Stuart Woods 6 Stone Barrington Novels

by Stuart Woods

  “As you saw her.”

  “She going to be around for a while?”

  “Maybe; she’s looking at apartments.”

  “How nice.”

  “Get out of here, please.”

  Joan went back to her office, chuckling.

  Stone called Lance.

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for sending Sandy back. Turns out, the alarm system had been disabled, but he fixed it. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

  “It seems that Billy Bob has decided to make your life hell.”

  “Why?”

  “I would imagine, because you’re making his life hell.”

  “No, you are.”

  “You’re helping; he’s seen you doing so. Because of you, his wife has kicked him out of her very nice apartment, and he can’t go back to his own place. He’s pissed off.”

  “I suppose he is. Of course, he left a corpse in my house and stole fifty thousand dollars from me.”

  “Billy Bob is a sociopath; he doesn’t consider your feelings when he acts. His actions are taken only to gratify himself, and right now, he finds it gratifying to make you miserable.”

  “I know about sociopaths; I dealt with a lot of them as a cop.”

  “I doubt if you ever dealt with one as ingenious and as well financed as Billy Bob. The man has technical resources, too, so he’s clearly not working alone. He’s managed, in one fell swoop, to cause both you and Ms. Baldwin a great deal of difficulty. I imagine that a nude photograph of her is on half a dozen bulletin boards at the Justice Department by now. This could, conceivably, end her career, depending on how she handles it. You know how our Attorney General feels about exposed body parts.”

  “How are you going to catch Billy Bob?”

  “It might help if we had the cell phone number he called you from.”

  “Don’t start with that again, Lance. Tiff is now not speaking to me at all, so I can hardly get her to give it to me. Maybe her people can track him down with the number.”

  “That is not what we want, is it?”

  “Does it really matter who puts the guy in prison, as long as he ends up there?”

  “They want him for financial crimes; we want to destroy an operation that is stealing military hardware and selling it to God-knows-who. Which do you think is more important?”

  “I think they’re equally important.”

  “We’ll see if you still think that after Billy Bob lobs one of his newly stolen grenades through your bedroom window.”

  “You think he’s that pissed off?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out the hard way.”

  “What’s your next step in finding him?”

  “I’ve got every available man on the streets with several photographs of him; we’re trying to track down the red Hummer.”

  “How many red Hummers can there be in New York City?”

  “We’re going to find out, I assure you. By the way, I understand that Arrington Calder is back in your life.”

  “What the hell do you know about Arrington and me?”

  “Oh, everything, I should imagine. Do you think I would have signed you on without the most thorough investigation of your habits? And Arrington certainly seems to qualify as a habit. I understand there’s some question about the paternity of her son, too.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “Would you like me to find out whether you or Vance Calder is the father?”

  “You can do that?”

  “Certainly.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t think I should go into that.”

  “Well, don’t, please; Arrington is very sensitive about it, and I don’t want to run her off. What else do you know about my life?”

  “Stone, if you’ve lived it, if it’s happened to you, I know about it. I know everything about everybody who works for me.”

  “That’s very scary.”

  “Why? Isn’t your conscience clear, Stone?”

  “Of course, it is.”

  “Maybe I should have allowed my people to put you through our polygraph program.”

  “Thank you, no.”

  “Are you refusing to take a polygraph, Stone? In the Agency, that’s the first step on the road to perdition.”

  Stone didn’t want to know what the CIA considered perdition. “I’m not refusing; I just would prefer not to do it.”

  “You’re lucky you’re dealing with me and not some case officer out of Langley, you know. I don’t think you would enjoy the rigors of full-time employment with us.”

  “I cannot but agree.”

  “Watch your ass, Stone; Billy Bob is dangerous.” Lance hung up.

  Stone remembered that he had forgotten to go armed again. He went upstairs, opened the safe and strapped everything on. Then he took his mother’s picture from the wall, wrapped it carefully in a bedsheet and tucked it away at the back of a closet.

  33

  STONE WENT to the kitchen and made himself a ham sandwich, his lunch having been interrupted. He was eating it when the phone rang. He let Joan pick it up. A moment later, she buzzed him.

  “It’s Arrington, on line one,” she said.

  “You’re sure it isn’t somebody from the National Perpetrator?”

  “There’s no such publication.”

  “Well, there should be.” He punched line one. “Hello?”

  “You’re talking with your mouth full.”

  He gulped down the bite of sandwich. “There, is that better?”

  “Much.”

  “I’m sorry our lunch was interrupted.”

  “So am I, but I know it wasn’t your fault. At least, I’d like to believe that it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Thank you for that resounding vote of confidence.”

  “You’re welcome. Would you like to have dinner tonight?”

  “I would. There’s only one place we can go where we’ll be safe from photographers.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Elaine’s. The photographers are scared of her.”

  “All right. My driver is bringing my car up from Virginia this afternoon; I’ll pick you up at eight-thirty.”

  “You’re on.”

  “Until then.” She hung up.

  Stone hung up, too, hope renewed.

  THAT NIGHT, Stone left the house and settled into the wonderfully comfortable rear seat of Vance Calder’s dark green, long-wheelbase Bentley Arnage. Arrington kissed him lightly.

  “Do you remember this car?”

  “Yes, from L.A.”

  “It’s a bit out of place in Albemarle County, but I couldn’t part with it.”

  “It’ll be perfect for New York,” Stone replied. “The traffic moves at an average of nine miles per hour here, and it’s better being stuck in this English drawing room on wheels than suffering the broken-down backseat of a New York City taxicab.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “Have you started looking for an apartment, yet?”

  “Not only have I started looking, I’ve found one.”

  “Wonderful! Where?”

  “Fifth Avenue, overlooking the park. All I need is a designer, and I have some ideas about that.”

  Elaine’s was only half full when they arrived, and they were shown to Stone’s usual table. The waiters fawned over Arrington, welcoming her back, and she stopped to speak to a couple of people on the way to the table.

  “I’d forgotten what a nice place this can be,” she said, as they sat down. “One always knows somebody.”

  “True. What would you like to drink?”

  “A cosmopolitan, I think.”

  Stone ordered that, and his usual Knob Creek came with it. They raised their glasses.

  “Renewed friendships,” Stone said.

  “We are friends, aren’t we?” she asked. “I mean, in addition to having been lovers, we’ve always been friends.”

  Well, not always, Stone thought. “Of c
ourse we have.”

  Elaine came through the door at the stroke of nine and spotted them immediately. She came over and gave Stone a hug and a kiss but offered only a hand to Arrington. “Hi,” she said, then went to another table.

  “Well, that was rather frosty,” Arrington said.

  “Oh, you know how Elaine is with women,” Stone said.

  “I know she prefers the company of men, but I thought we always got along well.”

  “Once you’re a regular again, all will be well. Elaine likes regulars. It doesn’t matter to her that you haven’t been coming because you live in L.A. and Virginia; all she cares about is that you haven’t been coming.”

  “All right,” Arrington said, sipping her cosmopolitan. Then her face lit up. Dino was coming through the front door. She waved, and he came over and gave her a big hug.

  “It’s great to see you back, Arrington,” he said.

  “And it’s always good to see you, Dino. Please join us for dinner.”

  Stone aimed a kick at Dino under the table, which he deftly avoided. “I’d love to, and I know Stone would love it, too.” He waved to a waiter for a Scotch.

  “And how are Mary Ann and Benito?”

  “My wife and son are both thriving.”

  “And when did you last see them?” Arrington asked, archly.

  “As a matter of fact I just had dinner with them at home,” Dino said. “Ben is now doing his homework, and his mother is doing whatever she does when I’m here.”

  “Which is, what, every night?”

  “Only five or six nights a week. We have to go out to her father’s for dinner one night.”

  “And how is the mysterious Eduardo?”

  “Old, but hardy.”

  “Dare I ask about Dolce?”

  “Mrs. Barrington is in a rubber room, or Stone would be dead now.”

  Stone made a face at Dino to ward him off the subject, but it didn’t help. He had once been married to Dino’s sister-in-law, Dolce, for a few minutes, before she turned out to be raving and murderously mad. “It was never legal in this country,” Stone said.

  “Thanks to Eduardo,” Dino drawled.

  “Stone still thinks of himself as a bachelor, not a divorcé,” Dino said.

  Arrington laughed. “Stone still thinks of himself as a virgin.”

  The two of them thought this uproariously funny, while Stone pretended to be amused.

  “So, Stone,” Dino said, “you had any offers from the porno industry, yet?”

  “Dino . . .”

  “Are you referring to the business of the naked U.S. Attorney on the Justice Department Web site?” Arrington asked.

  “What else?” Dino replied. “Hilarious, isn’t it?”

  “Priceless.”

  “I want you both to stop this,” Stone said. “Both she and I are victims of mistaken identity, and that’s the whole of it.”

  “Sure, Stone,” Dino said. “Whatever you say.”

  “God, it was only on the Web site for a few minutes, and the whole world seems to have seen it.”

  “I heard that some kid in Jersey taped it and is already selling it on the Internet,” Dino said.

  Stone groaned. “Anybody hungry?” He waved frantically for a waiter to bring menus.

  “Starved,” Arrington said.

  Stone looked up from his menu to see Tiffany Baldwin walk into the restaurant, accompanied by a well-dressed man.

  “Stone, what’s wrong?” Arrington said. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Her gaze followed his toward the door.

  “Not a ghost,” Dino said. “A video porn star.”

  34

  STONE NEARLY CHOKED on his bourbon. Tiff glided by, flashing Stone a brilliantly threatening smile that seemed to say, “If you speak to me I will cut your heart out.”

  “Evening, Stone,” she said, as she passed.

  “Evening, Tiffany.”

  “Oh,” Arrington said, “so that’s the fabled United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.”

  Dino laughed. “I’m surprised she’d show her face in here.”

  “Why not?” Arrington said. “I hear she’s already shown everything else.”

  “Stop it, both of you,” Stone said through clenched teeth. “She’ll hear you.”

  “She’s really quite lovely, Stone,” Arrington said. “I hope your roll in the hay was worth the consequences.”

  “What consequences?” Dino asked.

  “From what I hear, Stone is just about the most famous man in New York, and tomorrow’s papers aren’t even out, yet.”

  “God, is there no end to this?” Stone said aloud.

  Arrington patted his hand. “Probably not, my dear, at least not until someone else does something even more outrageous, if that’s possible. Dino, do you think you could get me a copy of that videotape from that fellow in New Jersey?”

  “Just go to Google and type in ‘U.S. Attorney,’ ” Dino said. “The tape will be right at the head of the list.”

  Stone glared at him. “You sound as if you’ve already been there.”

  Dino shrugged. “A couple of guys at the precinct stumbled onto it. Several of my detectives have already ordered their personal copies. You’re their hero.”

  “I want both of you to listen to me very carefully,” Stone said, keeping his voice low and calm. “Either we are going to have a moratorium on this subject from this moment on, or the two of you can dine together without my company.” He was volcanically angry, but he was not going to allow himself to show it.

  “Why, Stone,” Arrington said, taking his hand, “you’re angry. I’ve never seen you angry before.”

  “And I hope you never do again,” Stone replied. “Now, shall we order?” He thanked God his back was to Tiff. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it.

  THEY WERE FINISHING dinner when Stone’s cell phone vibrated again, and still he ignored it. A moment later, it went off for a third time. He looked at the phone and read the number from caller ID—Lance. “Will you excuse me for a moment?” Stone said.

  “Of course,” Arrington replied.

  Stone got up and walked toward the front door, while answering his phone. “Yes?”

  “It’s Lance.”

  Stone stepped outside into the cold. “What is it?”

  “I need you right now.”

  Stone cursed under his breath. “I’m sorry, you’re breaking up.”

  “Don’t hand me that,” Lance said. “I need you right this minute. A car will pick you up in front of Elaine’s in about thirty seconds.”

  “I’m sorry, I still can’t read you,” Stone said. “Try again later.” He turned off the cell phone and walked back inside, shivering.

  “Who was it?” Arrington asked.

  “A client. We had a bad connection, so I couldn’t hear him.”

  “Do a lot of clients call you at eleven o’clock in the evening?” Arrington asked.

  “More than I would like.”

  “It’s gotta be a girl,” Dino said.

  Stone had to put a stop to this right now. “It was Lance.”

  “Lance who?” Arrington asked.

  “Lance Cabot,” Dino said. “He would be the New York station chief for the CIA, if they have a New York station.”

  “I used to know a Lance Cabot years ago,” Arrington said.

  “What did he look like?” Dino asked.

  Arrington pointed toward the front door. “Very much like that,” she said.

  Lance strode through the restaurant to the table. “Why, Arrington,” he said, his usual charming self, “how nice to see you after all these years.”

  “And you, Lance,” Arrington said, offering her hand. “I hear you’re with the CIA these days.”

  A flicker of annoyance ran across Lance’s face, but he kept his composure. He turned to Stone. “I need to speak to you outside.”

  “I’m sorry, Lance, but we’re about to have dessert,” Stone r
eplied. “Would you like something?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t time right now, but I do need to speak to you.”

  Stone turned to Arrington. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  Stone jerked his head in the direction of the mens’ room and walked back there. It was a small facility, but he checked the booth to be sure they were alone.

  Lance leaned against the door. “Now,” he said.

  “Lance, I’m having dinner with friends. You’ll have to get along without me tonight.”

  “Are you armed, Stone?” Lance asked.

  “No,” Stone replied.

  “Another breach of my instructions.”

  “Lance, your instructions are becoming a pain in the ass.”

  Lance reached under his arm and produced a very small semiautomatic pistol. Simultaneously, he took a small tube from his pocket and began screwing it into the barrel. The whole assembly was no more than six inches long. “Please don’t underestimate the power of this little weapon,” he said. “It can put an end to your life instantly, or, more appropriate to this occasion, destroy a knee, which will require a mechanical replacement, if you don’t bleed to death while waiting for the paramedics to arrive.”

  “No,” Stone said.

  Lance pointed the gun at Stone’s right knee and fired a round, making a soft pffft noise.

  Stone moved at the last second, and he felt something tug at his trouser leg. He looked down to see both an entry and an exit hole through the inside knee of his pants.

  “Hold still,” Lance said, taking aim again. “I wouldn’t want to hit the femoral artery.”

  “All right,” Stone said, holding his hands out before him. “That won’t be necessary; I’ll come with you.”

  “Thank you so much,” Lance said. “Now say your goodbyes, and we’ll be on our way.”

  Stone walked back into the restaurant and to his table. “Arrington,” he said, “I must apologize, but something urgent has come up, and I have to accompany Lance somewhere. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “If I must,” she replied.

  “Arrington,” Lance said, “I hope we’ll have an opportunity to renew our acquaintance at more length soon. Good night.”