6 Stone Barrington Novels (67 page)

Stone lined up with the ball. He took a short back-swing and abbreviated his follow-through to keep the shot low. He connected solidly, and the ball flew straight and true, twenty yards to the left of the pin, across the road, narrowly missing a passing Rolls-Royce, and straight at the idling car with the blacked-out windows. The ball struck the driver's window with a
thwack
, but it did not shatter. Instead, it cracked into a hundred pieces, held together by the safety glass and the tinting film applied to the window.

Stone hoped somebody would get out, but instead, the car sped away, its tires squealing on the pavement, leaving a puff of black smoke.

“Nice shot!” Dino yelled.

D
INO WATCHED THE CAR SPEED AWAY AND LAUGHED aloud. “That ought to make the guy keep his distance!”

“Guy? What guy? You said it was Dolce.”

“I said I
thought
it was Dolce. For all I know, it may be one of your groupies.”

“I don't have groupies,” Stone said.

“Okay, maybe it's one of your many enemies.”

“Come on, let's finish the round,” Stone said. “I assume you're going to let me take a mulligan on that one.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Stone took his sand wedge, choked down on it, opened the face and flopped the ball onto the green, within three feet of the pin.

“You should have taken my advice in the first place,” Dino said.

They were driving back to the Shames estate, with Dino at the wheel, when Stone's cell phone vibrated. “Hello?”

“This is Frederick James.”

“Good day, Mr. James.”

“I've spoken with Paul, and he's willing to deal, through me.”

“Not through you,” Stone said.

“Why not? He's chosen me as his representative.”

“How can I trust you?” Stone asked. “You've already lied to me at least once.”

“When did I ever lie to you?” James asked, sounding offended.

“You told me you'd never heard of Paul Manning, and then you told me you knew him. One of those was a lie.”

“But—”

“I'll deal directly with Manning.”

“For whatever reason, Paul doesn't wish to deal with you.”

“Then I'll deal with a reputable lawyer who represents him.”

James was silent for a moment. “I am Paul Manning's attorney,” he said finally.

“You're a novelist,” Stone said.

“So is Scott Turow, but he's a lawyer, too.”

“I take it your name is not Frederick James, then?”

“A
nom de plume
.”

“What is your real name?”

“I'm not prepared to divulge that.”

“And you think I'm going to deal with somebody who says he's an attorney but won't tell me his name? Either get serious, or go away.”

“But I—”

“I don't know who you are, where you are, if you're an attorney or even if you really know Paul Manning.”

“I assure you, I do.”

“That's not good enough.”

“What exactly do you want, Mr. Barrington?”

“I want to know that I'm dealing with the real Paul Manning and that he's represented by an attorney whose identity I can confirm.”

“And what proof of those things would you accept?”

“Bring Manning to a meeting, and let him authorize you to represent him in my presence.”

“Paul won't meet with you.”

“Then I'm not going to remove the threat of his arrest on insurance fraud, and I'm certainly not going to give him any of my client's money.”

“There must be some way we can resolve this.”

“I think you understand my concerns, Mr. James. Why don't you go away and think about it for a bit, discuss it with your client and get back to me?”

“All right,” James said and hung up.

“He's playing games?” Dino asked.

“I don't know what the hell he's doing.”

“Manning's afraid you're going to set him up for an arrest.”

“A reasonable fear,” Stone said.

“Can you really get him off on the insurance fraud charge, or are you just blowing smoke up his ass?”

“I've
already
gotten him off,” Stone said. “But I'm not going to tell
him
that.”

“How did you get him off?”

“I negotiated a deal for Allison with the insurance company, whereby they agreed not to prosecute in order to get some of the money back.”

“And the deal includes Manning? Why?”

“I didn't want to admit to them that Allison was still alive, so I wrote the agreement without reference to names. Now they can't prosecute
anybody
.”

“That's pretty slick, Stone.”

“I'm a pretty slick lawyer,” Stone replied.

“Yeah, sometimes,” Dino admitted.

 

They were back on the yacht, having a drink with Callie, when Stone's phone buzzed again. “Hello?”

“It's Frederick James.”

“What did you come up with?”

“I propose that you and I meet, in order for me to establish my credentials.”

“Okay, where?”

“Where are you?”

“Where are
you
?”

“I'm in New York, but I have to go to Miami on business later in the week. Is there someplace between New York and Miami we can meet? Preferably in an airport?”

“I'm on the west coast of Florida,” Stone said. “How about Palm Beach International? It's a couple of hours' drive for me.”

“Agreed. Now, what do you need from me?”

“In what state are you licensed to practice?”

“New York.”

“Okay. Bring a copy of your New York law license, your New York driver's license and your United States passport. Also, I'll need a photograph of you with Paul Manning, taken no earlier than today and no later than tomorrow, and I want a copy of the day's
New York Times
prominently displayed in the photograph.”

“I can do all that, I think, although Paul doesn't like to be photographed.”

“I can imagine. Then I'll need a copy of Manning's U.S. passport, with his current identity recorded therein, and I want that clearly visible in the photograph, too.”

“Whoa, whoa, he's not going to go for that.”

“I'm giving him nothing unless I'm convinced he's who he says he is, and in order to do that, I'll need to know who he says he is. He's going to have to prove it to me.”

“You're throwing in a whole lot of stuff, here,” James said.

“If you're a lawyer, you'll know very well that I have to protect my client, just as you have to protect yours. That's all we're talking about.”

“I'll get back to you,” James said and hung up.

“Any progress?” Liz asked.

“By inches,” Stone said. “Manning is being
very
cautious.”

“He's got a lot to be cautious about,” Liz replied.

 

An hour later, Stone's phone vibrated again. “All right,” James said. “The day after tomorrow at one P.M., at Signature Aviation, Palm Beach International.”

“Fine,” Stone said. “I'll see you then, but if my concerns are not met, there'll be no discussion of terms.”

“I understand,” James said.

Stone hung up. “We're on.”

L
ATE THAT NIGHT, AFTER A BIG DINNER AND MORE WINE than he had intended to drink, Stone fell into bed, exhausted. He had barely fallen asleep, when he was wakened by a knock on the door—at first, softly, then loudly. Annoyed, he got out of bed, put on a robe and went to the door.

“Good evening,” Dolce said. She stood there with two brandy snifters in one hand and a pistol in the other. “May I come in?” she asked, unnecessarily.

Stone looked at the gun and backed into the room. “Of course,” he said.

Dolce kicked the door shut and offered him a snifter. “I brought you a drink,” she said.

“Thanks, but I've already had too much to drink this evening,” he replied.

“I said,
I brought you a drink
,” she said, through clenched teeth.

Stone took the glass.

“Sit on the bed,” she said, “where I can see you.”

Stone sat on the bed.

Dolce lifted her glass. “To many more happy moments like this,” she said.

Stone sipped at his brandy. It had an uncharacteristically bitter taste.

“Drink it!”
she said, tossing down her own drink.

Stone tossed down his own. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked.

Dolce smiled, revealing her startlingly white teeth against her olive skin. “A pleasure, is it? I had somehow gotten the impression that seeing your wife was no longer such a pleasure. How long has it been?”

“Too long,” Stone said. He felt dreadful; the brandy on top of everything else he had had to drink at dinner was too much. He moved to set down his glass on the bedside table, and to his astonishment, he missed the table entirely. The glass dropped to the floor, missing the rug, shattering into tiny pieces. “I'm drunk,” he said.

“Not exactly,” Dolce replied. “You're just feeling the first effects of the Thorazine.”

“What's Thorazine?” Stone asked, and he had to try hard to pronounce the words.

“It's a little something that an enlightened medical profession has devised to help those of us who are—how shall I put this?—
psychiatrically challenged
easier to manage. Do you know that one of Papa's doctors actually said those words to me?
Psychiatrically challenged!
You have no idea what those of us who do not meet society's standards of behavior have to endure at the hands of those who wish to make our company more acceptable.” She smiled. “But you're about to find out.”

“Huh?” Stone said, dully. His mind seemed fairly sharp—certainly, he could understand her—but there was something blocking the connection between his brain and his lips, something that slowed everything to a molasseslike flow.

“Don't worry, my darling. It won't last long,” she said, rising and approaching the bed. Her shoes ground the broken snifter into the floor with a loud noise. She placed a finger in the middle of Stone's forehead and pushed gently.

Stone fell back onto the bed. It was where he had always wanted to be, here on this bed, staring at the beautifully crafted ceiling of his beautifully crafted cabin.

Dolce lifted his feet onto the bed, untied his robe, then rolled him over and stripped it off his body. She rolled him onto his back again and tucked two pillows under his head.

Stone lay there, naked, indolent to a degree he would not have dreamed possible. He had no wish to do anything except lie there and let this happen.

Dolce went back to her chair, picked up the handbag that had hung on her arm, opened it, took out a wad of something and returned to the bed. She sat down on the edge and shook the little bundle into long lengths. “You know,” she said, smoothing them out, “science has never solved the problem of what to do with old nylon stockings. There's no recycling of them, and they seem too good to throw away. One little run, and they're useless.” She smiled again. “Or are they?” She rolled Stone's limp form through three hundred and sixty degrees, until he was centered on the bed, then she tied one end of a stocking to a wrist and the other end to a bedpost.

Stone watched her do it, unconcerned, and continued to watch as she tied his other hand and both feet to bedposts. He was spread-eagled, naked, on the bed, before a trickle of concern made its way from somewhere in his brain to his forehead, where it manifested itself in beads of sweat that popped out.
Wait a minute,
he thought.
Something is wrong here.
He tugged at the bedposts, but the sturdy mahogany bed would not move, and neither could he.

“Well,” Dolce said, “I believe your tiny dose of Thorazine is beginning to wear off. A psychiatric dose would have lasted much longer. It took me several months to learn to control my dosage—without the knowledge of my nurses, of course—to the point where I could manage a clear thought sooner, rather than later.” She drew back a hand and slapped him smartly across the face. “There, feel that?”

“Yes,” he said, and his lips moved better than they had a few minutes before.

“Oh, good, because I want you to be wide awake and feeling everything that is going to happen now.”

“Dolce,” Stone said, “what are you doing?”