Stuart Woods 6 Stone Barrington Novels

by Stuart Woods

  “We haven’t needed your help until now,” Lance said.

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s about a client of yours, one Whitney Stanford.”

  “Never heard of him,” Stone said, then a light went on. “Unless . . .”

  18

  LANCE’S SMOOTH BROW furrowed, for once. “Who are Billy Bob Barnstormer and Rodney Peeples?”

  “They are at least two of the names that a former client of mine has used.” Stone told him about the Google search.

  “And why do you think this fellow might also be Whitney Stanford?”

  “Just a hunch; tell me about Whitney Stanford.”

  Lance ordered a cappuccino and looked at his watch. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “You’ve got time to follow me around New York,” Stone said. “Come on, who is he? Maybe I can help.”

  “Whitney Stanford is an old-money New Yorker who runs a private investment firm.”

  “And why are you interested in him?”

  “Because his name has come up in connection with a possible sales transaction involving, shall we say, unusual goods to not very nice people.”

  “Lance, when you signed me on as a consultant, did you run a background check on me?”

  “Of course.”

  “And, as a result, do I have a security clearance?”

  “Purely as a matter of form, yes. You have a top-secret security clearance.”

  “Then why are you being so cagey with me about this guy? I’m trying to help you.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Have you ever seen him?”

  Lance produced a cell phone and pressed a single button. “Bring me the file folder on the front seat,” he said, then closed the phone. “No, I’ve never seen him, but I have a photograph.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. Just what is Stanford supposed to be selling, and to whom?”

  “A new kind of rifle-launched grenade, to an organization suspected of terrorist connections.”

  “This does not sound like my guy,” Stone said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I think my guy is a garden-variety con man. Oh, and a murderer.”

  “Whom did he murder?”

  “A prostitute, and in my guest room.”

  “Stone, really,” Lance said, wincing.

  “Don’t look at me like that; the guy came to me through Woodman and Weld, recommended by another of their clients.”

  “Which client?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Find out.”

  “Oh, and did I mention that the guy has stolen fifty grand from me?”

  “How?”

  Stone told him.

  Lance looked amused. “Let me get this straight: You took a bad check from this fellow, then refunded his money by cashier’s check?”

  “Don’t rub it in; that’s Dino’s job.”

  “How is dear old Dino?”

  “What’s the matter, aren’t you following him, too? Dino’s just fine.”

  A man in a business suit appeared, handed Lance a file folder and left.

  Lance opened the folder and handed Stone a photograph.

  It was of a gray-haired man in a business suit taken in what looked like the lobby of an expensive hotel.

  “That’s Billy Bob Barnstormer,” Stone said. “And Rodney Peeples. By the way, the Attorney General has an abiding interest in arresting Rodney Peeples.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then how do you know the AG wants him?”

  “Because the U.S. Attorney for New York hauled me in and asked me about him. I denied all knowledge, until I put one and one together, and now that adds up to three.”

  “This is all very queer.”

  “No queerer than your following one of your own people on a shopping trip. By the way, what are your people doing in an SUV with government plates? Aren’t you supposed to be spies? And if so, doesn’t that imply a certain stealth?”

  “It was all the motor pool had,” Lance said, looking annoyed. “Do you know how to find this Billy Bob character?”

  “He called me in the middle of last night, said he was in Maui, about to go on a cruise aboard a yacht. But I wouldn’t believe that any more than anything else he might tell me.”

  “Did he mention the name of the yacht?”

  “He said it was big, and that was it.”

  “Did you check your caller ID?”

  “Yes. It said, ‘not available.’ It could have been a cell phone; the connection sounded a little funny.”

  “This is all very annoying.”

  “What?”

  “This triple-identity thing with Stanford.”

  “Yes, well, criminals can sometimes be irritatingly difficult to catch.”

  “I don’t want to catch him; I want to track the sale of these grenades, then catch the buyers.”

  “Then it would annoy you, if the NYPD or the AG arrested him?”

  “It most certainly would. I’m going to have to take steps to see that that doesn’t happen.”

  “Good God, Lance, you’re going to try to prevent the arrest of a murderer and illegal arms dealer?”

  “Stone, it’s not as though he is an imminent danger to anyone. You have to stack up the benefits of preventing very powerful grenades being used against American soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq against the significantly smaller benefit of jailing Mr. Whoeverheis.”

  “Well, I guess I still have a policeman’s mentality; I tend to want to get perpetrators off the street as quickly as possible. And, of course, I’d like my fifty grand back.”

  “Well, I’m sure Dino will take a different view, when I’ve explained things to him.”

  “And the AG? I’m told he has a very keen interest in capturing this guy.”

  “That may take a little longer,” Lance replied. “Now, Stone, I’m going to have to insist that, if you hear from this fellow again, you contact me instead of the police or the feds.”

  “The police I can handle, but I’m not going to put myself in the position of lying to federal investigators. Oh, did I mention that Billy Bob has been distributing two-dollar bills stolen in a robbery at Fort Dix fifty years ago, during which two army officers were killed?”

  “You did not. Fifty years ago?”

  “I kid you not. The waiters at Elaine’s are calling him ‘Two-Dollar Bill.’ ”

  “And how is dear Elaine?”

  “As ever. Drop in and see her sometime.”

  “Why don’t you and I have dinner there this evening?”

  “I have a previous engagement with someone even more beautiful than you.”

  “Tomorrow, then? Nine o’clock? Perhaps I’ll have more to tell you then.”

  “Okay, if you promise to pull your dogs off me.”

  “I’ll make them disappear like that.” Lance snapped his fingers.

  “By the way, have you spoken to Holly Barker lately?” Holly was a friend of Stone’s who was a police chief in a small Florida town.

  “Oh, yes; she’s coming to work for me as soon as she can disentangle herself from her current life in Florida.”

  “I rather thought she might,” Stone said. “She seemed bored with the work.”

  “She won’t be bored much longer,” Lance said, standing up. He handed Stone a card with only a phone number on it. “See you tomorrow evening.” He tucked the file folder under his arm and walked out of the restaurant.

  Stone was feeling better, now. He thought he might look at some shoes.

  19

  STONE ARRIVED HOME to find the two detectives, Morton and Weiss, walking up his front steps.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Stone said. “What can I do for you?”

  Morton held up a document. “We have a warrant to search your house.”

  “Well, it’s déjà vu all over again, isn’t it?” He glanced through the document and saw particular mention of sa
fes. “All right, come on in.”

  He hung his coat in the front hall closet.

  “Let’s start with that big safe in your dressing room,” Weiss said. “Might save us some time.”

  Mystified, Stone led them up to his bedroom and into his dressing room. His safe was a big Fort Knox, with an electronic keypad. He entered the code, turned the spokes on the door and stood back to give them access. The light in the safe came on, revealing his electric watch winder, some files, cash and a gun rack. Suddenly, he had a bad feeling.

  Morton pulled on a latex glove and reached into the safe. He came out with Billy Bob’s six-shooter, then he looked closely at it and turned to Weiss. “It’s a forty-four,” he said, and the two exchanged a little smile.

  “That doesn’t belong to me,” Stone said quickly.

  “Oh?” Weiss asked. “It just made its way into your safe?”

  “It belongs to a former client. I took it from him and stored it so that he wouldn’t be in violation of New York City law.”

  “And who would the client be?” Morton asked.

  “You’ve met him,” Stone said. “That’s all I can say.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Barrington, we’re done,” Morton said. He dropped the gun into a plastic bag, and the two detectives left.

  “Shit!!!” Stone screamed at himself. Why hadn’t he just shipped that gun to Billy Bob’s Dallas address?

  “Did you say something, Mr. Barrington?” Morton called from the stairs.

  “No, nothing. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Stone called Dino.

  “Bacchetti.”

  “Morton and Weiss were just here.”

  “I know.”

  “They took Billy Bob’s six-shooter.”

  “Good.”

  “Why do you want it?”

  “We had a murder in the precinct a couple of weeks ago, and the ME dug a forty-four slug out of the victim. Weiss finally remembered that you had an old-fashioned six-shooter.”

  “I told you, it’s Billy Bob’s. I took it from him outside Elaine’s that night, when somebody took a shot at him.”

  “Well, that turns out not to have been very bright, doesn’t it?”

  “He had just become my client, and I couldn’t allow him to be arrested for carrying a gun in a strange city.”

  “Commendable,” Dino said.

  “I meant to give it back to him when he left town, but I forgot.”

  “Not so commendable.”

  “So now you’re going to try to tie me to another murder?”

  “Stone, I’m not trying to tie you to anything. My guys are just doing their jobs. Now, after the appropriate fingerprint and ballistic tests, then they may try to tie you to something.”

  “Who was murdered?”

  “An investment banker named Owen Pell. In his Fifth Avenue apartment. It was in the papers.”

  “I think I saw something about it, but I didn’t know the man.”

  “Well, that’s a good start for your defense. You might start dreaming up an alibi.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Let’s see, it was . . . two weeks ago today, in the evening.”

  “I’ll check my calendar. What time?”

  “The ME says between eight and midnight.”

  “Hang on.” Stone went to his desk and flipped through his diary. “Here it is. I had dinner with you at Elaine’s.”

  “Two weeks ago, today? I don’t remember that.”

  “Oh, stop it, you know damned well we had dinner. Mary Ann threw you out of the house, or something.”

  “Oh, yeah, that night. I guess you’re covered.”

  “There’s something else, though.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want word of my possession of the gun to reach the License Division of the department.”

  “Oh, yeah, that could cause them to yank your carry permit, couldn’t it?”

  “I think I could win the fight, but I’d rather not have to go through it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. You want to have dinner tonight?”

  “I’m seeing Tiff.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “I’m seeing Lance Cabot.”

  “Whatever happened to Lance?”

  “Who knows? I ran into him this afternoon, when he was having me followed by a carful of spooks.”

  “Why were they following you?”

  “You’re going to love this. They’re looking for somebody called Whitney Stanford, a venture capitalist.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s Billy Bob and Rodney Peeples.”

  “You’re shitting me! Another alias?”

  “You bet. Lance was shocked to learn that his guy was our guy. By the way, you can expect a phone call from Lance; he doesn’t want you to arrest Billy Bob.”

  “Lance can go fuck himself.”

  “Tell him that, after he hoses you down with national security.”

  “Lance is protecting this guy?”

  “Just until he can catch him himself and put him out of business.”

  “If he does that, we’ll never get our hands on him.”

  “You’re right about that. They’ll either turn him to get at some other people, or send him to Leavenworth, and you’ll get your crack at him in twenty years.”

  “Well, I hope Billy Bob’s forty-four doesn’t match our bullet; it’ll make it easier to give Lance what he wants.”

  “And Lance always gets what he wants.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Thanks for your help; see you later.”

  “ ’Bye.”

  Stone hung up. He was beginning to really hate Billy Bob Barnstormer, or whoever he was.

  He called Tiff Baldwin.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Stone.”

  “I know, my secretary told me.”

  “You want some new information on Billy Bob, or you want to be a smart-ass?”

  “Gee, that’s a tough one; okay, what’s your information?”

  “He’s turned up with another alias.”

  “What is it this time?”

  “Whitney Stanford.”

  “Hey, I know that name; he’s under investigation by this office for some kind of stock fraud.”

  “He may also have murdered an investment banker named Owen Pell. The NYPD is running a ballistics test right now.”

  “No kidding? I would have thought he was too smart to leave the gun at the scene.”

  “He didn’t exactly leave the gun at the scene.”

  “Then how did the cops get ahold of it?”

  “He left it in my safe.”

  Tiff burst out laughing. “So Billy Bob has figured out yet another way to leave you holding the bag?”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just my sense of the ridiculous.”

  “You better get a grip on your sense of the ridiculous, if you ever expect me to cook you dinner again.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” she said, making an unsuccessful effort not to laugh.

  “You’d better be.”

  “My co-op board meeting is tonight.”

  “Hey, that was fast.”

  “Lucky timing, that’s all. I just barely got my financial statement and my letters together in time. They’re passing those around among themselves now. I haven’t felt this naked since the last time I was with you.”

  “Yeah, they’re probably showing that stuff to the guys at their clubs, too. Think you’ll pass the investigation of your sex life?”

  “What!!!?”

  “You didn’t know they do that?”

  “They don’t.”

  “There were two detectives on my doorstep when I came home this afternoon.”

  “And what did you tell them?”

  “I had to tell them everything . . .”

  “Everything?”

  “I had to; it’s a felony to lie to a detective in a sexual
investigation. Haven’t you read the whole text of the Patriot Act?”

  Then she began laughing. “Good one; you almost had me. But I’m going to make you pay for that.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  20

  STONE WAS WAITING when Tiff’s car pulled up out front. It had begun to snow, lightly at first, but now fat flakes were being deposited in large numbers, collecting on the sidewalks, while cars beat them to pulp in the streets.

  “Good evening,” she said as he got into the rear seat with her.

  Stone kissed her. “Good evening. Where are we off to?”

  “Rao’s,” she said. “Do you know it?”

  “I’ve been there, but not nearly often enough. How did we get a table?” You didn’t get a table at Rao’s; you owned it, or you didn’t: It was as simple as that.

  “One of my colleagues willed it to me.”

  “He died?”

  “He went back to Washington; it’s the same thing. So I get his table, same night every week.”

  Rao’s was in Spanish Harlem, way uptown, and they took the FDR drive up the East Side of Manhattan, while the Lincoln’s wipers tried valiantly to deal with the increasing snow.

  They arrived to find the usual collection of limos and expensive cars outside, some of them abandoned, with the keys left in them, in case somebody needed to move them. Prominent among them was a bright red Hummer, with a driver.

  “Who the hell would drive a Hummer in New York?” Stone asked.

  “It’s your town; you tell me,” Tiff said.

  Inside, the place was packed, as it was every night. Their booth, along the south wall, was ready for them, and Stone took the seat facing the bar, where it was easier to see a waiter. It was also easier to see the motley crowd at the bar—people who had congregated there, hoping that somebody would have a coronary on the way to the restaurant and, thus, make a table available. The place seemed to draw its share of wiseguys, too. A few months back, one of them had shot another of his ilk, when he drunkenly complained too loudly about a dinner guest who had spontaneously begun to sing an aria. The events had been exhaustively covered in newspapers and magazines, and now a lot of people seemed to think that a shooting was a regular occurrence at the restaurant, though it was the only instance in the more than one hundred years of its existence.