Reckless Abandon Read online

  Stone watched her catch up and stop the cab, then he turned back and stepped inside his front door. As he did, he heard a sound that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He froze.

  Holly came up the steps behind him. “That was close,” she said.

  “Don’t move,” Stone replied.

  “What? Oh, God. Daisy! Stand down!” She brushed past Stone and took the dog’s collar. “Sit.”

  Daisy sat down and looked at Stone warily.

  “This is Stone,” she said. “Stone is good. Good.”

  Daisy walked over and nuzzled Stone’s hand.

  “How do you do, Daisy?” Stone said.

  She licked his hand.

  “Sorry about that,” Holly said. “You okay?”

  “My heart rate is returning to normal. So this is your friend?”

  “Yep. Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “You didn’t mention that your friend is a Doberman pinscher.”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “No.”

  “I hope it’s okay if Daisy stays, too. We can always go to a hotel.”

  “Holly, in hotels, chambermaids enter your room several times a day when you aren’t there. You don’t want a dead chambermaid on your conscience, do you?”

  “Daisy’s not like that.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it.”

  “She only kills on command.”

  Stone looked at her askance.

  “Just kidding.”

  “Go to bed,” Stone said. He watched as she walked ahead of him to the elevator. It was a pleasant sight.

  Stone was nearly asleep when he felt Holly sit on his bed. He wasn’t all that sleepy after all, he thought. He reached for her, and his hand found a warm, furry body.

  “Go to sleep, Daisy,” he groaned.

  Daisy sighed, snuggled against Stone, and settled in for the night.

  3

  STONE WAS SLEEPING soundly when he was disturbed by a chink, chink sound. He opened an eye and found Holly sitting on his bed in one of his terry cloth bathrobes, eating cereal from a bowl.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I made myself some breakfast. Can I get you some?”

  Stone pressed the button that made his bed sit up, then rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Six-fifteen,” she replied.

  Daisy, who had been snuggled close to Stone, sat up and yawned.

  “Six-fifteen,” Stone repeated tonelessly.

  “Too early for you? What time do you normally get up?”

  “I wake up around seven, then have some breakfast in bed and read the Times and do the crossword. I usually get out of bed around nine.”

  “Lazy guy, huh?”

  “I’m not running a police force in a Florida town,” Stone said, “and I don’t have people pounding on my door at the crack of dawn, demanding to see me. It’s one of the advantages of being self-employed.”

  Holly nodded. “Guess so. I see Daisy slept with you last night,” she said.

  Stone nodded. “Apparently so. You’ll need to avert your eyes while I dash to the bathroom. And doesn’t Daisy have to go out in the mornings, or does she use a flush toilet?”

  “She has to go out. And why do I have to avert my eyes?”

  “Suit yourself,” Stone said, getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom. When he came back, Holly was still there.

  “And don’t forget the plastic bag,” he said, climbing back into bed.

  “Plastic bag?”

  “For Daisy.”

  “You want me to put Daisy in a plastic bag?”

  Stone shook his head. “It’s the law in New York that when the dog poops, the owner picks it up and puts it into the nearest trash can. It’s a hundred-dollar fine if you fail to do so. And don’t bring it back into the house.”

  “Well, I never,” Holly said. “What’ll they think of next in the big city?” She stood up. “Where do I find a plastic bag?”

  “Kitchenette,” Stone said, pointing. “Next to my dressing room; saves an elevator ride at breakfast time.”

  Holly went and found a plastic bag. “Guess I’d better shower and get dressed, if we’re going out,” she said to the dog. “Come on, Daisy.”

  “Doesn’t she have to go out right now?” Stone asked.

  “She can hold it, don’t worry. You want to take her out?”

  Stone rolled over and pulled the covers over his head.

  At mid-morning Stone had finished breakfast and was dressing when Holly came upstairs, looking good in a sweater and wool slacks, Daisy at her side.

  “Nice neighborhood,” she said. “Why is it called Turtle Bay?”

  “There used to be a bay called Turtle Bay here, a long time ago. It got filled in.”

  She went and looked out a rear window. “Beautiful garden. Do all the houses get to use it?”

  “Yep, it’s a common garden. All the houses open onto it.”

  “Nice feature.”

  “So what are you going to do today?”

  “Start looking for Trini Rodriguez, I guess.”

  “Oh? Where?”

  “Where do mafiosi hang out?”

  Stone slipped his feet into a pair of loafers. “Hang on a minute. Trini is in the Federal Witness Protection Program, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, the Feds usually put people in there when they’re going to testify against the Mafia, when they’re running from the mob, you know?”

  “Oh, I don’t think Trini would ever testify against his people.”

  “Then who are the Feds protecting him from?”

  “Probably me.”

  “Holly, that just doesn’t make any sense. Why would they protect him from you?”

  “Because he’s theirs, and they don’t want me getting him tried in Indian River County. And they think if he’s theirs, nobody else has a right to him. Well, I have a right to him.”

  “You’re a very determined gir. . . woman, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, and I don’t mind being called a girl, except at work. So where do the Mafia guys hang out?”

  “Well, they used to hang out in Little Italy, but these days they seem to be more scattered. I guess there are some in each borough.”

  “Borough?”

  “There are five in New York: Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx, and Manhattan. Until the turn of the century, they were separate cities.”

  “So where’s Little Italy?”

  “Downtown.”

  “Will a cabdriver know it?”

  “That’s problematical these days,” Stone said. “Tell you what: I’ve got a light day; I’ll drive you down there, maybe buy you some lunch.”

  “Hey, that sounds great, but I’m buying. You get the gas.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  She put a hand under Daisy’s chin and gazed into her eyes. “You stay here and be a good girl,” she said, then she turned to Stone. “Do you want her to kill anybody who comes into the house?”

  “No, thanks,” Stone replied. “I wouldn’t want to come home and find my secretary dead.”

  Stone slipped into a tweed jacket. “Okay, let’s go.” He led her downstairs to the garage, opened the door, and backed out, closing the garage door with a remote control.

  “Your car makes a nice noise,” she said, as he accelerated toward Second Avenue. It’s an E55, isn’t it?”

  “Very good. Most people can’t distinguish it from the ordinary E-class Mercedes.”

  “I drove one, once; pretended that I was a prospective customer. I liked it.”

  “Did you train Daisy yourself?”

  “No, she was trained by an old army buddy of my father’s who got murdered. I bought her from his daughter. Daisy is what’s called in dog-breeding circles an ‘Excellent Working Bitch.’ ”

  Stone laughed. “I like that.”

  “Applies to me, too,” Holly said, grinning.

  Soon they were creeping through traffic throug
h the little streets of Little Italy. “That’s Umberto’s Clam House,” Stone said, pointing at a little restaurant. “Joey Gallo got shot there. Down the street is a coffeehouse, where some other don got it while playing bocce in the back garden. You may have seen that photograph of the corpse, with a cigar still clamped in his teeth.”

  “I think I saw that on the History Channel,” Holly said.

  “I guess you have a lot of time for things like the History Channel in Orchid Beach.”

  “Oh, we get out of the house once in a while.” She pointed at a little restaurant. “Let’s have lunch there.”

  “Okay. Let me find a parking space.”

  “I’ll go ahead and get a table.” She opened the door and got out. It took Stone another ten minutes before somebody freed up a parking space, and when he got back to the restaurant, she was sitting at a table in the window, looking at the menu. He stopped and just looked for a moment. He was finding her more and more attractive. He went in and took a seat.

  “What looks good?”

  “Pasta,” she said. “I was thinking about the white clam sauce.”

  A waiter came over.

  “I’ll have the same,” Stone said, after she’d ordered. “And let’s have a bottle of the Frascati.”

  “I hope that’s a dry white wine,” she said.

  “It is.”

  The waiter brought the bottle and poured them each a glass.

  Stone raised his glass. “To . . .” But, to his astonishment, Holly had kicked over her chair and run out of the restaurant. He ran to the front door and looked down the street in time to see her sprinting through the crowds on the sidewalk, her handbag in one hand and his Walther in the other.

  4

  STONE RAN A few steps in the direction Holly had taken, but she had disappeared into the crowd. He ran back to the restaurant, left some money on the table, and ran to his car. He executed a lucky U-turn and started down the street, checking both sides for Holly. A couple of blocks down, he found a parking place and got out of the car, searching the street for signs of her. Then he saw her half a block away, walking toward him. He leaned on the car and waited.

  “I can’t believe I let the son of a bitch outrun me,” Holly said, though she wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “You saw Trini?”

  “He walked right past the restaurant. Didn’t you see him?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what he looks like,” Stone said. “You want to give me a description?”

  “Six-two or -three, two hundred pounds, looks more Hispanic than Italian. He has black hair with a ponytail; evil face.”

  “Evil face? I don’t recall ever having seen that description on a wanted poster.”

  “Trust me. What are we doing about lunch?”

  Stone looked around. “I’m not giving up this parking spot. Follow me.” He led her a few blocks into Chinatown, to a restaurant called Hong Fat, and soon they were eating noodles.

  “So, are you a native New Yorker?” Holly asked.

  “Born and bred in Greenwich Village; father was a cabinet and furniture maker, mother, a painter. Went to NYU and NYU law school. My last year I joined a program to ride with the NYPD, became enamored of law enforcement, and, on graduation, joined the department, became a detective three years later, partnered up with Dino, and had a hell of a good time. Put in fourteen years. That’s the nutshell bio.”

  She shook her head. “Incomplete. Why’d you leave the force?”

  “The force left me. We disagreed on an investigation I was ostensibly running, and they used a knee wound as an excuse to ship me out. I did a cram course on the bar exam, took it, passed, and joined the law firm of Woodman and Weld, courtesy of an old law school buddy. That complete enough?”

  “For the moment,” she said.

  “How about you?”

  “Born in the army, grew up in the army, mother died when I was twelve, joined the army after high school, got a degree in the service, went to OCS, got a commission, and commanded MPs for the rest of my twenty years.”

  “Why didn’t you go for thirty?”

  “Another female officer and I accused a bird colonel of sexual harassment—rape, in the other girl’s case. We got him court-martialed, but he was acquitted. After that, there was no place to go in the army. He had too many friends in high and low places. Got an offer of the deputy chief’s job in Orchid Beach; the chief got himself killed, and I was bumped up a rung. Met Jackson Oxenhandler, moved in with him, made plans to marry him. You know the rest.”

  “How are you living with that?”

  “Better than can be expected. I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing things, so I tucked it away in the back of my mind. It comes out once in a while, but less and less often. Jackson, fortunately, had made a will, and he left me well fixed.”

  “Seen any men since then?”

  “Just one—Grant Early Harrison. We had . . . well, I guess you’d describe it as a fling, and after he got the AIC’s job in Miami, we cooled down. Before, he’d been an undercover agent, and that was interesting. Now he’s a bureaucrat, and that’s not.”

  “Ever thought of getting out of that little town?”

  “Listen, so much happens in that little town you wouldn’t believe it. I’ve busted up two major organized crime operations in three years, with all the attendant homicides and other felonies. You’re looking funny—skeptical, maybe. What are you thinking?”

  “I was just thinking, the idea of you waltzing into town, looking for some guy in the Witness Protection Program, then going down to Little Italy your first day and spotting him on the street is ludicrous; couldn’t happen.”

  “That sort of thing happens to me all the time,” Holly said, laughing. “Either there’s some sort of angel watching over me, or I’m the world’s best cop.”

  “Another thing: It’s okay for you to pack my Walther while you’re in town—the NYPD would overlook that, since you’re a serving officer—but if you start shooting at Trini on the street and clip a civilian—well, that’s big trouble. You might keep that in mind.”

  “I certainly will,” Holly replied. “I’d take a dim view of something like that happening in my jurisdiction.”

  “Good. And if you remember that you’re not in your jurisdiction, that would be a big help. Even if you hit Trini between the eyes with your first shot—that’s a lot of paperwork for the locals, and the New York news media would fall on you from a great height.”

  “Okay, okay,” Holly said, raising her hands in surrender. “Lecture heard and understood. You want the Walther back?”

  “Keep it,” Stone said, “but make sure the circumstances are dire before you use it.”

  “Dire,” she replied. “I promise. So how’s your love life, Stone? Now that we’ve covered mine.”

  “Varied,” Stone said.

  “I’ll bet that’s a New York City term, meaning ‘nonexistent.’ ”

  “You sound like Dino.”

  “And I’ve seen you looking at me. You look pretty horny.”

  Stone tried to repress a blush. “You’re an attractive girl,” he said, “but don’t get cocky; it’s unbecoming.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to do anything unbecoming.”

  “If I put my hand on your knee, is Daisy going to bite it off?”

  “She will if I tell her to.”

  “Would you tell her to?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t need her help to handle you.”

  Stone choked on a noodle.

  5

  AFTER LUNCH, STONE drove them back to his house, and Holly and Daisy headed for Central Park and a long walk. Stone called down to his office.

  “Good afternoon,” Joan said dryly.

  “Sorry I didn’t check in this morning,” he said. “I took my houseguest downtown for lunch.”

  “You didn’t tell me you bought a killer dog,” she said. “I went upstairs to find you, and, luckily, I slammed the door before he could tear my arm o
ff.”

  “She,” Stone said. “It’s Holly’s dog. Didn’t you meet her when Holly arrived?”

  “No, I was on my way out. I just gave her the key and the alarm code and pointed her upstairs. I guess the dog was still in the cab.”

  “Anything up this morning?”

  “Well, a guy who says he’s an old friend of yours has been waiting for you for more than an hour.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He won’t say, and he won’t leave. Could you get down here and deal with him, please?”

  “I’ll be right there,” Stone said. He got up and went downstairs to his office. As he came down the stairs he could see down the hall to the waiting area, and saw two long legs extended from a chair, with a very fine pair of shoes at the end of them.

  “Good afternoon,” Stone said. He couldn’t see the face, but when the man stood up, it was familiar enough.

  “Lance Cabot,” he said.

  “So that’s his name,” Joan’s voice called from her office.

  Lance offered his hand. “I’m sorry, perhaps I was being too cautious. I thought that if you called in and she gave you my name, you might not want to see me.”

  “Come into my office,” Stone said, pointing the way. He was still trying to get his breath back. A little more than a year before, a man had walked into his office and offered Stone a lot of money to go to London to rescue his niece from the clutches of her bad, bad boyfriend, whose name had been Lance Cabot.

  Stone had taken the job, only to learn that his client had used a false name and was trying to track down Cabot to kill him. The client, whose name turned out to be Stanford Hedger, was CIA, and Cabot was ex-Agency, then operating as a rogue. Stone had asked for help from a friend and had been contacted by British intelligence, who asked him to enter into a business arrangement with Cabot, who was trying to steal some important equipment from a military arms lab. With the help of an inside man, Cabot had stolen the item, presumably sold it to bad people, and had disappeared with Stone’s money. A couple of weeks later, to Stone’s astonishment, his money had been returned, along with the healthy profit Cabot had promised him.

  Lance took a seat and crossed his legs. He was casually dressed in a tweed jacket and tan trousers, looking for all the world like a resident of New York, out for a walk and a cup of coffee.