“Good.”
“But I gotta kill the lady.”
“Now hang on a minute,” Stone said.
“Yeah,” Holly echoed, “hang on!”
Vito burst out laughing again, and the others followed suit. “Come on,” he said finally, waving them toward the elevator. “I’m just kidding again.” His shoulders were shaking, and tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“So, we dug this hole for nothing?” one of the men with a shovel said to Vito.
“Don’t worry about it, it’ll get used,” Vito replied.
He rode up in the elevator with Stone and Holly and handed them their guns. “You can find your car from here?” Vito asked.
“Yes, we can,” Stone replied. “One more thing. We want Trini Rodriguez.”
Vito rolled his eyes. “Everybody wants Trini,” he said.
“Don Eduardo would like us to find him.”
Vito looked at him doubtfully.
“No kidding.”
“Trini is with the fuckin’ towelheads somewhere,” he said.
“Towelheads?”
“Yeah, the Ayrabs.”
“And where are the Ayrabs?”
“Around somewhere.”
“I thought all the Ayrabs got arrested when Trini pulled off his little deal with the FBI.”
“The FBI, what do they know?” Vito said, laughing.
“Will you be speaking to Trini?” Stone asked.
“Yeah, I guess. He’ll want to know how you died.” Vito began laughing again.
“Do me a favor, Vito. Tell him something he’ll like to hear.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll make him happy.”
Stone handed him a card. “Then find out where he is and call me.”
Vito took the card. “You gonna cap Trini?”
“No, the lady is going to arrest him and take him back to Florida to be tried for killing a dozen people at a funeral.”
“Trini did that?” Vito looked amazed.
“He did.”
Vito said something to himself in Italian. “It’ll be a pleasure to rat him out,” he said. “Buona sera.”
Stone and Holly walked down the dark street toward where they had left the car.
“As long as we’re down here, you want to get some dinner?” Stone asked.
“Thanks,” Holly said, “I already ate. I just want to get into bed, assume the fetal position, and suck my thumb for a couple of days.”
46
WHEN THEY GOT home, Holly did exactly what she had said she was going to do, except she didn’t suck her thumb.
Stone was tired, but oddly alert. He called Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone, but it almost wasn’t.”
“Huh?”
“Some of Trini’s buddies from the Italian side of the equation stuck a shotgun in my ear in Little Italy and walked Holly and me to a nearby cellar, where they proceeded to dig a grave for the two of us.”
“Are you speaking to me from the grave? Because if you are, I want to record this conversation.”
“Fortunately, no. I was able to persuade the leader of this merry band of men, a guy named Vito, to call Eduardo before he unloaded his shotgun in our direction.”
“And Eduardo called them off?”
“Yes. Fortunately, he was at home.”
“You want me to arrest somebody?”
“No, after all, they only scared us half to death, and anyway, Vito might be able to help us locate Trini.”
“I thought you were ready to give up on Trini.”
“Oddly enough, my near-death experience has renewed my interest in finding the son of a bitch. In fact, I think I want to be a witness at his execution, if I don’t actually do it myself.”
“Funny, when the two guys on the motorcycle had a go at you, all you felt was bad about killing them.”
“Looking down the barrels of two shotguns concentrates the mind wonderfully.”
“I expect it does.”
“What’s the latest on Trini? Why did he shoot the two FBI guys?”
“Well, from what I hear on the grapevine, the two agents tried to get him out of bed too early in the morning, and it irritated him, so he shot them both.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. He just went nuts, according to the agent who’s still alive.”
“Well, since he was standing at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night, threatening to kill me, I guess he missed some sleep. Some people are just grumpy if they don’t get their eight hours.”
“So, what’s your next move?”
“Vito says he’ll be talking to Trini, who will want the details on how we begged for our lives.”
“Did you beg for your lives?”
“No. I concentrated on getting Vito to call Eduardo before he spread us around the cellar. But Vito is going to give Trini details that will please him and then call me and tell me where Trini is, if he can find out. He says Trini is with his Arab friends-or towelheads, as he prefers to call them.”
“I thought the FBI arrested all the towelheads.”
“So did I, but apparently there’s an abundant supply of them.”
“I think I’d like to talk to the towelheads,” Dino said.
“Tell you what: We work together on this, you take the towelheads, and we’ll take Trini.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Take him back to Florida and get him tried.”
“That’s a sweet idea. I hope it works for you.”
“You going to help?”
“Okay, you get me a location on Trini and his buddies and I’ll supply a SWAT team. I’ll get a judge to honor Holly’s warrant, and you three can hotfoot it to the airport. I’ll take the towelheads home with me.”
“You’ve got a deal, but no FBI.”
“Why would I want those guys around to take the credit?”
“Why, indeed?”
“Dinner tomorrow?”
“You’re on.”
“And you’re still buying, remember?”
“I remember.”
Dino hung up, and Stone called Eduardo.
“Stone, are you all right?”
“Thanks to your help, I am, Eduardo.”
“I want to apologize for these people of ours.”
“No apology necessary. You can’t be expected to know everything.”
“I’m glad they called me.”
“So am I.”
“Have you had any luck in finding this Rodriguez fellow?”
“I’m working on it. One of the men who, ah, detained us says he may be speaking to him, and he’ll try to find out where he is. There are some Arab gentlemen involved, apparently.”
“I have heard of these people, and I would be pleased to see them caught and put into prison.”
“If we can get a location on them, that could very well happen. I’d be grateful to hear of any information that might come your way.”
“Of course. I’ll call you.”
“Thank you again for saving our lives, Eduardo.”
“Please, I was happy to.”
They both hung up, and now Stone was tired. He went upstairs, got undressed, and got into bed with Holly, who was sleeping as if drugged. Soon, he was, too.
Stone got up at mid-morning the following day and found Holly still sleeping. He reached out to give Daisy a pat, then remembered she was in Florida with Ham. Then he sat up in bed, wide awake.
He got into a robe, went downstairs, and called Ham.
“Hello?”
“Ham, it’s Stone Barrington.”
“How you doing, Stone?”
“I’m okay, and so is Holly. She’s still asleep.”
“What’s up?”
“We’ve had a brush with Trini, and I think you ought to be on the lookout for his people around your place.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think maybe you might think about changing locations. Why don’t you move into Holly’s place until we can nail this guy?”
“You really think he might be a threat to us here?”
“I do.”
“What does Holly think?”
“I don’t want to wake her to ask, but I think she’d agree with me.”
“All right, we’ll throw some things in a bag and go over there.”
“Thanks, Ham, I’d feel better if you did. Please give my best to Ginny.”