Family Jewels (21 page)

48

D
ino was on the phone in a flash. “Whataya got?”

“Don’t ask me how I know this, but David and Alexandra Bannister are registered at the Lowell, on East Sixty-third.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’ll just have to trust me.”

“That’s on the same block as my apartment.”

“I managed to figure that out.” He gave Dino the suite number. “I’d like to go along for the bust. I can identify them.”

“All right. Meet me there in an hour. It’ll take me a while to get uptown, and I want the pleasure, myself.”

“All right.”

“We’re going to do this softly, softly,” Dino said. “No flashing lights or sirens, no uniforms, no gangs busting in all at once, got it?”

“I have not a light, a siren, or a uniform, and I would make a poor gang member.”

“When you see my car out front, get in and I’ll tell you my plan.”

“I can’t wait to hear it.”

Stone returned some calls, then started for the door.

“Don’t forget,” Joan said, stopping him in his tracks, “you have an appointment at four o’clock with Senator Marisa Bond.”

“Damn it, I forgot about that.”

“It’s in your calendar, so that’s no longer an excuse.”

—

S
tone got out of a cab at Sixty-third and Madison and spotted Dino’s car parked across the street from the hotel. He rapped on the window, and Dino opened the door and invited him in.

“Okay, what’s your plan?” Stone asked.

“You and I are going to go to the front desk and inquire as to whether Mr. and Mrs. Bannister are in, then I’m going to radio my team, and they’ll filter in in twos.”

“And what if they’re not in?”

“Hang on, I’m still making this up. Okay, got it—we’ll go up to their suite with a pass key and wait for them there.”

“Have you got a warrant for this?”

“Have you forgotten that you’re talking to the police commissioner of the City of New York?”

“Nope. Have you got a warrant?”

“It’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Half an hour later the warrant arrived in the hands of a breathless young patrolman in uniform.

“Get in the front seat,” Dino said to the young man. “Didn’t anybody tell you this is a plainclothes operation?”

“No, sir,” the young cop said.

“Sheesh!” Dino picked up his radio. “Okay, Barrington and I are going in. Give us a five-minute head start.” He got out of the car, and Stone followed. They walked into the hotel, and at the front desk Dino addressed the young woman on duty. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”

She pointed at him. “Don’t tell me . . . you’re Joe Pesci, the actor!”

Stone burst out laughing.

Dino flashed his badge. “I’d like to see the manager, please.”

She made the call. “He’ll be right out.” She pointed to Dino again. “Burgess Meredith!” she said.

“Mr. Meredith is a hundred years old, and a foot shorter than I am,” Dino replied.

The manager appeared. “May I help you? Oh, Commissioner, good day to you.”

“Good day.” Dino exposed a corner of an envelope in his inside jacket pocket. “This is a warrant,” he said. “Are Mr. and Mrs. David Bannister in their suite?”

“No, sir,” the desk clerk said, “they went out for some lunch.”

“Then I’d like a key to their suite, please.”

“Do it,” the manager said to the young woman, and she printed out a key card.

Dino put it in his jacket pocket. “Half a dozen other men will be joining me in just a minute,” he said.

“The elevators are there,” she replied, pointing.

Stone and Dino rang for an elevator; it arrived shortly, and they got in. As the doors began to close, a hand stopped them, and a couple got in. The doors closed, and the elevator started up.

Stone suddenly realized who they were. “Derek, Alicia,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s Stone Barrington.”

They didn’t miss a beat, and for a moment it was old home week. “Are you staying here, Stone?”

“Visiting friends,” Stone said. The elevator doors opened and Stone followed them out. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, “let me introduce my friend Dino Bacchetti.” Hands were shaken and smiles exchanged. “Dino,” Stone said, “is the police commissioner of New York City, and he has a warrant for your arrest.”

Derek/David put his key card in the door to his suite and opened it. “Come in, and let’s chat. After you, Commissioner.”

Dino entered, followed by Stone, and the door slammed behind them.

“Shit!” Dino yelled, yanking on the door. It wouldn’t open.

“He’s jammed it,” Stone said, trying to help. They were still working on it when there was a sharp rap on the door. “Police! Open up!”

“Put your shoulder against it!” Dino yelled. A couple of tries, and the door burst open.

“A handkerchief,” Stone said, pointing to it on the floor. “I didn’t know you could jam a door with a handkerchief.”

“Everybody downstairs!” Dino commanded. “You guys take the stairs.” He pressed the elevator button as the four cops headed down the stairs.

Dino got on the radio. “The subjects are on their way downstairs!” he yelled into it. They got onto the elevator, rode down, and emerged into the lobby. All was perfectly peaceful. A moment later four plainclothes cops burst out of the door to the stairs, pistols drawn.

“Find ’em!” Dino yelled.

Stone and Dino hurried to the street and looked both ways. Nothing.

Stone looked at his watch. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve got an appointment with a United States senator in half an hour. Let me know how this turns out.” He ran for a cab, leaving Dino fuming on the sidewalk, shouting into his radio.

49

S
tone passed a limo parked outside his house and hurried into his office. “She’s waiting,” Joan said. He took a deep breath, calmed himself, and went in.

Senator Marisa Bond sat in a leather chair in his seating area, her surprisingly long legs stretched out before her. Bob sat beside her, his head in her lap. “Good afternoon, Mr. Barrington,” she said, offering her hand.

Stone took it: firm grip, long fingers. “I see you and Bob have become acquainted.” He studiously avoided looking down her cleavage and suppressed all carnal thoughts, which wasn’t easy, since she was more beautiful than she looked on TV.

“We’ve had a very nice conversation,” she replied.

“May I offer you some coffee?” he asked, glancing at his watch. “Or something more medicinal?”

“It’s been a long day,” she replied. “Do you have a bourbon-flavored medicinal?”

“I do,” Stone said, grateful for the opportunity to have a drink himself. He poured them both one, picked up her file from his desk, and sat down on the sofa, opposite her. They raised their glasses and drank.

“I should have been the senator from Kentucky, instead of Virginia,” she said.

Stone laughed. “Have you been in town long?”

“Only since this morning. I took the shuttle up to do some fund-raising. I don’t get to come to New York often enough to suit me. Next time there’s a vacant Senate seat here, I’ll give some thought to changing states. You aren’t recording any of this, are you?”

“Not a word. The President asked me to meet with you.”

“And me to meet with you.”

Stone glanced at her curriculum vitae: “Smith College, valedictorian. Harvard Law, editor of the
Law Review
, then a doctorate in constitutional law. And I see that in your years of private practice you pled cases before the Supreme Court more than a hundred times before being appointed solicitor general by Will Lee, and in that position you appeared before the Court another sixty-odd times.”

“I sound so well qualified when you say it like that,” she replied with a chuckle.

“Tell me, are your views on all the hot-button issues well known, or have you been terribly discreet about that?”

“I’m a Democrat,” she replied. “I think that about covers it.”

“So, if I asked you how you would vote on a particular case, how would you reply?”

“I would decline to reply, since the subject might come up if I were on the Court. I think the President is well aware of how I think.”

“As are the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee?”

“Oh, yes. I serve on that committee.”

“How do you get along with the Republican members?”

“I flatter them at every opportunity,” she said. “I’d show a little leg, if it would help.”

Stone laughed. This wasn’t going the way he had imagined it would. “Is there anything in your views that might surprise the President, not to mention the committee?”

Senator Bond thought about that. “You may have noticed that when I mentioned guns, I referred to ‘gun safety’?”

“I did notice that.”

“It wouldn’t bother me if every qualified American went around armed, if I could choose who was qualified. What I mean to say is, I’d let eighty or ninety percent of the population carry a concealed weapon after serious training, but I’d make it a lot harder to get a carry license, and I’d make them renewable annually, just to see who was serious. Of course, that’s more a legislative view than one from the court, but still, it might surprise the President.”

“Well,” Stone said, “it’s probably better that she hear that from me, instead of when a split decision was announced.”

“I’ll grant you that.”

“Is there anything in your personal life that she should know about?”

“I had a nasty divorce twelve years ago. My former husband is dead, and I didn’t shoot him, but still, he told some hurtful lies about me at the time, and I’m sure that’s in somebody’s opposition research handbook.”

“Have you remarried?”

“No, and if I should decide to do so, I’d have a broad field to choose from, because it could go either way, regarding gender.”

That stopped Stone in his tracks. “And what percentage of the population knows that about you?”

“Exactly two women and one man, including you.”

“And are the two women discreet?”

“One is dead, and you can’t get any more discreet than that. The other is married to a United States senator, has been for twenty-odd years, and I don’t think she’d want her children to know.”

“Would you want the President to know about that, going in?”

“I’m afraid I’m not going to make it easy for you, Mr. Barrington. If I had my druthers, I’d wait until I was confirmed before I let it out, but now I’ve done my duty by reporting it to the President’s man, and both you and she can do with it what you will, and I’ll not give a damn. May I have another drink?”

Stone was happy to get up and get her another, since it would give him a moment to recover. He poured them both
another one and sat down again. “Anything else I should know about?”

“No bestiality or child porn in my past, present, or future. I’ve never committed a crime that didn’t involve a radar gun on a highway, and I don’t use drugs of any sort, except alcohol, and I never have more than two drinks in a twenty-four-hour period, so I won’t ask for another.” She raised her glass and drank.

They spent the remainder of their hour together chatting about whatever came up, and Stone liked her more and more. Finally, he and Bob walked her to her car, and he put her inside. He waved her off, regretting that circumstances didn’t allow him to be more forward.