by Stuart Woods
“Herbie, I’m going to tell you a secret that will transform your life, if you will only believe it.”
“What’s that, Stone?”
“If you’re an honest man, you don’t have to worry about being investigated. The DA can’t find anything incriminating about you if you haven’t done anything incriminating. Does that make any kind of sense to you?”
“Well, yeah, I guess.”
“Do you believe what I just said?”
“Well, it’s logical.”
“No, Herbie, you have to believe in your heart that you are innocent, and then you will feel better. Work on that.”
“Okay,” Herbie said. “See you later.”
“Please, God, no,” Stone whispered to himself, closing his eyes again.
There was another rap on his office door. “Stone?”
“What is it, Joan?”
“One of those technicians from upstairs wants to do something to our telephones.”
Stone thought about that for a moment. “Send him in, please.” He tucked a pillow under his head and waited.
A man wearing a tool belt came in. “Mr. Barrington, I need to take a look at your office phones.”
“Are you going to remove the bugs?”
“Well, sir, without acknowledging that there are any bugs on your phones, I would like to take a look at them. Only take a minute.”
“All right, go ahead,” Stone said.
The man went to Stone’s desk and used a screwdriver to take the plastic top off the phone. There was a snipping sound, then he put the phone back together and repeated the process with the phone on the coffee table.
“Don’t forget the secretary’s phone,” Stone said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you do all the ones upstairs?”
“Yes, sir, all the way to the top of the house. The kitchen, too.”
“Thank you.”
The man went away, and Stone closed his eyes again and took a deep breath. The phone rang, and Joan came on the intercom. “A Willa Crane for you.”
Stone picked up the phone. “Good afternoon, Willa.”
“You sound tired,” she said.
“I’ve just finished a four-day, ah, deposition,” Stone replied.
“Oh, the one with the CIA?”
“I will not confirm or deny that.”
“I will consider it confirmed, then.”
“I’m afraid your boss is not going to make any cases from what transpired—unless he has extended his jurisdiction to Europe and the Middle East.”
“He will be very disappointed to hear that,” she said.
“In that case, you shouldn’t tell him, but let Lance Cabot explain.”
“Good idea. You free for dinner?”
“Sure. I should have recovered my health by then.”
“Can we go to Elaine’s?”
“Oh, you liked it there, did you?”
“It wasn’t bad; I enjoyed the crowd.”
“Okay, eight-thirty at Elaine’s?”
“See you there,” she said, and hung up.
Stone closed his eyes and lay back. After what seemed only a moment later Joan spoke. “It’s six-thirty; I’m leaving.”
Stone opened his eyes. “Six-thirty? You’re kidding.”
“You’ve been out like a light.”
Stone struggled to a sitting position. “I certainly have.”
“A cold shower will bring you around.”
“Brrrr,” Stone said.
FORTY-SIX
As Stone was leaving the house the phone rang. “Hello?”
“It’s Dino. I can’t make dinner; work.”
“I’m devastated,” Stone replied. “Have you gone off me?”
“Long, long ago,” Dino replied, then hung up.
Stone walked into Elaine’s to find his table uncharacteristically vacant. He sat down and accepted his usual Knob Creek, which the bartender had begun pouring as he was getting out of the cab.
Elaine came over and sat down. “So, where’s Dino?”
“He’s not going to make it tonight.”
“Is he in the hospital? We could send flowers.”
“He says he’s working.”
“That means he’s eating somewhere else. If it’s at Elio’s, I’ll kill him.” Elio’s, a rival restaurant down Second Avenue, had been started by an old headwaiter of hers many years before.
“How would you know?” Stone asked, forgetting for a moment that Elaine always knew everything.
“I have spies.”
“You are conducting a spying campaign against Elio’s?”
“I don’t have to; people tell me things. You tell Dino to watch himself.” She got up and moved to another table.
Willa had not yet arrived, so Stone got out his phone and called Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“If you’re at Elio’s, you’re a dead man.”
“So that’s what she thinks?”
“She says she has spies.”
“I’m at work.”
“You’d better have witnesses.” Stone hung up, chuckling.
Willa breezed through the door wearing a long sheepskin coat. A waiter hung it up for her. “Whatever he’s having,” she said to him, then sat down.
“What good taste in whiskey you have,” Stone said, kissing her as her drink arrived.
“Same to ya,” she said, raising her glass and knocking half of it back.
“Tough day at the office, huh?”
“You could say that,” she said with a deep sigh. “How about you? You sounded wasted when I called.”
“Last day of my, ah, deposition. A lot of tension had built up, for various reasons. I was letting it all out when you and half a dozen other people interrupted my sweet reverie.”
“Sorry about that.”
“One of those who interrupted was a client of mine, name of Herbie Fisher. He says your office is investigating him.”
Willa appeared to choke on her bourbon. “Listen,” she said hoarsely, coughing and clearing her throat, “I am not investigating Herbert Fisher.”
“In that case, you should tell your investigators to be more subtle when questioning the doormen in his building.”
“Stone, I tell you again, I am not investigating Herbert Fisher.”
“Ah, then it’s some other enthusiastic but judgment-impaired law-school dropout in your office, is it?”
“I cannot comment on that. I can tell you only that I am not investigating Herbert Fisher, and neither, to the best of my knowledge, is anyone else in my office.”
Stone peered at her narrowly. “That sounded like an almost complete denial,” he said. “Let’s discuss that ‘to the best of my knowledge’ part.”
“It means what it says,” she replied, sinking the rest of her drink.
Stone waved for another for both of them. “Somebody in your office is investigating Herbie?”
“To the best of my knowledge, no.”
“Stop saying that! You’re a deputy DA. Don’t you know everything that goes on in your office, or are you pleading incompetence?”
“I am highly competent,” she replied through clenched teeth, “but I do not know everything that goes on in our office all the time. Is that clear enough for you?”
“As through a glass, darkly,” Stone replied. “Let’s take this down a level to the rumor category. What have you heard about one or more ADAs in your office investigating Herbie Fisher?”
She took a gulp of her second bourbon and faced him. “Let me ask you another question, and please give me a precise answer.”
“Shoot.”
“Are you now representing or have you ever represented anyone in the immediate or extended family of Herbert Fisher?”
Stone thought for a moment about what that question might mean. “You’re investigating his wife?”
“Answer my question, if you want to go on talking about this.”
“No, I am not now nor have I ev
er represented anyone in the immediate or extended family of Herbie Fisher.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes is the answer to your question.”
Stone struggled to remember what his question was and finally remembered. “Investigating his wife for what?” he asked.
“I warn you, this is the last question on this subject I will answer. Got that?”
“Got it.”
“Here’s my answer: I cannot tell you.”
“What kind of answer is that?” Stone asked.
“An honest one. Please accept it.”
“I accept it.”
“And please know that this conversation is entirely confidential.”
“Wait a minute,” Stone said, “you can’t say that after the fact; it has to be before.”
“I am not a newspaper reporter interviewing you and promising to keep your name confidential.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Let me put it this way,” Willa said. “This and any other conversation you and I have had on the subject of Herbert Fisher or any member of his immediate or extended family is entirely confidential. Got that?”
“But—”
“Either you’ve got that, or I’ll pay for my two drinks and leave immediately, never to be heard from again. And you’d better not take too long to think about it.”
Stone thought about it instantly. “Got it. Would you like another drink?”
“I haven’t finished my second one,” she said. “Are you trying to get me drunk? Because if you are, I should tell you that three drinks isn’t going to do it, since I’m not driving, and drinking will have no effect on my memory of the details of our conversation.”
Stone handed her a menu. “Let’s order dinner,” he said.
FORTY-SEVEN
Stone awoke suddenly. He was in a strange bed, completely disoriented, his head throbbing. He sat up on his elbows and looked around, trying to remember the evening before.
He needed to go to the toilet badly. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and fell out, having missed the set of steps provided for the purpose. Was the bed a foot higher than standard, or was he hallucinating?
He got to his feet and saw a note on the bedside table.
Some of us have to go to work. There’s coffee made.
Stone made it to the john, peed and splashed water on his face. He avoided looking in the mirror and went back to the bedroom to get dressed. This involved a scavenger hunt for the various items of his clothing. One by one he located everything but one sock, which was nowhere to be found no matter how hard he looked.
He put on his shoes and stumbled into the kitchen. There was a brown liquid in an electric coffeemaker on the kitchen counter, but he didn’t like the smell. Must be decaf, he thought. He needed the high-test. He switched off the coffeepot, found his overcoat on the living room floor with his necktie in a pocket, and let himself out. A woman on the elevator smiled brightly at him.
“Good morning!” she said with enthusiasm.
“Good,” he replied, trying to smile. “Good morning.”
Her smile faded. “Do you have flu symptoms?” The city was in the grip of rumors of a new strain of the virus.
Stone thought about that. “No, I have hangover symptoms.”
She fled the elevator at the first opportunity.
Stone stepped out of the building into sunlight like a thousand strobe lights. Shielding his eyes with a forearm, he stepped into the street and was nearly run down by a cab.
“You looking for a ride, buddy, or just suicide?” the cabbie yelled through his open window.
Stone struggled into the backseat and gave him the address. “What street are we on?” he asked.
“East Seventy-ninth,” the cabbie replied. “It’s the big one with all the cars.”
As the cab neared his house, Stone took mental inventory of the previous evening’s events. He seemed to remember some sort of drinking contest with Willa, which he had, apparently, lost. How many drinks did it take to make him feel this way?
He stuffed money into the pass-through of the driver’s bullet-proof shield and spilled himself into the gutter in front of his house. He looked at the front steps and decided against, instead taking the steps down to his office door.
“Good morning!” Joan said from her office as he passed.
“No need to shout,” Stone said as he stumbled toward his own office. He decided to rest on his sofa for a moment before trying to find the elevator.
Joan shook him awake. “It’s ten-thirty,” she said. “Are you working or doing anything at all today?”
Stone sat up. He found he was still wearing his overcoat.
“Mr. Herbert Fisher to see you,” Joan said.
Stone got to his feet. “Tell him to come back tomorrow, and tell Helene to send some toast and coffee upstairs.” He looked around for the elevator door.
“Why are you wearing only one sock?” Joan asked.
Stone raised a hand. “Not now.”
“I don’t think I saw that recommended in the Styles section of the Times,” she said.
Stone got into the elevator. “I don’t want to hear from you before one o’clock,” he said. “Maybe not even then.” The elevator doors closed, and he pressed his back against the wall to steady himself.
He got to his dressing room, emptied his pockets, and stuffed all his clothes into the two bins, one for laundry, the other for dry cleaning. He hung up his overcoat and his necktie.
He stood under a hot shower for two minutes, then got into a terry robe and made his way to the dumbwaiter, where his toast and coffee awaited, then he put the electric bed into the sitting position, ate and drank and pulled the Times into his lap and tried to read the front page.
“Stone.” Joan’s voice came from the speakerphone. “It’s one-thirty; you asked me to wake you.”
Stone jerked awake, still in a sitting position, with a sore neck from sleeping with his chin on his chest. He pressed the button on the phone. “Forget I asked you,” he said.
“Nighty-night,” she replied, and switched off.
Stone pressed the “flat” button on the bed’s remote, shucked off the robe and crawled under the covers, brushing aside the unread newspaper.
The phone began ringing, and nobody was picking it up. He reached for the “talk” button. “Hello.”
“You sound like shit,” Dino said. “Are you sick or something?”
“That’s what Elaine asked about you last night,” Stone replied. “At least, I think it was last night.”
“Are you coming?”
“Coming where?”
“To dinner. At Elaine’s.”
“What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“I don’t think I’m going to make it. Remember me to Madame.”
“You want a doctor? I know a guy who makes house calls.”
“Not unless he can bring along a new head,” Stone said. “Gotta run.” He hung up. Suddenly he was ravenously hungry, but Helene was gone for the day. He got into his robe and slippers and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.
The refrigerator was oddly bare, containing only a box from Domino’s, which held three slices of desiccated pizza. He sprinkled some water on them and put them into the microwave for two minutes, while he looked for something to drink. There was, mercifully, a single Heineken in the refrigerator door shelf. He drank half of it in a gulp, burped, and attacked the pizza.
He went back upstairs and found that he was now wide awake and surprisingly un-hungover. The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“I found your sock in the bed,” Willa said.
“Where in the bed?”
“Down at the bottom under the covers. I didn’t know you wore cashmere socks.”
“Hang on to it for me, will you?”
“I may hang it on the wall, like a pelt.”
Stone managed a chuckle
.
“You know, after a wild night of sex, a girl is supposed to get a phone call from the guy, thanking her.”
“I am remiss,” Stone said. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome. I’m surprised to find you at home.”
“I think I’m supposed to be having dinner with Dino. He called earlier.”
“You slept all day, didn’t you?”
“Uh, most of it.”
“Did you get any dinner?”
“Leftover pizza and a beer.”
“Ugh.”
“Did you do any better?”
“A greasy hamburger and some cheap wine in the conference room. Standard work-late fare. Are you still hungover?”
“Oddly, no.”
“A hangover never lasts past dinner. Want me to come over?”
“Yes, please.”
And she did.
FORTY-EIGHT
Stone woke at his usual hour with Willa’s head on his shoulder. He disengaged from her as gently as possible, then performed his ablutions in the bathroom. When he returned, Willa was sitting up in bed, bare-breasted, with the TV on.
“Breakfast, if you please,” she said.
“Of course. May I take your order?”
“Whatever you’re having,” she replied.
“You’re becoming more and more agreeable,” he said.
“About the bourbon—after yesterday I think I would throw up if I even smelled it again.”
“Too much of a good thing?”
“Way too much.”
“I hope you don’t feel the same way about scrambled eggs, bacon, and English muffin,” he said.
“I love all of them.”
Stone called Helene, and she sent breakfast up on the dumbwaiter.
Then the TV screen went dark, and the words BREAKING NEWS appeared.
“This just in to NBC News,” a young woman was saying. “American air forces are engaged in heavy bombing in the Tora Bora region, southeast of Kabul, in Afghanistan. Sources tell NBC that thousand-pound penetrating bombs are being dropped on what may be a network of caves in the mountains there, and there is speculation that the target may be Osama bin Laden.” She began to relate the history of U.S. action in that region of the country.
