“I’ve got your deposition case packed. Anything else?”
“I think that’ll do it.” Goldsmith hung up and dialed his urologist’s number, then got his secretary on the line. “Hey, sweetheart, how are you?”
“Fine, Mr. Goldsmith.”
“Listen, big favor; my wife and I are off to San Francisco this afternoon, kind of a second honeymoon. Will you call the Ritz-Carlton out there, get the name of a drugstore, and phone in a Viagra prescription for me?”
“Sure, how many?”
“Oh, a couple of dozen ought to do it – ho, ho, ho! Ask them to deliver them to my suite.”
“I’ll take care of it; you and Mrs. Goldsmith have a wonderful time.”
“Don’t you worry, with your help we will. See ya.” Goldsmith closed his briefcase, grabbed his jacket, and headed for the door. “Is Mike downstairs with the car?”
“Yes, and your golf clubs are in the trunk.”
“Okay, I’m going to be gone a week, maybe two; cancel anything that can wait or that I can’t handle with a phone and a fax machine, and get Craven to take care of the rest. Tell him about Moyle’s leaving, and by the way, as soon as Les goes to lunch, clean out any files in his desk and briefcase, padlock his filing cabinets, and put his Rolodex in my safe, got it?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed his deposition case and left the office.
“Got it, you complete and total shit,” Millie muttered under her breath.
Goldsmith rode down in the elevator, feeling nothing but elation. In one fell swoop, he had rid himself of a law partner who had always put too much emphasis on ethics, gotten out of a boring dinner party and an awful weekend, built a two-week vacation for himself in his favorite city and at Pebble Beach, and lined up a spectacular piece of ass that he had never had enough of. He felt very pleased with himself.
Mike was waiting at the curb with the rear door of the BMW 750i already open. Goldsmith handed him the two briefcases to be put into the trunk and slid into the rear seat. Mike closed the door after him and walked to the rear of the car.
Goldsmith looked to his right and saw a black Lincoln Town Car standing shockingly close – no more than an inch from his new BMW. He punched the window button and screamed at the driver of the Lincoln, whose face was only inches from his. “God-damnit! You put one fucking scratch on this car, and I’ll have your ass in court!”
The driver turned calmly toward him and raised something that looked, from Goldsmith’s perspective, like a short length of black pipe. He didn’t even have time to flinch; the pfffft! noise was the last thing he heard.
41
STONE DROPPED BY THE KLEMM REAL Estate Office in Washington Depot, which was the business district, a mile from Washington Green, and picked up the keys to his new house.
Carolyn Klemm greeted him with enthusiasm and presented him with a cold bottle of good champagne and a list of tradesmen, repairmen, gardeners, and other necessary help for any homeowner.
He stopped at the Washington Market and picked up some groceries for the weekend, then at the local liquor shop, where he bought a mixed case of wines, half a dozen bottles of spirits, and some mixers. Finally, very excited, he drove up the hill, turned left at the church, and, a couple of hundred yards later, rolled past the fringe of evergreen trees and into his own driveway. It was the first house he had ever bought.
He got out of the car, unlocked the front door, and walked inside. The place was cavernously empty and spotlessly clean. He unloaded his groceries and booze, put the perishables and white wines into the fridge, then carried his suitcases upstairs and unpacked, placing his things in the smaller of the two master closets, both of which contained drawers and shelves.
He walked back downstairs to find the UPS deliveryman on his doorstep, and the man trundled half a dozen large boxes into the kitchen, got a signature, and left. Stone began unpacking the dishes, pots and pans, and other housewares he and Sarah had bought, but before he got very far, the ABC Furniture van arrived, and most of the next hour was spent distributing furniture around the house. When the deliverymen had left, he went back to work in the kitchen, and in another hour he had it organized.
He was upstairs putting the new sheets on his new bed when the phone man arrived. Stone put him to work, then went back to his own tasks. He had just finished putting the bedroom and bath in order when the phone man pronounced himself finished. Stone tried the various extensions around the house, heard a dial tone at each, thanked the man, and signed off on the installation. He did some straightening of the new furniture, lamented the lack of pictures and other ornaments in the place, then treated himself to a beer. He had just sat down when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Dino; I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“The phone just got turned on; what’s up?”
“You said you spoke to Arlene Mitteldorfer’s divorce lawyer earlier today?”
“That’s right.”
“Was his name Bruce Goldsmith?”
“Yes, and what do you mean, ‘was’?”
“He got popped at lunchtime, less than an hour after you and I spoke.”
“How did it happen?”
“He was leaving his office for a trip to San Francisco. He got into his car, a black Town Car pulled alongside, and somebody put one round into his head at point-blank range. No noise, probably a silencer. Got the backseat of a nice, new BMW all messy.”
“Jesus; I warned him to get out of town; I guess he didn’t go fast enough.”
“I guess not.”
“Don’t tell anybody where I am, okay, Dino?”
“Who else knows?”
“Just a girl, who’s coming up tomorrow, Bill Eggers, and Vance Calder and Arrington.”
“They’re in town?”
“No, they’re up here; Vance has a house less than five miles from mine. I’m having dinner with them tomorrow night.”
Dino gave a long chuckle. “She can’t stay away from you, can she?”
“Nothing like that; Vance wants us all to be friends. Come to think of it, she said something to that effect in the last conversation I had with her, last year.”
“You’re a braver man than I am, Stone, going to their house all by yourself.”
“I’m not going by myself; I’ll be well armed with a beautiful woman.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Nah; a new lady.” He half expected Dino to call him on the lie.
“This is all too civilized for me,” Dino said.
“What are you doing about Palmer’s opening on tomorrow night?”
“Maximum effort; the department finally believes me about this business.”
“It’s about time. Have you put out an APB on Mitteldorfer?”
“I’m not at that point, yet; we don’t really have any hard evidence on him, nothing to tie him to these crimes but our suppositions and a lot of bodies.”
“I think you ought to get his most recent prison photograph into the Sunday papers, along with the artist’s drawing of the hit man. You can say that Mitteldorfer may be in danger, and you want to talk with him. At least, that’ll get his face out there, and you might get a tip from a citizen.”
“Good idea; I don’t think I’ll ask the brass; I know a guy at the Times. How’s the house?”
“The stuff Sarah and I bought all arrived, and I’ve spent the afternoon making it habitable. Still needs a lot of pictures and lamps and other things.”
“Have a good weekend; when you coming back?”
“I don’t know; I may not come back at all; at least, not until Mitteldorfer has popped you, and I have to look for him, myself.”
“Don’t hold your breath, kid; he’s not going to get a crack at Dino. The department has lent me a special car, not unlike your own.”