” Stone said. “Hit it.”
Joan opened the door, and Dino started backing up. He switched on his flashing lights and hit the whooper for a minute, and the crowd scattered. As he pulled away from the house, reporters ran alongside the car, shouting questions, while photographers fired their strobes. They lucked their way through the traffic light at the corner and, with the help of the lights and whooper, were soon out of range.
> At Teterboro, Dino faked his way through the security gate and pulled up to Stone’s airplane, which had been pulled up front. The fuel truck was finishing the top-off.
Stone stowed everybody’s luggage in the rear compartment, then did a preflight inspection of the airplane.
“Wish I was going with you,” Dino said. “I could use some sun.”
“I’ve got plenty of room for you and your wife,” Holly said.
“I’ll ask her.” He shook Stone’s hand. “Call me in a couple of days, and I’ll let you know if things have cooled off.”
“Will do.”
“By the way, we were followed out here by a black Lincoln Town Car. I wasn’t sure until we made the last turn.”
Stone laughed. “Let them try to follow us now.” He got onto the airplane, showed Holly and Ham how the door worked, then settled in the pilot’s seat, with Holly beside him. “Everybody buckle up.” He worked his way through the checklist, got a clearance from the tower, and taxied to runway 24. He did a run-up, then called the tower and was cleared for takeoff. A moment later they were climbing through a thousand feet, with the setting sun to their right, bright orange through the New Jersey haze.
Stone climbed to flight level 250, switched on the CD player, and, having gone through his cruise checklist, relaxed. He noted that Holly and Ham were both already dozing.
With the autopilot flying the airplane, Stone began to think back over the events of the day, but the scene that kept flashing through his mind was the memory of the motorcycle propelled across the meridian of the Brooklyn Bridge into the path of the cement truck. He tried not to think of the aftermath.
Finally, he checked the airplane’s Garmin AirCell phone to be sure he had a signal, then he called a New York cell phone number, pressing a button on the audio panel to isolate his headset from those of Holly and Ham.
“Yes?” a familiar voice said.
