by Stuart Woods
“Nope.” He shoved them so that they were standing at one end of the hole, then he and another man with a shotgun took up positions a few feet away.
“You’ve got my cell phone. The call is to Eduardo Bianchi,” he said.
The men stared at him dumbly.
“All you have to do is push send twice, and you’ll be connected. He was the last person I called, and the number is already in there.”
Nobody moved.
“I really do think it would be in your best interests to speak to Mr. Bianchi before you do this.”
The man finally spoke. “You know Eduardo Bianchi?”
“I know him very well,” Stone said. “I was nearly his son-in-law.”
“Dino Bacchetti is his son-in-law.”
“Dolce and I were engaged, before she . . . got sick.”
The man stared at him for a long time. “You understand it would be very embarrassing for me if I called Mr. Bianchi and he didn’t know you or want to hear from you?”
“I assure you, you won’t be embarrassed.”
“If I’m embarrassed, then I’m going to hurt you before I kill you. The lady, too. You understand?”
“I understand perfectly.”
The man held out a hand to one of his colleagues. “Gimme his phone.”
The man handed him Stone’s phone.
“Just press send twice,” Stone said.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” The man pressed the button twice and waited. “Nobody’s answering,” he said.
“He was there earlier, just before you, ah, invited us in here.”
“Hello?” the man said, then he started speaking Italian.
Stone caught the words “Don Eduardo.”
He stopped speaking, then started again, apparently speaking to Eduardo, then he stopped. “What’s your name?” he said to Stone.
“You were going to kill me, and you don’t even know who I am?”
“I know who the lady is; that’s enough.”
“My name is Stone Barrington.”
The man repeated this into the telephone. “Sì. Sì. Sì. Grazie, Don Eduardo.” He closed the phone and handed it to Stone. “Don Eduardo knows you,” he said.
Stone breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“He says to kill you anyway.”
Stone stopped breathing.
“Just kidding,” the man said, then burst out laughing. All the men laughed with him.
“I may die anyway,” Holly said to Stone.
“I know how you feel.”
When the man had gotten control of himself he held out a hand to Stone. “My name is Vito.”
Stone shook the hand.
“Don Eduardo says to take you back to your car.”
“Good.”
“But I gotta kill the lady.”
“Now hang on a minute,” Stone said.
“Yeah,” Holly echoed, “hang on!”
Vito burst out laughing again, and the others followed suit. “Come on,” he said finally, waving them toward the elevator. “I’m just kidding again.” His shoulders were shaking, and tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“So, we dug this hole for nothing?” one of the men with a shovel said to Vito.
“Don’t worry about it, it’ll get used,” Vito replied.
He rode up in the elevator with Stone and Holly and handed them their guns. “You can find your car from here?” Vito asked.
“Yes, we can,” Stone replied. “One more thing. We want Trini Rodriguez.”
Vito rolled his eyes. “Everybody wants Trini,” he said.
“Don Eduardo would like us to find him.”
Vito looked at him doubtfully.
“No kidding.”
“Trini is with the fuckin’ towelheads somewhere,” he said.
“Towelheads?”
“Yeah, the Ayrabs.”
“And where are the Ayrabs?”
“Around somewhere.”
“I thought all the Ayrabs got arrested when Trini pulled off his little deal with the FBI.”
“The FBI, what do they know?” Vito said, laughing.
“Will you be speaking to Trini?” Stone asked.
“Yeah, I guess. He’ll want to know how you died.” Vito began laughing again.
“Do me a favor, Vito. Tell him something he’ll like to hear.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll make him happy.”
Stone handed him a card. “Then find out where he is and call me.”
Vito took the card. “You gonna cap Trini?”
“No, the lady is going to arrest him and take him back to Florida to be tried for killing a dozen people at a funeral.”
“Trini did that?” Vito looked amazed.
“He did.”
Vito said something to himself in Italian. “It’ll be a pleasure to rat him out,” he said. “Buona sera.”
Stone and Holly walked down the dark street toward where they had left the car.
“As long as we’re down here, you want to get some dinner?” Stone asked.
“Thanks,” Holly said, “I already ate. I just want to get into bed, assume the fetal position, and suck my thumb for a couple of days.”
46
WHEN THEY GOT home, Holly did exactly what she had said she was going to do, except she didn’t suck her thumb.
Stone was tired, but oddly alert. He called Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone, but it almost wasn’t.”
“Huh?”
“Some of Trini’s buddies from the Italian side of the equation stuck a shotgun in my ear in Little Italy and walked Holly and me to a nearby cellar, where they proceeded to dig a grave for the two of us.”
“Are you speaking to me from the grave? Because if you are, I want to record this conversation.”
“Fortunately, no. I was able to persuade the leader of this merry band of men, a guy named Vito, to call Eduardo before he unloaded his shotgun in our direction.”
“And Eduardo called them off?”
“Yes. Fortunately, he was at home.”
“You want me to arrest somebody?”
“No, after all, they only scared us half to death, and anyway, Vito might be able to help us locate Trini.”
“I thought you were ready to give up on Trini.”
“Oddly enough, my near-death experience has renewed my interest in finding the son of a bitch. In fact, I think I want to be a witness at his execution, if I don’t actually do it myself.”
“Funny, when the two guys on the motorcycle had a go at you, all you felt was bad about killing them.”
“Looking down the barrels of two shotguns concentrates the mind wonderfully.”
“I expect it does.”
“What’s the latest on Trini? Why did he shoot the two FBI guys?”
“Well, from what I hear on the grapevine, the two agents tried to get him out of bed too early in the morning, and it irritated him, so he shot them both.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. He just went nuts, according to the agent who’s still alive.”
“Well, since he was standing at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night, threatening to kill me, I guess he missed some sleep. Some people are just grumpy if they don’t get their eight hours.”
“So, what’s your next move?”
“Vito says he’ll be talking to Trini, who will want the details on how we begged for our lives.”
“Did you beg for your lives?”
“No. I concentrated on getting Vito to call Eduardo before he spread us around the cellar. But Vito is going to give Trini details that will please him and then call me and tell me where Trini is, if he can find out. He says Trini is with his Arab friends—or towelheads, as he prefers to call them.”
“I thought the FBI arrested all the towelheads.”
“So did I, but apparently there’s an abundant supply of them.”
“I think I’d like to talk to the towelheads,” D
ino said.
“Tell you what: We work together on this, you take the towelheads, and we’ll take Trini.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Take him back to Florida and get him tried.”
“That’s a sweet idea. I hope it works for you.”
“You going to help?”
“Okay, you get me a location on Trini and his buddies and I’ll supply a SWAT team. I’ll get a judge to honor Holly’s warrant, and you three can hotfoot it to the airport. I’ll take the towelheads home with me.”
“You’ve got a deal, but no FBI.”
“Why would I want those guys around to take the credit?”
“Why, indeed?”
“Dinner tomorrow?”
“You’re on.”
“And you’re still buying, remember?”
“I remember.”
Dino hung up, and Stone called Eduardo.
“Stone, are you all right?”
“Thanks to your help, I am, Eduardo.”
“I want to apologize for these people of ours.”
“No apology necessary. You can’t be expected to know everything.”
“I’m glad they called me.”
“So am I.”
“Have you had any luck in finding this Rodriguez fellow?”
“I’m working on it. One of the men who, ah, detained us says he may be speaking to him, and he’ll try to find out where he is. There are some Arab gentlemen involved, apparently.”
“I have heard of these people, and I would be pleased to see them caught and put into prison.”
“If we can get a location on them, that could very well happen. I’d be grateful to hear of any information that might come your way.”
“Of course. I’ll call you.”
“Thank you again for saving our lives, Eduardo.”
“Please, I was happy to.”
They both hung up, and now Stone was tired. He went upstairs, got undressed, and got into bed with Holly, who was sleeping as if drugged. Soon, he was, too.
Stone got up at mid-morning the following day and found Holly still sleeping. He reached out to give Daisy a pat, then remembered she was in Florida with Ham. Then he sat up in bed, wide awake.
He got into a robe, went downstairs, and called Ham.
“Hello?”
“Ham, it’s Stone Barrington.”
“How you doing, Stone?”
“I’m okay, and so is Holly. She’s still asleep.”
“What’s up?”
“We’ve had a brush with Trini, and I think you ought to be on the lookout for his people around your place.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think maybe you might think about changing locations. Why don’t you move into Holly’s place until we can nail this guy?”
“You really think he might be a threat to us here?”
“I do.”
“What does Holly think?”
“I don’t want to wake her to ask, but I think she’d agree with me.”
“All right, we’ll throw some things in a bag and go over there.”
“Thanks, Ham, I’d feel better if you did. Please give my best to Ginny.”
“Sure thing. Bye.” Ham hung up.
Stone went back upstairs, feeling he had done all he could for the moment.
47
HAM WALKED INTO the kitchen where Ginny was cleaning the fish he’d caught early that morning. One of the reasons he loved her was that she would clean his fish, something he hated doing himself. Daisy was asleep on the floor beside her.
“How would you like a little vacation?” he asked.
“Would I have to clean fish?”
“Nope.”
“I’d love it. Where you want to go?”
“Why don’t we get in that airplane of yours, and you fly us out to the Bahamas.”
“Where in the Bahamas?”
“You know them better than I do. Where’s the fishing good?”
“Ah, ah, ah,” she said, wagging a bloody finger.
“Oh, right; no cleaning fish. Where can we go that somebody else will clean the fish?”
“I know a little resort on Cat Cay that has its own airstrip. You could give your fish to the restaurant and let them worry about the cleaning.”
“Sounds good to me. Why don’t you stick those fish in the freezer and throw your toothbrush and a bikini into a bag, and let’s get out of here.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“I never knew you to be so spontaneous. Who was the phone call from?”
“Just a guy.”
“C’mon, Ham, what guy?”
“It was Stone.”
“And Stone suggested we take a vacation?”
“Sort of.”
Ginny began wrapping the fillets for freezing. “I want to know the whole story, Ham.”
“What whole story?”
She put the fish in the freezer and came and put her arms around his waist. “You know, you’ve been working on that poker face of yours for so long you think you can fool anybody, but you can’t fool me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can see right through your eyes into your brain, and right now I see deception.”
“Not much deception. After all, can it be so bad if I’m offering you a trip to the Bahamas?”
“Seems to me I’ve heard you say more than once that the Bahamas are boring, all that sun and sand.”
“Not if I can fish.”
“And what do I do while you’re fishing?”
“I don’t know, what do you do here while I’m fishing?”
“That’s right, you wouldn’t know, would you?”
“Well, I’m not here when I’m fishing, am I?”
“I get naked and do witchcraft incantations.”
“You can do witchcraft incantations in the Bahamas, can’t you?”
“No, I’d frighten the natives.”
“You’d frighten the native here, if I’d known what you were doing. I like the naked part, though.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
“I sure would. You gonna get packed?”
“Not until you tell me why we’re going.”
“Stone thought it would be a good idea.”
“Why did Stone think that?”
“He had a little brush with Trini Rodriguez.”
“He said ‘a little brush’?”
“Sort of.”
“And what do you think he meant?”
“Well, usually, having a little brush with Trini involves a death experience, but he was still talking, so I guess he and Holly are all right.”
“So now he thinks we’re going to have a death experience?”
“I think he wants us to avoid that.”
“By going to the Bahamas?”
“No, he just wanted us to move into Holly’s house for a while. The Bahamas was my idea.”
“So you’re more worried than he is?”
“No, I just thought the Bahamas would make a nice change until somebody shoots Trini in the head.”
“Okay, you talked me into it. I’ll go pack.” She gave him a little kiss and turned toward the bedroom.
Ham caught a movement out of the corner of his eye; somebody outside. He’d only seen a shoulder and an elbow. “Don’t do that right now,” he said.
“What?”
He went into the living room, opened his gun safe, and took out an Ithaca riot gun he’d had for years. He handed her the shotgun and a box of shells. “Take this into the broom closet and load it,” he said. “Take Daisy, keep her quiet, stay down low.”
She regarded him calmly for a moment, then took the shotgun and went back into the kitchen.
Ham took his Beretta 9mm from the safe, shoved a loaded magazine into it, and worked the action. He put two more magazines into his pocket, then took out the Browning automatic shotgun that he used for bird hunting and loaded it, putting extra she
lls into another pocket. He went to a closet in the living room where he kept his fishing clothes and got inside, leaving the door ajar so he could see the front door. He tuned out the birds in the trees outside, tuned out the cars crossing the bridge over the Indian River half a mile away, and listened to everything else.
He heard the tiny creak of a board from the back porch; he heard the scuff of a shoe sole from the front porch. He heard the squeak of a hinge on the screen door to the back porch. He knew they were listening, too, and they weren’t hearing voices anymore. He thought about saying something, but the closet door he stood behind was flimsy and would not stop a round. He held the shotgun in his left hand, ready to bring up the barrel, and the old automatic in his right.
Then he saw the shoulder and elbow he had seen out the window, and they were attached to a head and a neck. The man was short and stocky, and he held an Uzi in his hands.
Why do these yahoos think they need machine guns? he asked himself.
The man stopped just inside the front door and, looking toward the rear of the house, held a finger to his lips, then waved for his companion to approach.
That’s it, Ham said to himself. You two fellows just get a little closer together.
The first man was making hand motions now, directing his friend toward the kitchen. No more waiting.
Ham kicked open the closet door. “Freeze,” he said, but he knew they wouldn’t. The short barrel of the Uzi was swinging around, and he fired the shotgun at it once, while pointing the Beretta 9mm at the other man.
The first man and the Uzi parted company, and he flew backward, landing on and smashing the mahogany coffee table. The second man dropped his weapon and threw his hands into the air.
“Good evening,” Ham said in a low voice. “How many more of you?”
“None,” the man said. “Let me out of here, and you’ll never see me again.”
“That’s a possibility,” Ham said, “but not until I get some answers. Lie down on the floor.” He didn’t call Ginny out yet, because he wasn’t sure there weren’t others.
48
STONE WAS AT his desk, working his way through a pile of work he had dictated days before, when the phone rang.
