“All that’s in hand. There’ll be somebody there to let them in. There’s enough cash in the company accounts to pay their salaries and other operating expenses, for the moment. I’ve already sent the bank new signature cards with my and Mike’s signatures. We’ll add yours later.”
“Right. Stone,” Charley said, “there’s something else you can do for me.”
“Anything at all.”
“Your pistol and my knife are in my desk drawer in the apartment. Could you get them over to me? I’d be more comfortable with them on hand.”
“Did you get your application in for the carry permit?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll ask Dino if he can rush it, and I’ll get the knife to you. That’ll have to do until you’re licensed.”
“Oh, all right. I was always better with the knife than the gun when I was in training.”
“By the way, Marisa’s father has said that your medical bills and your stay here are on him, so don’t worry about that.”
“That’s very good of him.”
“You can thank him when you see him. In the meantime, I’ll have a word with Arthur Steele at the Steele Insurance Group and get a full corporate package put together for Triangle, you, and the new employees.”
“You think of everything.”
“I’ll have to, until you’re well enough to think.” Stone said goodbye and went home.
“Get your closing done?” Joan asked.
“By the skin of my teeth.” He told her of the day’s events.
“Sheesh! That Macher is a bastard, isn’t he?”
“If that’s the worst name you can think of.”
“Oh, the locksmith dropped off the new keys to the mansion,” she said, handing him a set.
“Please messenger a set and the new alarm code to Kaley Weiss at Strategic Services. Oh, and Charley has a knife in his desk drawer in the apartment — include that in the package, but not the gun.”
She went to get it done, and Stone called Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“Thanks for the help of the NYPD today,” Stone said. “They did a great job.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Charley Fox has applied for a carry permit, and since he’s already been attacked, I can’t see any impediment, can you?”
“Nope. I’ll oil the machinery and get it done. Shall I send it to him at the clinic?”
“That will make him feel much better.”
“As long as he doesn’t hunt Macher down and shoot him.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already had that conversation with him.”
“Bad news,” Dino said. “The DA called and says he can’t move against Macher on the murder charge.”
“Don’t tell me, not enough evidence.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“I’d certainly feel better if he were behind bars, no bail, awaiting trial.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t provide that service without some paperwork from the DA, and these days I can’t send somebody out to hunt him down and kill him.”
“You never could do that,” Stone said.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could?”
“I always knew you had fascist tendencies.”
“Don’t tell anybody.”
“Dinner later?”
“Sure. Patroon?”
“Done.”
41
Stone called Ed Rawls, who answered immediately.
“Ed, I need your advice,” Stone said. He told him of Macher’s effort to blow up the St. Clair building. “We don’t have enough evidence to prosecute him. Have you any advice as to how to proceed?”
“Shoot the son of a bitch and don’t get caught,” Rawls said.
“That’s excellent advice, Ed, but I need a way ahead that doesn’t involve life in prison without parole.”
“I said don’t get caught, didn’t I?”
“Ed, I was a homicide detective for a long time, and I never encountered a perfect murder. These days, there are too many kinds of evidence that didn’t exist all those years ago.”
“Yeah, DNA, and all that crap.”
“Right. How do we defend ourselves from somebody with no scruples at all? Somebody who’s willing to do anything?”
“Stone,” Ed said, “if I knew that, Macher would already be dead.”
Lieutenant George Marconi, who commanded one of the NYPD’s bomb squads, sat at his desk and stared at the burner cell phone that had been attached to the bomb found in the St. Clair mansion. He pressed the recent button and found a single phone number. Could this possibly work? He retrieved a small recorder from a desk drawer and plugged it into the cell phone, then pressed send. It was answered on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Macher, this is George Marconi, how are you?”
“Okay, I guess, who are you?”
“I want to be sure that I’ve got the right person,” Marconi said. “Is this the Erik Macher who, until recently, ran the St. Clair company?” He heard Macher suck in a breath, then stop.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Macher said, and hung up.
Marconi sighed. Nearly had him. Macher wouldn’t be answering that phone again. He went to his computer and found a secure directory of all cell phone numbers in the Northeast, entered his password, then did a search for Erik Macher. There! He called the number.
“Erik Macher,” a gruff voice said. The same voice he’d just heard on the burner.
“Mr. Macher, it’s George Marconi again. Why did you hang up on me?”
“How’d you get this number?” Macher demanded.
“Oh, I can get anybody’s cell number,” Marconi said, “even a burner number.”
A long silence, then, “What’s a burner number?”
“That’s a number on a throwaway cell phone, like the one you attached to your bomb at the St. Clair mansion.”
“Who are you?”
“I told you, I’m George Marconi.”
“That doesn’t tell me who you are.”
“I’m curious, Mr. Macher, where did you get the design for your bomb?”
Another silence, then, “Bomb? What bomb?”
“Come on, Erik, you’re not going to play dumb, are you? Would you like me to go to the police and tell them you’re the guy who planted the bomb at the St. Clair mansion, and I can prove it?”
“Prove what?”
“That you’re the man who planted the bomb.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m a reasonable man,” Marconi said, trying to get him talking, “I can be bought off, and for less than you might imagine.”
“Bought off?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you? Okay, you pay me twenty-five thousand or I’ll tip off the police and give them your whereabouts. Is that clear enough for you?”
“What’s clear to me is that you’re a crazy person. I don’t know anything about any bomb.” He hung up.
Marconi’s phone rang almost immediately. “Lieutenant Marconi.”
“Marconi, this is Bacchetti.”
“Afternoon, Commissioner.”
“What are you turning up on the bomb at the St. Clair mansion?”
“Funny you should mention that, sir. I was just on the phone with Erik Macher. I called the phone number that the burner phone attached to the bomb heard from — the one that Mr. Barrington answered?”
“And who did you get?”
“Erik Macher. And I recorded the two conversations I had with him.”
“Play the recordings for me.”
Marconi did so.
“That was a really good idea,” Dino said, “except for the part about it not working.”
“It nearly worked, Commissioner.”
“So, it was a really good idea that didn’t work.”
“I guess you could put it that way.”
“How about coming up with an idea that works?”