“Thanks for your help again, Dan. I won’t bother you unless we turn up something concrete.” Stone hung up, and the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Berman.”
“Anything?”
“Mr. James has an American Express card, and that’s it-no debts, not even a bank account.”
“American Express wouldn’t give somebody a card who had no credit record,” Stone said.
“Then he must have applied under a name that does have a record, then asked them to put another name on the card. By the way, I have a friend at American Express. I called him and he looked up James’s address.”
“Great! What is it?”
“One Vanderbilt Avenue, New York City.”
“Thanks, Bob.” Stone hung up. “Another dead end.”
“You got any other ideas?” Dino asked.
“No.”
“Neither have I.”
“Well, we’re just going to have to wait until he has another go at Liz,” Stone said.
38
Everybody seemed to be taking a nap, except Dino.
“I need some things from the drugstore,” Stone said. “You want to come?”
“Nope,” Dino replied. “Married men don’t need things from the drugstore.”
“Toothpaste and dental floss,” Stone said.
“Whatever you say.”
“I’ll be back in half an hour, if anybody calls.”
“Seeya.”
Stone walked to the parking lot and got into his borrowed Mercedes convertible, putting the top down. He pulled out of the driveway, behind a passing Ford, which was driving rather slowly. Stone edged up behind the car, hoping to pass, when, suddenly, the Ford came to a screeching halt, and Stone plowed into it with a crash.
“Oh, shit,” he said aloud. Now he had smashed up Thad’s car, and it was his own fault. He got out of the car and walked toward the Ford. As he did, a man got out of the Ford, and to Stone’s surprise, he was smiling.
“I’m sorry I hit you,” Stone said, “but why did you slam on your brakes like that?”
The man looked like a salesman of some sort. He was dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and necktie, and his shirt pocket contained a plastic pen guard and several writing instruments. “Don’t worry about it,” the man said, and very quickly, there was a gun in his hand.
Stone looked over his shoulder for some way out of this, but as he did, a silver Lincoln Town Car with darkly tinted windows screeched to a halt beside him.
The man with the gun opened the rear door. “Inside,” he said, “and don’t let’s get blood on this pretty street.”
Stone got in, followed by the man with the gun, and the car moved forward, leaving the other two cars stopped in the middle of the street. The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds, he figured, and more disturbing than the gun in the man’s hand was the fact that he was wearing rubber gloves. “What’s this about?” he asked.
“First, let’s get you all secured, and then I’ll tell you,” the man said. “Get down on your knees, rest your head on the armrest and put your hands behind you.” He nudged Stone’s ribs with the gun barrel for emphasis.
Stone did as he was told, and in a moment, he was handcuffed.
“All right, now you can sit back up here,” the man said.
His accent was Southern, sort of educated redneck, Stone thought. “So what’s this about?” he asked again.
“First, let’s get the introductions out of the way,” the man said. “You can call me Larry, and the feller driving is Ernest. And you would be one Mr. Stone Barrington.”
“How do you do?” Stone said.
“I do pretty good,” Larry replied. “Now, as to what this is about, we’re going to take a little drive out in the country, and then we’re gonna make a phone call.” His tone was pleasant, conversational. “I don’t enjoy putting violence on folks, so I’d ‘preciate it if you wouldn’t make that necessary. I can do it, if the need arises.”
“All right, I’ll behave,” Stone lied. He was going to get out of this at the first opportunity, and he was beginning to regret that he had gotten into the car without a fight. The rubber gloves were weighing heavily on his mind.
Shortly, they were in West Palm, driving west on one of its broad boulevards. “You were saying?” Stone asked.
“Oh, yeah. A friend of mine called me a couple of days ago and asked me to come down here and shoot your ass.”
“What friend is that?”
“Does it matter? He’s paying me and Ernest, here, fifty big ones to deal with you, and that’s the most I ever got for a hit.”
They stopped at a traffic light, and a police car pulled up next to them.
Larry stuck the gun in Stone’s crotch. “Don’t you even think about it” he said. “They can’t see us, and if they hear something, then I’m going to have to do you and the cop. Besides, wouldn’t you rather die with your dick still on?”
Stone didn’t answer that. “I’d like to know who your friend is,” he said.
“I don’t think you’d recognize the name,” Larry said. “He uses a lot of them.”
“What does he look like, then?”
“Tall feller, going gray.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Manning.”
“Manning? If you say so.”
“Funny thing is, I was about to try and give Mr. Manning a whole lot of money. Tell you what: Why don’t you call him right now and tell him that? It might have an effect on the outcome of your day and mine.”
“And why would you want to give him a lot of money?” Larry asked.
“I’m a lawyer. I represent a lady he knows. She’s willing to pay a large sum to get him to go away.”
“How much money we talking about?” Larry asked, clearly interested.
“She’s willing to give him a million dollars,” Stone said, “maybe more.” But not now, Stone thought. She won’t give him a fucking penny, if I have anything to say about it.
“You really expect me to believe that.”
“You don’t have to. Just make the call, and I’ll make him believe it.”
“What’s in it for me?” Larry asked.
“How much has he paid you so far?” Stone asked.
“Twenty-five thousand,” Larry replied. “There’s another twenty-five due when he shoots you.”
“When he shoots me? I thought he hired you to do that.”
“Well, yeah, but only if you give me any trouble. He wants to do it himself, if he has the time. Something personal, I don’t know.”
“Tell you what. You make the call. If I can get him to agree to a settlement, I’ll give you another fifty, on top of the twenty-five he’s already given you.”
“I don’t know,” Larry said,
“What have you got to lose? Tell you what. Drive me to the nearest bank, and I’ll give you the fifty right now, in cash. Any bank will do. I just have to make a phone call.”
“Well, see, I’ve got a lot of problems with that,” Larry said. “You could make all sorts of trouble for me in a bank.”
“You’ve got a point,” said Stone, who had been planning on making a lot of trouble for him.
“And that wouldn’t be the honorable thing to do, see? I mean, my deal is with Doug, not with you. Word got around about that, and I’d be short of clients.”
“So, call him and let me speak to him.”
“What the hell, why not? Ernest, give me the phone.”
Ernest passed back a cell phone, and Larry dialed, mouthing the numbers from memory.
Stone heard the electronic shriek from the phone, and the announcement that the cellular customer being called was unavailable or out of the calling area.
“No luck,” Larry said.
“Try him again in a minute,” Stone replied. They were out of West Palm, now, headed west on a narrowing, increasingly empty road that seemed to be heading straight into the Everglades. He didn’t want to go there.