Cold Paradise (30 page)

64

S
HE LOOKED VERY BEAUTIFUL, HE THOUGHT. SHE WAS wearing a short, tight dress of dark green silk. Her hair, nails and makeup were perfectly done, and she was smiling slightly, showing the tips of her perfect, white teeth. For a moment, he thought she had an evening bag in her hand, but on further examination it turned out to be a small semiautomatic pistol with a short silencer affixed to it.
Where the hell did she get that?
he wondered.

She was not looking at Stone but at Arrington, and her smile became broader. Stone squeezed his left arm against his side, to be sure the pistol was still there.
I could shoot her right now, and this would all be over,
he thought. Instead, he managed the best smile he could, in the circumstances. “Hello, Dolce,” he said, trying to work some delight into his voice. He held out his arms and walked toward her.
I’ll just hug her. Then I’ll take away the gun,
he thought.

She turned toward him, and her face lit up with a burst of recognition. “Stone!” she said. “It’s you!”

Then, to Stone’s horror, she brought the pistol up before her and aimed it at him.

“I could shoot you, and this would all be over,” she said.

Where have I heard that before?
Stone wondered. “I’m glad to see you,” he said. “Don’t shoot me.”

“Why not?” she said. “I don’t want
her
to have you.” She nodded toward Arrington.

“I don’t want him, Dolce!” Arrington cried.

Stone looked at Arrington. Her handsome escort was edging away from her toward the banyan tree.

“Of course you do, Arrington,” Dolce said. “You’ve always wanted him. You only married Vance because you thought I wanted
him
.”

“That’s crazy, Dolce,” Arrington said, then realized her choice of words was poor. She pressed on, though. “I didn’t even know you knew Vance, when we were married. Come to think of it, I didn’t even know
you
.”

Stone took the opportunity to edge closer to Arrington, his arms still outstretched.

“That’s a gorgeous dress,” Arrington said. “Where did you get it?”

Trust Arrington to bring up fashion at a time like this,
Stone thought.

“At a little place on Worth Avenue. The shopping is very good in this town,” Dolce replied conversationally.

Stone edged closer.

Without taking her eyes from Arrington, Dolce said, “Stone, if you come any closer, I’m going to have to make a decision.”

Stone stopped moving, but he was afraid to lower his arms.

“You really don’t want Stone, Arrington?” Dolce asked, wrinkling her brow.

“I wouldn’t have him on a silver platter,” Arrington said with conviction. “I’m with Barry, here.” She turned to introduce her escort and discovered that he had vanished. “He must have had to go to the powder room,” she explained.

Stone was beginning to wonder which of them was the crazier.

“Did you get the shoes here, too?” Arrington asked.

“Oh, yes,” Dolce replied. “At Ferragamo.”

What’s going to happen when they run out of clothes to talk about?
Stone wondered.

“And those earrings are a knockout,” Arrington said.

“I got those at Verdura,” Dolce said. “It’s down a little alley off Worth Avenue, and up a flight.”

“Wonderful shop,” Arrington said. “I know them from New York.”

“Dolce,” Stone said, “can we—”

“Shut up, Stone,” she replied. “Arrington and I are discussing shopping. I’ll get to you in a minute.”

“I’m so sorry,” Stone said.

“Yes, you are, and we have to talk about that.” She turned back to Arrington. “I love your handbag.”

“Oh, thank you,” Arrington said. “I got it at Bergdorf’s, at that little boutique just inside the Fifty-eighth Street door. I can’t think of the name at the moment.”

Dolce pointed the pistol at her. “Think of it, or I’ll shoot you.”

Arrington thought desperately. “Suarez!” she said, looking relieved. “That’s it.” She held out the handbag. “Would you like to have mine? Please take it as a gift.”

“Why, that’s very kind of you, Arrington,” Dolce said.

I’ve got to do something,
Stone thought, but he couldn’t think what. If he rushed her, she’d shoot him, and then only Arrington would be left, and Dolce would shoot her, too. He remembered what Guido had said about Dolce’s shooting skills.
Where the hell is fucking Guido?

Then Stone saw a movement behind Dolce. He dared not take his eyes from hers and look at it. Instead, he tried to identify it with his peripheral vision.

Dolce swung the pistol back to Stone. “I may as well get this over with, so Arrington and I can talk seriously about clothes,” she said, raising the pistol.

“But . . .” Stone started to say, then the pistol in Dolce’s hand went off, with an evil
pfffft,
and he staggered backward. Almost simultaneously, the shape behind Dolce turned into a billowing sail, which fell over her head, and Dino, who had thrown a tablecloth over her, wrestled her to the ground.

Stone felt a searing pain in his left armpit and put his hand under his jacket. It came back covered in blood. Stone had always disliked the sight of his own blood.

“Will somebody give me a fucking hand?” Dino yelled.

Guido and his two friends materialized from behind a bush and went to Dino’s aid. Or, that was the way it seemed at first. As Stone watched, the largest of the three men grabbed Dino by the collar and tossed him a few yards into a flower bed, as if he were an oddly shaped bowling ball. Guido picked up the shrouded Dolce, wrestled her gun away and threw her over a shoulder. Then he started toward the house, followed by his cohorts.

He nodded at Stone’s bloody hand. “You oughta get that looked at,” he said to Stone as he passed.

“Thanks,” Stone said, and watched them walk through the house and out the front door. Painfully, Stone put the microphone to his lips. “Detail at the front of the house: Three men are coming out with a woman in a sack. Do not detain them. Repeat, do not detain.” Then he fainted.

65

S
TONE CAME TO IN THE BACKSEAT OF A CAR. HIS HEAD was in Dino’s lap, and Dino was pressing something against his armpit.

“You awake?” Dino asked.

“Yes,” Stone murmured.

“You want to know what happened?”

“I think I know what happened,” Stone said.

Thad Shames spoke up from the driver’s seat. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m not sure,” Stone said. “Why aren’t you with Liz?”

“Liz left the house,” Thad said. “I came downstairs and went out into the garden to look for you, and she must have left the master suite then.”

Dino spoke up. “The cop at the door said she insisted on getting into the ambulance with Manning.”

“Are you sure I’m not still unconscious?” Stone asked, then he passed out again.

He came to again on a bed surrounded by curtains. Dino and Thad were standing beside the bed. Stone was not wearing a shirt anymore, there was a wad of gauze and tape in his armpit and his arm was in some sort of rubber sling, which seemed to be filled with ice. On a stand next to the bed, a plastic bag of blood dripped into a tube attached to Stone’s other arm. He tried to sit up and started to speak.

Dino held a finger to his lips. He found a switch and the bed rose until Stone was in a sitting position. Dino pointed to the curtain and cupped a hand behind his ear.

Stone tried to focus. He could hear a woman’s voice from behind the curtain.

“Don’t you die on me, goddammit,” she was saying.

“Don’t you leave me in this mess. We’re going to get out of this together.”

Stone recognized the voice, and he looked at Thad, whose face was drawn and whiter than usual.

“I’m going to need some time to heal,” Paul Manning’s voice rumbled, surprisingly strong.

“They’re taking you to surgery in a minute,” Allison Manning said. “But I’ve got to talk to you first. Thad told me they know about Winston.”

“Do they know about you, or just me?” Manning asked.

“I don’t know, but I can get Thad to tell me. Don’t worry, I can deal with Thad. He’ll believe whatever I tell him.”

Stone looked at Thad.
He looks worse than I do,
he thought.

“The money is already in the Caymans,” Manning said. “You know the account number. Wait until I’ve recovered; but before they move me to some jail ward, find a way to get me out of here. Charter a plane and bring me a gun.”

“All right,” Allison said. “I hear a gurney. They’re coming for you.”

“Better get out of here and back to Shames.”

“I love you,” she said.

Thad stepped over to the curtain and drew it back. Allison spun around and looked at her husband and the other two men. It took her only a moment to recover. “Thad! Thank God you’re here!”

“Hello, Liz,” he said. “Or, perhaps I should say, Allison.”

“Did you hear all that?” she asked. “Paul is crazy, you know. I was trying to find out what he did with your two million dollars.”

Dino left the cubicle.

“Were you?” Thad asked. “Well, I guess you found out, didn’t you? It’s in the Cayman Islands, and you know the account number.”

“Thad . . .”

Thad held up a hand. “Don’t. You’ll just embarrass us both.”

Dino returned with Dan Griggs and the Houston detective, Fritz Parker.

“Mrs., ah, Shames, I guess it is,” Griggs said. “You’re going to have to come with me. This detective has some questions he’d like to ask you, and I have a few, myself.”

Allison looked at Thad. “You’ve got to help me,” she said.

“I don’t see how I can,” Thad replied. Then he turned and walked away.

“Stone,” she said, “you’ve got to represent me. I need your help.”

“You don’t need me, Allison,” Stone said. “You can afford the very best. Paul probably has a phone number in his pocket.”

“Please, please,” she begged.

“Goodbye, Allison,” Stone said. “I expect I’ll see you in court.”

They led her away, then Griggs came back. “We took a nine-millimeter away from Manning,” he said, “but it looks like the security guard was shot with a smaller caliber. You have any thoughts on that?”

Stone thought about that for a moment, then he shook his head and closed his eyes.

“We didn’t recover the slug.”

Good,
Stone thought.

“I understand there was some sort of scuffle in the garden after Manning was stopped. You know anything about that?”

Stone opened his eyes. “A drunken guest,” he said. Apparently Griggs thought he’d been shot by Manning. “She had to be removed.” He closed his eyes again and kept them closed until Griggs went away.

Stone was comfortable in a reclining seat on the G V. His arm was still numb, and he was still in a slight morphine haze.

Callie put a pillow behind his head. “Anything else I can do for you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “but not right now. Could I have a telephone, please?”

“I’ll get you one.”

Stone looked at his watch. Just past seven A.M. He had been taken to the airplane on a stretcher, but he had managed to walk up the airstair steps on his own. Callie had packed his clothes. They had been in the air for half an hour, and Dino was dozing across the aisle.

Callie brought him the phone. “After your call, you should get some sleep.”

“Have you got the phone number for the Breakers Hotel?” he asked.

She took the phone, dialed the number for him, handed the phone back and walked toward the front of the airplane.

“The Breakers,” an operator said.

“Please connect me with Mrs. Vance Calder,” Stone said.

“One moment.” The phone began ringing.

“Hello,” a sleepy voice said.

Stone thought for a second, then pressed the off button on the phone.

Dino stirred and turned toward Stone. “Who was that?” he asked.

“Good question,” Stone said.

“Why did you hang up?”

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

“When?”

“When a man answers.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
WANT TO EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE TO MY EDITOR, DAVID Highfill, and my publisher, Phyllis Grann, for their continuing care and contributions to my work.

My agents, Morton Janklow and Anne Sibbald, and all the people at Janklow & Nesbit, continue to manage my career, always with excellent results, and they, as ever, have my gratitude.

I want to thank my friends, David and Carolyn Klemm, for sharing their Palm Beach existence with me and for showing me the town, its restaurants, golf courses and shops.

My wife, Chris, is my first and most critical reader, and I thank her for her strong opinions and her love.

Please turn the page for a preview of Stuart Woods’s Stone Barrington novel

THE SHORT FOREVER

available from Signet.

E
LAINE’S, LATE.

Stone Barrington sipped his third Wild Turkey and resisted the basket of hot sourdough bread that the waiter had just placed on the table. Callie was to have been there an hour and a half ago, and he was very, very hungry. She’d called from the airport to say that she was on the ground and on her way, but that had been an hour ago. It just didn’t take that long to get to Elaine’s from Teterboro Airport, where her boss’s jet landed. He glanced at his watch: He’d give her another three minutes, and then he was ordering.

He had been looking forward to seeing her. They’d spent some very pleasant time together in Palm Beach a few months before, on the yacht of his client Thad Shames. She was Shames’s majordomo—assistant, cook, social secretary, whatever he needed—and she moved when Shames moved, back and forth between Palm Beach and New York. In New York, she had been living with Stone, and he missed her when she was away.

“Give me a menu,” Stone said to Michael, the headwaiter.

“Giving up on her?” Michael asked.

“I am. If I drink any more without some food in my stomach, you’re going to have to send me home in a wheelbarrow.”

Michael laughed and placed a menu before him. “Dino’s not coming?”

“He should be here in a while. He said he had to work late.” He opened the menu, and Michael stood ready, pad in hand. When Stone was this hungry, everything looked good. He’d meant to have fish; he’d gained three pounds, and he needed to get it off, but now he was too hungry. “I’ll have a Caesar salad and the osso buco,” he said, “and a bottle of the Amerone.”

Michael jotted down the order, and as he reached for the menu, Stone looked up to see Callie breezing through the front door. He rose to meet her. She looked wonderful, as usual, in an Armani pantsuit. She gave him a short, dry kiss and sat down.

“I’d given up on you,” Stone said. “I just ordered.”

Michael handed her a menu, but she handed it back. “I’m sorry. I can’t stay for dinner,” she said.

Stone looked at her, stupefied. She had kept him waiting for an hour and a half, and now she wasn’t going to have dinner?

“Would you like a drink, Callie?” Michael asked.

She shook her head. “No time, Michael.”

“You still want dinner, Stone?”

“Yes, please,” Stone replied.

Michael retreated.

“So?” Stone asked.

“So what?” Callie replied.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” He wanted an apology and an explanation, but he got neither.

“Stone,” Callie said, looking at the tablecloth and playing with a matchbook. She didn’t continue.

“I’m right here,” he replied. “Have been, for an hour and a half.”

“God, this is hard,” she said.

“Maybe a drink would help.”

“No, I don’t have the time.”

“Where do you have to be at this hour?” he asked.

“Back in Palm Beach.”

Stone wasn’t terribly surprised. Thad Shames, a computer software billionaire, had a peripatetic lifestyle, and Callie was, after all, at his beck and call.

“First of all, I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I had to go by the house and pick up some things.”

Stone looked around. She wasn’t carrying anything.

“They’re in the car,” she said.

“What did you have to pick up?” he asked.

“Some things.
My
things.”

Stone blinked. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Back to Palm Beach. I told you.”

Stone was baffled. “Callie . . .”

She took a deep breath and interrupted him. “Thad and I are being married this weekend.”

Stone was drinking his bourbon, and he choked on it.

“I know you didn’t expect this,” she said. “For that matter, neither did I. It’s just happened the past couple of weeks.” She had been gone for two weeks on this last trip.

Stone recovered his voice. “Are you perfectly serious about this?”

“Perfectly, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to talk me out of it.”

That was exactly what he wanted to try. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s good, Stone. It isn’t like with you and me, but that could never last.”

“Why not?” Stone demanded, stung.

“Oh, it’s been great. I arrive in town, move in with you. We go to Elaine’s and the theater, and around. We fuck our brains out for a week or two, then I go back.”

That was exactly what they did, he reflected, but he wasn’t going to admit it. “I thought we had more than that going,” he said.

“Oh, men always think that,” she said, exasperated. “There are things Thad can give me, things I need, things you can’t . . .” She left it hanging.

“Can’t afford?” he asked. “I live pretty well. Of course, I’m not worth five billion dollars, but I didn’t think Thad was, anymore, not after his new stock offering collapsed, and with the way the market has been.”

“It’s true,” she said, “Thad was hurt badly. Now he’s only worth three billion.”

“What a blow,” Stone said.

“It’s not the money,” she said. “All right, maybe that’s part of it. God knows, I’ll never have to draw another anxious breath.”

“Not about money, anyway.”

“Won’t you try to understand?”

“What is there to understand? I’m out, Thad’s in. It’s your life; I can’t tell you how to live it.”

“If only you’d . . .” She stopped.

Stone didn’t want to hear the rest, anyway. “I think it’s a little late for ‘if only,’ ” he said. “Clearly, you’ve thought this out. I’m not going to try to talk you out of it.”

“Thank God for that,” she muttered, half to herself.

They sat silently for a moment, then, without another word, Callie got up and headed for the door, nearly knocking down Dino, who had chosen that moment to walk in.

Dino turned and watched her rush out the door, then he walked over to Stone’s table and sat down. Dino Bacchetti had been Stone’s partner when he was still in the NYPD. Now he ran the detective squad at the Nineteenth Precinct. “So,” he said, “I see you managed to fuck up another relationship.”

“Jesus, Dino, I didn’t do anything,” Stone said.

Dino motioned to Michael for a drink. “That’s usually the problem,” he said. The drink was placed before him, and he sipped it.

“You want some dinner, Dino?” Michael asked.

“Whatever he’s having,” Dino replied.

“Caesar salad and the osso buco?”

“Good.” He turned to Stone. “After a while, women
expect
you to do something.”

“She’s marrying Thad Shames.”

Dino’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit? Well, I’ll admit, I didn’t see
that
one coming. I guess Thad isn’t broke yet.”

“Not yet, but he’s worth only three billion now.”

“Poor guy; couple months, he’ll be living on the street. Still, he got the girl.”

“Don’t rub it in.”

“It’s what I do,” Dino explained.

Stone’s cell phone, clipped to his belt, began to vibrate. “Now what?” he said to nobody in particular. “Hello?”

“Stone, it’s Bill Eggers.” Bill was the managing partner of Woodman & Weld, the prestigious law firm for which Stone did unprestigious jobs.

“Yeah, Bill.”

“You sound down.”

“Just tired. What’s up?”

“You got anything heavy on your plate right now?”

“Nothing much.”

“Good. There’s a guy coming to see you tomorrow morning at nine, with some work. Do whatever he says.”

“Suppose he wants me to kill somebody.”

“If this guy wanted somebody killed, he’d do it himself. His name is John Bartholomew, and he’s major, in his way.”

“I’ll be glad to see him.”

“You got a passport?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’re going to need it.” Eggers hung up.

Elaine came over and pulled up a chair. “Callie left in a hurry,” she said. “I guess you fucked it up again.”

“Don’t
you
start,” Stone said.

Stone woke up hungover. He shouldn’t drink that much so close to bedtime, he reflected, and resolved, once again, not to do it again. It was half past eight, and this guy Bartholomew was coming at nine; there was no time for breakfast. He showered and shaved and got into a suit, then went down to his office on the ground floor.

The ground floor, except for the garage, had been a dentist’s office when Stone’s great-aunt had still owned the house. After Stone inherited the place and renovated it, mostly with the sweat of his own brow, he turned the dentist’s office into his own. His secretary, Joan Robertson, worked at the front of the house, then came a couple of small rooms for supplies and the copying machine, then his own office, a pleasant room at the back of the house, looking out into the gardens of Turtle Bay, a collection of town houses in the East Forties that opened onto a common garden. Only the burglar bars spoiled the view.

Stone heard the clicking of computer keys stop, and Joan came back to his office. “You’re in early,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Stone asked, with mock offense. “It’s nearly nine o’clock.”

“That’s what I mean. I’ll bet you didn’t have time for breakfast.”

“You got some coffee on?”

“I’ll get you a cup,” she said.

“There’s some guy named John Bartholomew coming in at nine,” he said. “Bill Eggers sent him.”

“I’ll show him in when he arrives,” she said.

Stone shuffled listlessly through the files on his desktop. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Eggers that he wasn’t busy.

Joan came back with the coffee. He was grateful that her taste in beans ran with his, that she liked the strong, dark stuff that usually got made into espresso. “Did Callie get in last night?” she asked.

“She got in, then she got out.”

“Out? You mean,
out
?”

“I do. She’s marrying Thad Shames this weekend.”

“Good God! I’m shocked!”

“So was I, to tell the truth.”

“You let another one get away.”

“Joan . . .”

She threw her hands up defensively. “Sorry, it’s none of my business. You want me to send a wedding gift?”

Stone brightened. “Good idea. Go find the ugliest piece of sterling that Tiffany makes and send it to them in Palm Beach with a truly sincere card.”

The doorbell rang. “There’s your appointment,” she said. She left and returned a moment later with a tall, heavyset man in his fifties who, in his youth, had probably played college football.

“I’m Stone Barrington,” Stone said, rising and offering his hand.

“John Bartholomew,” the man replied, shaking it.

Stone waved him to a chair. “Bill Eggers called last night.”

“Did he give you any details?”

“No.”

Joan brought in another cup of coffee on a silver tray and offered it to Bartholomew, who had, apparently, placed his order with her on arrival.

Bartholomew sipped it. “Damned fine coffee,” he said.

There was something vaguely British about him, Stone thought, perhaps more than just the hand-tailored suit. “Thank you. We drink it strong around here.”

“The way I like it,” the big man replied. “Never could understand that decaf crap. Like drinking nonalcoholic booze. Why bother?”

Stone nodded and sipped his own coffee.

“We don’t have much time, Mr. Barrington, so I’ll come to the point. I have a niece, my dead sister’s only child, name of Erica Burroughs.” He spelled the name. “She’s twenty, dropped out of Mount Holyoke, has become involved with a flashy young man named Lance Cabot.”

“Of the Massachusetts Cabots?”

“He’d like people to think so, I’m sure, but no, no relation at all; doesn’t even know them. I checked. Young Mr. Cabot, I’m reliably informed, earns his living by smuggling quantities of cocaine across international borders. Quantities small enough to conceal on his person or in his luggage, but large enough to bring him an income, you follow?”

“I follow.”

“I’m very much afraid that Erica, besotted as she is, may be assisting him in his endeavors, and I don’t want to see her end up in a British prison.”

“She’s in Britain?”

Bartholomew nodded. “London, living with Mr. Cabot, quite fancily, in a rented mews house in Mayfair.” He opened a briefcase and handed Stone a file with a few sheets of paper inside. “Don’t bother reading this now, there isn’t time, but it contains everything I’ve been able to learn about Cabot, and something about Erica, as well. What I’d like you to do is to go to London, persuade Erica to come back to New York with you, and, if it’s possible without implicating Erica, get young Mr. Cabot arrested. I’d like him in a place where he can’t get to Erica. For as long as possible, it goes without saying.”

“I see.”

“Will you undertake this task? You’ll be very well paid, I assure you, and you will lack for no comfort while traveling.”

Stone didn’t have to think long, and mostly what he thought about was Sarah Buckminster, another relationship he’d managed to fuck up, though it wasn’t really his fault. “I will, Mr. Bartholomew, but you must understand that I will be pretty much limited to whatever persuasion I can muster, within the law, and whatever influence with the authorities I can scrape up. I won’t kidnap your niece, and I won’t harm Cabot, beyond whatever justice I can seek for him, based on crimes that are real and not imagined.”