Stuart Woods 6 Stone Barrington Novels

by Stuart Woods

  “Well, there you go.”

  “They weren’t shooting at me. Nobody has ever shot at me, except when I was a cop.”

  “Maybe there’s bad people you put in the pokey; maybe they’re all pissed off about it.”

  There had, in fact, been such a case in Stone’s past, but only one, and he was not about to admit it to Billy Bob Barnstormer. “Nope.”

  “Well, how ’bout that feller with the German name that got after you and Dino that time?” Billy Bob asked.

  “How’d you hear about that?” Stone asked.

  “I got my sources. You think I’d hire you without checking you out?”

  “You haven’t hired me, Billy Bob, and it’s my considered opinion that there’s no reason why you should.”

  “I don’t see how you figure that,” Billy Bob replied. “I needed a lawyer last night.”

  “Not really; all you needed was somebody to disarm you. I just made the investigation go a little faster.”

  “Funny, I thought it was when I mentioned Mike Bloomberg that things got to going faster.”

  “Right, you see? You don’t need a lawyer.”

  “Well, I think I’m going to be the judge of that,” Billy Bob said, taking an envelope from a pocket and laying it on the table.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your retainer,” Billy Bob said.

  “My retainer for what?”

  “For representing me as my lawyer. It’s a check for fifty grand.”

  Stone gulped and washed down some eggs with some orange juice. “What are you involved in, Billy Bob?”

  “Why, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean, you got shot at last night, and you seem real anxious to have a lawyer.”

  “Just in case.”

  “Just in case of what?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Everybody ought to have a lawyer. I have a lawyer ever’ place I do business.”

  “And how many lawyers is that?”

  “A whole mess of ’em.”

  “At fifty grand a pop?”

  “Well, I pay less in the boondocks, but when you’re in a place like New York, you got to go first class.”

  “I appreciate that, Billy Bob, but if I’m going to be your lawyer, you’re going to have to level with me.”

  “Stone, I promise you, the second there’s something to level with you about, I’ll level with you.”

  Stone eyed the envelope with the check. He had been prepared to instruct his secretary to sell some stock this morning, since he was cash poor.

  “Well, all right, I’ll represent you, but you’ve got to keep me up-to-date on what you’re doing, if I’m going to be effective.”

  “Why, sure I will,” Billy Bob said soothingly.

  Stone didn’t feel soothed. He felt stuffed like a pig, having just eaten the biggest breakfast of his life. All he needed now was an apple in his mouth. He read the Times and tried to forget his stomach.

  The phone rang, and Stone picked up the kitchen extension. “Hello?”

  “Good morning,” a man said. “May I speak with Billy Bob Barnstormer, please? This is Warren Buffett calling.” Stone was stunned into silence for a moment.

  “Hello?” Buffett said.

  “Sorry, just a moment.” Stone held out the phone to Billy Bob. “It’s for you.”

  Billy Bob took the phone. “Hello? Hey, Warren, how you doin’? Just fine thanks. We ready to go? Shoot, I been ready for a month. You want some money? How much? Thirty? That gonna be enough to give us a decent cash reserve? You sure you don’t need more? Well, it’s there if you need it. I’ll get it to you this morning. Nah, I got your account number from last time. Great, you take care now.” Billy Bob hung up. “Mind if I make a long-distance call on your phone? I’ll pay, of course.”

  “As long as it’s not to Hong Kong, be my guest.”

  Billy Bob dialed a number. “Hey, Ralph. You up yet? Okay, when you get to the office wire Warren Buffett thirty million dollars. Yeah, same account as last time and the time before that. You know the drill. Okay, talk to you later.” Billy Bob hung up. “Well, we’re off!”

  Stone stared at him, wondering. Well, he’d seen Buffett on television lately, and it had sounded like him.

  5

  STONE WORKED in his office most of the day, clearing his desk of papers that had piled up over the past couple of weeks. It went like that, usually—he neglected things, then got them done in a rush. He had his secretary, Joan Robertson, deposit Billy Bob’s check, and she looked relieved to have the money in the bank.

  Late in the afternoon he went upstairs and looked for Billy Bob, but he had, apparently, checked out of the Stone Hotel. For a moment, Stone was confused by the pile of alligator luggage still in the guest bedroom. Then he found a note: “Thanks for the sack, Stone. Keep the luggage as a house present. I got some more. Billy Bob B.”

  Stone gazed at the cases in disbelief, pushing at them with a toe as if they might bite. They felt empty. He’d leave them there and argue with Billy Bob about it later.

  He had a big event, starting at six o’clock—Woodman & Weld’s annual firm party at the Four Seasons restaurant. He got out a fresh tuxedo, shirt, shoes, jewelry and a bow tie, then shaved and got into a shower. He had just finished and turned off the water when he heard a noise from the direction of his bedroom and the murmur of voices.

  He grabbed a terry-cloth robe and walked toward the sounds. Two men in suits were having a look around his bedroom. “Who the hell are you?” Stone demanded.

  The two men turned and looked at him, unsurprised. “FBI,” one of them said, and they both flashed IDs.

  “What are you doing in my bedroom?”

  “Your secretary let us in and told us to wait.”

  “She didn’t tell you to wait in my bedroom.”

  “She wasn’t specific.”

  “What do you want?”

  “The United States Attorney wants to see you.”

  “Well, tell him to call and make an appointment.”

  “Wants to speak with you now.”

  Stone checked the bedside clock. “At this hour of the day?”

  “Get dressed,” the man said.

  What the hell could the U.S. Attorney want with him? Stone wondered. He went back into the bathroom, dried and combed his hair, then went back into the bedroom. The two FBI agents were still standing there, looking bored. He went into his dressing room and got his clothes on.

  “The occasion isn’t formal,” an agent said, when Stone reappeared.

  “I always dress for the U.S. Attorney,” Stone said. “Let’s go.” They went downstairs, and Stone grabbed a heavy, black cashmere topcoat, a white silk scarf, a black hat and some warm gloves. New York was in the midst of its coldest winter in years. They went outside and got into a black Lincoln that was idling at the curb, apparently driven by another agent.

  “We have to go all the way downtown?” Stone asked. “It’s rush hour; it’ll take at least an hour, and I have to be somewhere.”

  “Relax, we’re not going far,” an agent said.

  Ten minutes later they stopped at the Waldorf-Astoria, at the Towers entrance. The agents led him to an elevator, and they went up many floors, stopping near the top of the building. The elevator opened into a large vestibule, and Stone could hear the sound of many voices beyond a set of large double doors. An agent opened a side door and showed him into a small study.

  “Be right with you,” the agent said, closing the door behind him.

  Stone shucked off his overcoat and tossed it onto a sofa, next to somebody’s mink coat. He looked around the room: It didn’t appear to have been done by a hotel decorator but seemed actually to be used as a study. Behind him, a door opened and closed, and Stone turned around. A tall, blond woman in a tight black cocktail dress walked toward him, her hand extended.

  “Good evening, Mr. Barrington. I’m
Tiffany Baldwin, the U.S. Attorney for New York.”

  Stone shook her hand. “The last time I saw you,” he said, “you had a different name and were six feet six and wearing a double-breasted suit.”

  “I believe you’re referring to my predecessor,” she said.

  The change was news to Stone. “When did he predecess?”

  “He handed over the reins an hour ago. He’s the new Deputy Attorney General; I’m replacing him tomorrow morning at nine. Those voices you hear through there are a welcome-aboard party for me.” She waved him toward a chair and took one, herself.

  “U.S. Attorneys are not named Tiffany,” Stone said, “and they don’t look in the least like you.”

  “Thank you, I think,” she replied. “Sorry about the name, but by the time I graduated from Harvard Law, it was too late to change it. I’ll never forgive my parents, of course, but what are you going to do?”

  “Well, now we know why you’re here,” Stone said. “But what am I doing here? Are you going to offer me a job as your deputy?”

  She smiled sardonically. “Hardly.”

  “What do you mean, ‘hardly’?” Stone said, sounding wounded. “I went to law school, too, you know, though not at Harvard.”

  “Well, that immediately disqualifies you, doesn’t it?”

  “Watch it. I’ll spread the word, and you’lll spend all your time in New York being given a hard time by old NYU Law grads.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. Now to business. I want to talk with you about a client of yours.”

  Not Billy Bob Barnstormer, Stone thought. Not already. “What client is that?”

  “Rodney Peeples.”

  “Rodney who?”

  “Peeples.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Come now, Stone; confirming that you represent him is not a breach of attorney-client confidentiality.”

  “I’m not being confidential, I’m being baffled,” Stone replied.

  Tiffany Baldwin sighed. “It’s going to be like that, is it?”

  “Like what, baffled? I am genuinely baffled. I have never heard of Rodney Peeples, and I suspect neither has anyone else, name like that.”

  “It does seem improbable, doesn’t it?”

  “My whole evening, so far, seems improbable,” Stone said. “Whose apartment is this?”

  “It belongs to the Ambassador to the United Nations; the Attorney General borrowed it for the event.”

  “The Attorney General is in there?” Stone asked, pointing at a door.

  “He is.”

  “I’d like to leave now; I don’t want to catch anything.”

  “What?”

  “I’m afraid that if I breathe the air I might leave here as a tight-assed, right-wing, fundamentalist, anti–civil libertarian with a propensity for singing gospel music. And I don’t think that’s treatable.”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “Come on,” she said, rising. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Stone stood up. “You’re afraid of catching it, too, aren’t you?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Where are we going?” he asked, helping her into the mink coat from the sofa.

  “To the same party,” she said.

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding. I may as well give you a lift.”

  “You’re just a party animal, aren’t you. Do you have another one after Woodman and Weld’s?”

  “My last party of the evening.”

  Stone grabbed his coat and followed her into the vestibule, where an FBI agent had the elevator door held open. They rode down in the elevator in silence, then got back into a waiting Lincoln, which was longer than the other one, while the two agents accompanying them got into a black SUV behind them.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had this many chaperones on a date,” Stone said. “And armed, too.”

  “This isn’t a date,” she said. “It’s a coincidence.”

  6

  TIFFANY BALDWIN pressed a button, and a glass partition between them and the driver slid up. “Okay,” she said, “it’s not a coincidence.”

  “Oh?”

  “Nope. I’m new in town, and I needed a date for this party, and I once saw you across a crowded room, and I figured, what the hell?”

  “I’m flattered. And is this Rodney Peeples fiction?”

  “Nope, he’s real, but elusive. We heard a rumor that you were involved with him, so it was a good excuse to call you.”

  They pulled up in front of the Four Seasons, and the doorman got the door.

  “Let’s leave our coats in the car,” Tiffany said. “Then we won’t have to stand in line for the coat-check room when we leave.”

  Stone tossed both coats and his hat into the rear seat and hustled her into the building, his teeth chattering. They climbed the big staircase and emerged into the Grill Room, which had been mostly cleared of tables so those present could drink and pump each other’s hands without bumping into the furniture. A string quartet was sawing away at some Mozart in a corner, and great quantities of food and drink were being consumed.

  Stone snagged two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter, and they waded into the crowd.

  “Well,” Tiffany said, “this is a good introduction to New York City. I recognize a lot of faces here; how many of them do you know?”

  “Hardly any, except for the lawyers I run into in the hallowed halls of Woodman and Weld, but I recognize the same faces you do.” They were former cabinet members, politicians, a couple of United States senators, the mayor, the police commissioner and enough city councilmen, CEOs and movers and shakers that if laid end to end would reach somewhere into the northern regions of Central Park.

  Bill Eggers elbowed his way through the mob and, ignoring Stone, gave Tiffany a big hug and kiss. “Welcome home, kiddo,” he said.

  “Home?” Stone asked.

  “I interned at Woodman and Weld for two summers during law school,” she said.

  Eggers took her by the hand and led her up some stairs to a level overlooking the party. Somebody rang a silver bell, and the crowed quieted a bit.

  “Good evening, everyone,” Eggers said. “On behalf of Woodman and Weld I want to welcome you all here to our annual profit-draining salute to our clients and friends. I will keep you long enough only to introduce you to the newest member of the New York legal fraternity, who has just been appointed the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Formerly, as a law student, she worked summers at Woodman and Weld, and I firmly intend to use that connection every chance I get on behalf of our clients. May I introduce Ms. Tiffany Baldwin!” There was loud applause. Tiffany raised a glass to the crowd and mouthed a thank you, but said nothing. She descended the stairs with Eggers, and Stone could not get near her for an hour, such was the press to meet her.

  It was not until he had been swept into the main dining room for dinner that he found her again, his place card opposite hers.

  “I assume you met everyone in the place,” he said, sitting down.

  “Twice,” she said, fanning herself with her hands. “What happened to you?”

  “I was flotsam in the tide, but you were right, this event is an excellent introduction for you. Now half the movers and shakers in the city can say they know you when their friends say, ‘Who the hell is Tiffany Baldwin?’ ”

  “Call me Tiff,” she said. “It takes some of the sting away.”

  “What were your parents thinking?”

  “Louis Comfort Tiffany was a distant relative by marriage,” she said, “and giving me his name gave my mother an excuse to tell people about the kinship every time she introduced me to someone. Never mind that trailer trash from Maine to California were naming their daughters Tiffany, even if they didn’t always spell it correctly. You’d be astonished at the number of ways the name can be misspelled.”

  “What were you doing before your new appointment?”

  “Well, until this morning I was a
n assistant attorney general.”

  “So, you’re a Republican?”

  “No, but the AG doesn’t know that, and my father is a major contributor to the party and a friend of the First Family, and that passes for political credentials.”

  “You must have won a lot of cases for the Justice Department,” Stone said.

  “Yes, indeed, and always the tough ones that the boys didn’t want to try. They were mostly during the Clinton years, though. The boys began to catch on that the tough cases got them noticed.”

  “So, now you’re the one who’s going to try to put that nice Martha Stewart in jail?”

  She raised her hands as if fending off the remark. “Nope, that one belongs to my predecessor and his chosen people. I wouldn’t touch it with a very long pole. I take it, from your view of the AG, that you’re a Democrat?”

  “A Yellow Dog Democrat.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s somebody who would vote for a Yellow Dog before he’d vote for a Republican.”

  “I wouldn’t say that too loudly,” she said, looking around. “This is a very Republican-looking crowd to me.”

  “Nah, they’re mostly rich Democrats, though in a setting like this it can be hard to tell the difference.”

  Her eyes were fixed on the entrance. “Well, it’s real hard to tell what that is.”

  Stone looked over his shoulder to see Billy Bob entering the room. He was wearing a western-cut tuxedo that seemed to be sprinkled with stardust, and on his arm was a six-foot-tall woman who looked like a stripper who had been redone by Frédéric Fekkai and Versace. “Oh, that’s my newest client, one Billy Bob Barnstormer.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said.

  “I am not.”

  “Where did he get that suit? It looks like he’s playing Vegas.”

  “Texans have places to get things like that,” Stone said. “They keep them from the rest of us.”

  “Thank God for that. Who is he? What does he do?”

  “It’s hard to say, exactly. He goes out into the world and gathers money from trees. He flew into Teterboro in a GIV last night and stayed at my house, leaving many pieces of alligator luggage behind as a house gift. And he got a phone call this morning from Warren Buffett.”