Carnal Curiosity (15 page)

Lance actually laughed, something Stone had almost never seen him do. “Thank you for that confirmation, Stone.”

Stone shook his head.

“There are other things I know,” Lance said. “Things that you should know.”

“I’m listening.” Their halibut arrived.

“Your troubles with Majorov are not over,” Lance said.

“What, did someone forget to drive a stake through his heart?”

“Yuri is a member of a clan, Stone. In particular, he has a brother named Yevgeny, who has recently been chosen to replace his brother at the top of his organization.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Stone said.

“That position has been likened to Pope, chosen by a corrupt and dangerous college of cardinals who have their tentacles into just about everything criminal these days. Please forgive the mixed metaphor.”

“You’re forgiven,” Stone said, making the sign of the cross. “Now tell me what I have to worry about.”

“Nothing immediate,” Lance said, “but that hotel your group is building in Paris with Marcel duBois is going to be very tempting to Majorov’s organization.”

“Well, Yuri certainly wanted The Arrington badly enough. You think Yevgeny will follow in his footsteps?”

“I would not be in the least surprised,” Lance said. “Our man in Paris, Rick LaRose, who you know, is keeping a close watch on developments. If he should perceive a threat, Rick will be in touch.”

“I like Rick,” Stone said.

“He will soon be our station chief in Paris,” Lance said, “after a little prep work to shape him up. He will be our youngest station chief.”

“Please congratulate him for me.”

“Wait a couple of weeks, then send him a congratulatory note.”

“I’ll do that,” Stone said.

The rest of their lunch passed in idle chat. Lance had done his probing, and Stone had received his warning.

31

S
tone was back at his desk, drowsy from the wine, when Dino called. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.”

“Both of us liked your girl,” Dino said.

“You always like my girls.”

“This one was especially nice. Viv and I both like smart.”

“Now that you mention it, so do I. Stay in touch with her, she could turn out to be someone important at the White House.”

“If Kate wins.”

“If Kate doesn’t win, she’ll just be a political consultant or a lawyer. I’m favoring the latter.”

“Has Eggers met her?”

“I don’t know—not when I was around, but Bill has a very wide acquaintance, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“He does, doesn’t he. You’re turning out to have a wide acquaintance, too.”

“Oh? Who are we talking about.”

“We’re not talking about him—I don’t think you’d want to.”

“Come on, Dino, give.”

“One of my detectives says he recognized an old acquaintance at your robbery scene of last week.”

“By ‘old acquaintance,’ do you mean old perp?”

“That’s it.”

“And who might that be?”

“Your friend Coulter.”

“Coulter is an old perp? You’re kidding. The man is a model of upper-class respectability.”

“My guy says he’s an ex-con named Fratelli. That name ring a bell?”

Stone ran a lot of images of John Fratelli and Jack Coulter across the inside of his eyelids. “The name makes a dull thud, but that guy ain’t Coulter.”

“My guy says the two are one and the same.”

“The only thing they’ve got in common is height,” Stone said. “In every single other way they are very different.”

“My guy says he’s used the money to remake himself.”

Stone knew exactly what money Dino was talking about. “What money?”

“The money from that heist out at Kennedy airport years ago. Eddie Buono was the mastermind.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that.”

“We talked about Fratelli, remember?”

“No recollection,” Stone replied. The slide show in his frontal lobe was stuck on one image: a three-quarter shot of Coulter’s face, featuring a nose very much like that of Fratelli. Was it possible?

“My guy wanted to fingerprint Coulter—that would end the discussion, one way or another.”

“Is Fratelli wanted for something?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then your guy has no cause to print him. Dino, Coulter is my client.”

“So was Fratelli.”

“Sort of. I talked to him a couple of times. But Coulter is my signed-up client, and I’m not going to let him be put through the gossip mill because some stupid detective thinks he looks like somebody from twenty-odd years ago.”

“He’s not a stupid detective.”

“Then call him in and tell him not to behave stupidly. You think Woodman & Weld takes on clients without checking them out?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

Stone had not done any checking out at all; his only information about either of the Coulters came from Joan, who knew of Hillary Coulter from the society pages. “Then let this be the end of it, Dino.”

“I’ll pass on your message to my guy,” Dino said. “But he kind of has a point.”

“Oh?”

“If Coulter is Fratelli, then he has the kind of past populated with people who might be a part of that robbery—heist guys, for instance, maybe fences.”

“I don’t buy it for a minute, Dino.”

“Well, what about this? Another one of the Coulters’ guests got hit at home.”

Stone didn’t like the sound of that. “Yeah?”

“This victim had an elaborate security system—not Dugan-installed—which included an alarm sensor on a concealed
cupboard that held a rather large personal safe. The system was somehow breached and the safe cracked either by a very good safecracker or just by someone who had the combination. His wife’s jewelry was taken, but what really upset him was that he had a stash of bearer bonds and a few pounds of gold bars, just in case the world ended tomorrow.”

“And there’s no Dugan connection?”

“No, but there’s a connection to your client Coulter.”

“I’m telling you, Dino, even if Coulter is Fratelli, what would his motive be? He’s happily married to a very rich woman, and I happen to know—don’t quote me on this—that their finances are very well blended. A couple of robberies—even big ones—wouldn’t come to a drop in their bucket, so there’s no motive.”

“Okay, I’ll yield to you on that one, but how about the insurance connection? The victim’s insurance company: your client Steele. They also insured about half of what was taken at the dinner party.”

Something clicked very loudly in Stone’s head. “There’s another connection,” he said.

“I’d like to hear about it.”

“Crane Hart.”

“Yeah, but she works for Mike Freeman at Strategic Services.”

“Her most recent employer before Mike was Steele. That’s how I met her—she was the adjuster on my claim.”

“Now, why didn’t I know that?” Dino wondered.

“It never came up, I guess. But it’s just possible that when she was with Steele, she had access to the files on clients. Maybe when she left she took some files with her. You can put a lot of
information on a computer thumb drive, and that would be a treasure trove for a gang of thieves.”

“Stone, I take back my disparaging remark of last night about your detective skills.”

“Thank you kindly.”

“I think we’ll have a chat with Crane Hart.”

“Don’t do that yet.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Yes. Talk to her boss at Steele. He’ll know what files she had access to.” Stone looked up the number and gave it to Dino.

“I’ll talk to the guy myself,” Dino said.

“Let’s not bring Mike into this—not until you’ve got something solid. I introduced him to Crane.”

“And you don’t want him to think you’re fingering her because she dumped you?”

“Something like that. And I’d hate to get her fired, if she’s not involved.”

“Okay, I’ll tread softly.”

“When you talk to the guy at Steele, don’t make it about Crane, just ask who over there might have had access to customer files. See if he brings up the name spontaneously. He was very upset when she left him for Mike, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he held a grudge, so don’t dangle her name in front of him.”

“I’ll do that, pal, and I’ll let you know how this plays.”

“Good luck, Dino.” Stone hung up, hoping he was wrong.

32

S
tone had closed his office for the day and was sitting in his study with Dino, who had dropped by on the way home. Stone had just poured the drinks when his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Stone, it’s Jack Coulter.”

“Good to hear from you,” Stone said, not wanting to mention his name in Dino’s presence.

“I wonder if you’re free for lunch tomorrow?”

“Certainly.”

“May we meet at the Brook, the club on East Fifty-fourth? You know it?”

“Yes, that will be fine.”

“Twelve-thirty. See you then.” Jack hung up.

“Sorry,” Stone said, taking his seat, “a client wants to have our annual lunch.”

“Does that happen a lot?” Dino asked.

“A fair amount. I think they just want to know I haven’t
forgotten them. Tell me, how’s the commissioner’s run for mayor next year looking?”

“All I know is what I hear on the local TV news. Everybody seems to think he’s running.”

“Are you among them?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. If he didn’t run and somebody got elected who isn’t his pal and who wanted to appoint his own commissioner, he could find himself on the sidewalk.”

“Not for long,” Stone said. “A law firm or a security outfit like Strategic Services would snap him up.”

“I can’t see him wanting to run the city. Do you have any kind of idea what sort of horseshit the mayor of New York has to put up with?”

“Only a fair idea. If he runs, and if he’s elected, he’s going to appoint you commissioner to replace him.”

Dino nearly choked on his drink. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re the only member of the police hierarchy he likes. He hates everybody else. One of the reasons he appointed you chief of detectives was to piss off the half dozen other top captains who wanted the job. Most of them quit when you got it, which must have delighted the commissioner.”

“Yeah, well, it was nice to see them go.”

“And if he appoints you commissioner, a whole bunch of other guys will walk, and you’ll get to replace them with your people, which is to say, the commissioner’s people.”

“I admire your logical thinking,” Dino said, “but we’re a long way from that happening.”

“Maybe not as long as you think,” Stone said. “When he announces for mayor, he’ll have to resign as commissioner.”

“Right, and he doesn’t get to appoint his successor, not until he’s mayor.”

“But the commissioner and our current mayor are pretty tight, aren’t they?”

“They certainly are.”

“What’s the matter with his asking the mayor to appoint you? Anybody else he appointed would just be a chair warmer until the commissioner is elected.”

“You think the commissioner would do that?”

“I do.”

“And you think our present mayor would appoint me?”

“If the commissioner asked him nicely, yes.”

“It’s hard for me to get my head around the big job,” Dino said.

“It was hard for you to get your head around being chief of detectives, too, but you did it.”

“I guess I did, at that. What’s more, I’ve gotten to love it.”

“You can’t love doing something unless you’re good at it, Dino.”

“You sound a lot like Viv.”

“You think she’d like to be the wife of the commissioner?”

“She’d love it, as long as she could keep her job at Strategic Services. Being the commissioner’s wife doesn’t pay, you know, and Viv has done very well with Mike. I think if a condition of being the commissioner’s wife was that she’d have to quit her job, she’d divorce me!”

“But she wouldn’t move out,” Stone said.

Dino laughed. “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves.”

“Ahead of ourselves is somewhere we have to be,” Stone said.

“Okay, with that in mind, what if Kate gets elected president?”

“I think that would be great.”

“Suppose she wanted to appoint you attorney general?”

Stone laughed. “That is entirely outside the realm of possibility. I’m completely unqualified, and the Senate would never confirm me, and even if they did, I wouldn’t want all the tsuris.”

“Okay, how about deputy attorney general for criminal investigations? No Senate confirmation required.”

“No, I’m way too happy right here in this house. You know what’s much more likely to happen?”

“What?”

“Kate appoints you deputy director of the FBI.”

“Holy shit!”

“If you were commissioner she would make you director, but you’d make a great deputy director.”

“I’m getting dizzy here,” Dino said. “Let’s talk about something real. If Kate gets elected, then Ann Keaton is going to work in the White House. How will you ever get laid again?”

“Ouch! What a thought.”

“You might have to move to Washington, pal, or at least get a place there.”

“I guess she’s not going to commute to the White House from New York,” Stone admitted. “So if I want to see a lot of her, I’ll have to do something like that.”

“You’re way too comfortable here,” Dino said. “It would be good for you to make a move for a few years. You might even like it down there.”

“I’ve liked it when we’ve been there,” Stone admitted. “And I know a few people.”

“With Ann in the White House, you’d know everybody in about fifteen minutes. Have you talked to her about any of this?”

“It seems premature. Kate doesn’t even have the nomination yet, and Ann and I are just getting started.”

“I think you need to live in the future a little, like you said. You don’t want all this to fall on you when you haven’t thought about it, planned for it.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it. If you’ll think about being commissioner.”

“You got yourself a deal, pal. Maybe we can still improve our lot in life!”

33

J
ack Coulter received Stone in a handsome sitting room at the Brook. It was an old club, and one of the few that had managed to stay all-male. He wondered how they had managed that under city law. The mayor had had to resign from the club when he ran for the office.