“Yep.” Dino hung up.
Joan buzzed. “Billy Hotchkiss on one.”
“Thanks, and book me at Patroon, two at seven.” Stone pressed the button. “Hey, Billy.”
“Hey, yourself. I talked to Greco about your offer.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said to throw a net over you before you can get away.”
“You do that. I’m giving Ed Rawls a power of attorney to represent me at the closing, and you’ll have a wire transfer for three million and change on Thursday.”
“I wish all my clients were as decisive as you,” Billy said, then hung up.
4
Stone got to Patroon first, ordered a drink, and phoned Ed Rawls.
“Speak to me.”
“Ed, it’s Stone. I’ve just signed a power of attorney for you.”
“Do I get all your money?”
“No, you just get to show up at the Dark Harbor Shop on Friday morning and sign all the documents for me to buy the Stone property.” Stone filled Ed in on what he’d learned from Jack Keegan about the Stone twins’ upcoming parole.
“You beat the boys to the punch?”
“By a whisker.”
“My recollection of the twins tells me they are not going to react kindly to the news.”
“It’s their fault for not getting their offer in soon enough.”
“Tell me, where do two convicts get the money to buy such a place?”
“From their grandmother’s estate. She died before they plead guilty, and they came into something like sixty mil.”
“Then they’re more dangerous than ever.”
“If they get paroled in a couple of days.”
“How are you going to prevent that?”
“I have two plans: one, I have no idea. Two, if that doesn’t work, I’ll try to see that they violate parole and are stuck back inside promptly.”
“I prefer plan two.”
“I prefer plan one, which involves preventing them from being paroled.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I told you, I don’t know. Yet. I’m having dinner with Dino right now, and I’m going to let him worry about it. Good evening.” He hung up as Dino slid into the booth. They got him a drink.
“Now, let me tell you everything that’s happened.” Stone launched into a recap. When he finished, he said, “Your turn.”
Dino pointed a thumb at himself. “My turn? Are you speaking to me?”
“Directly to you.”
“What do you expect from me?”
“I expect you to tell me how to get the parole of the Stone twins denied. After that, you can tell me how to get them killed in prison.”
Dino cupped a hand behind an ear. “Sorry, I didn’t get that, and I don’t want to not hear it again.”
“You’re a big help.”
Dino took a sheet of paper from his inside pocket and unfolded it. “Actually, I heard about this earlier today, and...”
“And you didn’t call me?”
“By that time, you already knew about it.”
“What’s on the paper?”
“I called a guy I know who had been seriously intimate with a woman who works at the Maine State Prison. He got her to scan and send a copy of their prison record to him. Here’s a summary of what he learned. Forgive me if I paraphrase.”
“Granted.”
“Okay, since the day the twins were incarcerated they have been perfectly ideal prisoners, every warden’s dream. They didn’t get into fights, because they’re big, muscular guys, and they watched each other’s backs. They cheerfully performed any task they were ordered to, including serving at the warden’s dinner parties. They taught other prisoners to read. They wrote pardon requests and appeals for other prisoners. Did I mention that they had already graduated from Yale Law when they were arrested, and subsequently requested and got permission to take the Maine bar exam? They were driven to the test site by two prison guards, and now they can practice law. There was a move afoot to have their licenses yanked, which has not yet succeeded. After a year in max, they were transferred to the hospital wing, where they were made very comfortable.”
“How’d they swing that?” Stone asked.
“If I had to guess, I would guess that palms were crossed with silver, but who knows? May I continue?”
“Please.”
“They reorganized the prison library, replaced the out-of-date law books with new ones, and paid for a computer link to a legal website for research, endearing them to the warden. They were pretty much running a law firm out of the prison library.”
“Didn’t the warden know they were homicidal maniacs?”
“I must point out that they were convicted only of murdering their parents, and their testimony about their dad’s sexual abuse of the boys won them friends. Among them, a young woman who started a get-the-twins-out movement, which has a big following on the Internet.
Stone started to speak, but Dino held up a hand.
“Let me finish. The prison psychiatrist examined them both at length and came to know them well. His opinion is that they are brilliant, charming, and saner than you or I, but with a touch of narcissism. He also noted that they are the most identical identical twins he has ever seen. He persuaded them to get visible tattoos, so the staff could tell them apart — a plus sign on Eben’s left earlobe and a minus sign on Enos’s.”
“That’s convenient.”
“He also says that they seem to think and act as one man. Their interpersonal communications seem almost telepathic.”
Dino sat back and sipped his drink. “Got all that?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s your best idea?”
“Let’s talk about how to get them killed in prison,” Stone said.
5
Dino accepted another Scotch, while shaking his head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?” Stone asked. “You can have anybody killed in prison.”
“The boys are six-three, two hundred ten pounds; they’re not muscle-bound, because they’re not weight lifters. They spar, they wrestle, and they hit each other with Japanese sticks. They’re lithe and, as I say, there are two of them. The whole prison population is scared shitless of them. That makes them shiv-proof.”
“Don’t they have any weaknesses?”
“Not unless you include batshit crazy.”
“You said the psychiatrist said they are sane.”
“Yeah, but they’re smart enough to fool him.”
“So, you’re saying we can’t touch them.”
“No,” Dino replied. “We can get them. It’s just that so far we don’t have a clue in hell how to do that.”
“There must be a way.”
“Well, you could keep pissing them off, until they try to kill you, then shoot them. But there’s always the risk that they’ll get lucky. Still, you’ve made a good start, buying the family property out from under them. You did buy it under a corporate name, didn’t you?”
“Well, ah...”
“Oh, shit.”
“It was all so rushed. The contract and the earnest money have already gone out. I’ll get it changed in the morning.”
“Good idea. It might take them a few minutes to figure out who bought it — if Billy Hotchkiss can keep his mouth shut, a quality for which he is not personally known.”
“God, this is depressing.” Stone moaned.
“Clinically depressing, or just sad?”
“Just sad.”
“How’s Rocky?” Dino asked. Rocky Hardwick, a recent companion of Stone’s and a CIA officer, had been wounded in an attack on his Maine house.
“She’s good. She’s gone down to Virginia, to recuperate at her mother’s house.”
“In an ambulance, I hope.”
“In a medivac chopper, with a doctor and a nurse along for company.”