Standup Guy (Stone Barrington) Read online

  “I’m Stone Barrington.”

  “Sounds like a lawyer’s name.”

  “You have something against lawyers?”

  “Not a thing. Maybe that’s because I’ve never had to hire one.”

  “You’ve led a blameless life, then?”

  “I wouldn’t go as far as that. Let’s just say I never got caught.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m an illustrator—books, magazines, advertising—wherever the work is.”

  Stone handed her a cocktail napkin and his pen. “Illustrate something.”

  She took the pen, made a few quick strokes, and handed back the napkin.

  He found a recognizable sketch of himself, sparely drawn. “Okay, you’re an illustrator.”

  “You thought I was lying?”

  “I wanted to see if you’re any good. You are.” He looked up to see Dino and Viv getting out of Dino’s departmental black SUV on Third. “I’m meeting a couple for dinner. Would you like to join us?”

  She shrugged. “Why not? I’m hungry.”

  The couple came through the doors, and Stone introduced them to Hank, then they went to the back room and found their table.

  “I’ll bet you two just met,” Dino said.

  “Why do you say that?” Hank asked.

  “Because no woman who already knows Stone would have dinner with him.”

  “Calumny,” Stone said.

  “I’m on Stone’s side,” Viv said to her. “Dino just likes to needle him.”

  “I thought,” Hank replied.

  “I went to see Sean Donnelly this afternoon,” Dino said.

  “I hope he was in terrible pain and getting worse,” Stone replied.

  “You were right about the roses, they were driving him nuts.”

  “Did he tell you anything?”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Dino said.

  “Somebody thinks he does.”

  Hank broke in. “Is this the guy who got shot last night?”

  “Right,” Dino said. “How’d you know?”

  “I heard Stone talking to the bartender about it.”

  “Charlie called nine-one-one, but he wasn’t too upset about it,” Stone said.

  “Sean has that effect on people. By the way, he hates your guts, calls you StonefuckingBarrington.”

  Stone laughed. “I choose my enemies well.”

  “What about you, pal?” Dino asked.

  “Me? What about me?”

  “You had any . . . repercussions?”

  “A couple of Secret Service agents showed up with a hundred-dollar bill that Joan deposited in my account.”

  “Payment for legal advice?”

  “You could say that. They felt that the bill was too old to be in my possession. It was printed sometime after 1966.”

  “One of those with the red seal on them?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Should I mention that to Sean Donnelly?”

  “You do, and I’ll shoot you in a painful place.”

  Dino laughed.

  “You guys lead interesting lives,” Hank said. “What do you do, Viv?”

  “I used to be a cop, too, but these days I’m a security executive.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I work for a large security company called Strategic Services.”

  “And you do what?”

  “We secure things and people. How about you?”

  “Illustrator.”

  “She’s not kidding,” Stone said, producing the cocktail napkin with his portrait.

  “Not bad,” Viv said.

  “You missed the shifty eyes,” Dino pointed out.

  Hank laughed. “Next time, I’ll make them shiftier.”

  They ordered dinner and a bottle of wine. Four steaks and a lot of fries later, Stone invited them all back to his place for a nightcap. They rode in Dino’s car.

  “Listen,” Dino said, as they got out at Stone’s house, “you should watch your ass for a while. Sean knows you’re mixed up with Fratelli, and if he knows, other people know.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Stone said.

  “I know you’re not used to it these days, but you should start carrying.”

  “I guess so,” Stone said.

  18

  Stone let them into the house, entered the alarm code, and took their coats.

  “Very nice,” Hank said, looking around the well-lit living room. “You must spend a fortune on lightbulbs.”

  “The new lightbulbs cost a fortune,” Stone said, “but they’re supposed to outlive me.” He herded them toward the study, where the lights were already on, too. “Actually, the lights come on when the alarm code is entered. If it’s entered incorrectly, they flash on and off, the cops are called, and the surveillance cameras come on. What can I get you?”

  “A cognac, if you have it.”

  “I have it. Do you have a preference?”

  “The costliest,” Hank replied.

  Stone laughed and poured them all a vintage cognac.

  “You seem a little on the paranoid side, Stone,” Hank said, settling into the leather sofa. “Security system, flashing lights, surveillance cameras.”

  “He’s not paranoid enough,” Dino said, “and if I were you I wouldn’t get too near him, until a certain matter is resolved, or you could become collaterally damaged.”

  Stone pressed a button and a panel slid silently up, revealing a safe. He opened it, retrieved a small handgun and a holster, and clipped it to his belt, then he joined Hank on the sofa.

  “There,” he said. “Feel better?”

  “Only slightly,” she said. “There’s always the chance that you’ll shoot me.”

  “If it helps,” Viv said, “all of us here are armed, with the possible exception of yourself.”

  Hank reached into her thick hair and produced an old-fashioned hatpin, about six inches long. “Only this,” she said, “for incipient rapists.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Stone said.

  “Why, were you planning to rape me?”

  “Not while that pig-sticker is in your hand.”

  She returned the pin to her hair. “There,” she said, “out of the way.”

  Everybody laughed. Then the doorbell rang, and the laughter stopped.

  “Who the hell is that, this time of night?” Dino asked.

  Stone pressed a button on the phone on his desk and a small screen lit up, revealing a well-lit person wearing a blue shirt and a blue baseball cap, standing with his back to the door. “Yes?” he asked into the phone.

  The man didn’t turn around but waved something that looked like a FedEx envelope. “Mr. Barrington? Delivery.”

  “Just put it through the slot in the door,” Stone replied.

  “Sorry, I need a signature.”

  “Be right with you.” Stone stood up.

  “Watch yourself, pal,” Dino said, standing himself. He unholstered a handgun.

  “Be right back,” Stone said, unholstering his own weapon.

  Viv walked to the door and stood where she could see them.

  Stone went to the door, put the chain on, and opened it a crack, standing well away from it. “Okay,” he said, “hand it through.”

  An envelope came through the door and, simultaneously, there came two rapid booms from the other side of the door, and it moved inward, yanking the chain tight. Then there was the sound of running footsteps, the slamming of a car door, and the noise of rubber burning.

  Stone unhooked the chain, but Dino grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back. “This is a police matter,” he said, stepping onto the front stoop, his gun held before him.

  Stone pulled the door open and looked over his shoulder. Taillights turned right on Second Avenue. “You see anything?”

  “Just the taillights,” Dino replied. He pointed at the front door, where pockmarks had been left and paint burned away.

  “Looks like buckshot,” he said. �
�You’re going to need a painter.”

  “Guess so,” Stone said. “You going to call this in?”

  “Yeah, but it won’t help much. I’ll put a squad car out front for the night, though, so you can get some sleep.” He produced a cell phone and barked some orders.

  When they returned to the study, Hank had not moved from the sofa. “What was that noise?” she asked.

  “A shotgun,” Dino replied. “There was an attempt on Stone’s life. The front door took the damage.”

  “Won’t a shotgun shoot through a door?”

  “Not a heavy-gauge steel door,” Stone said, picking up his cognac and joining her on the sofa.

  “Why do you have a heavy-gauge steel front door, instead of an oak one, like everybody else?” Hank asked.

  “Oh, a thick oak door would have probably withstood the blast,” he said, “but it would have needed replacing. The steel door will just need a little filler and paint.”

  “Suppose someone had fired through a window?”

  “The windows are armored glass,” Stone replied. “I once had a guest important to the government for some days, and they replaced the door and all the windows, as a security precaution.”

  “So your house is an impregnable fortress?”

  “It probably wouldn’t stand up to a rocket-propelled grenade,” he said, “but those are in short supply in New York City.”

  “You live in a different world from mine,” Hank said.

  “Not really, mine just has harder surfaces.”

  “How did you come to own this house?”

  “Back when I was still a serving police detective, with Dino as a partner, my great-aunt—my maternal grandmother’s sister—died and left it to me. She and her husband had built it during the 1920s. I renovated it over a period of a year and a half, doing all the work myself that didn’t require a plumber’s or an electrician’s license. My father was a cabinet and furniture maker—an artist, really. He made all the shelves, all the doors, and much of the furniture, like the dining table and chairs. I refinished those, updated the kitchen and the electrical supply, air-conditioned it and, voilà, a home.”

  “And a free one.”

  “Hardly. It took all the money I had and all I could borrow, and thousands of hours of labor, most of it mine. I had to use my old law degree to pay the money back.”

  “Was your mother Matilda Stone?”

  “Yes.”

  “I recognized these pictures,” Hank said, indicating the ones on the wall of the study. “I saw them in an exhibition of American painting at the Met some years ago.”

  “I loaned them.”

  “How many of her works do you have?”

  “She left me four. Over the years I’ve managed to acquire another dozen.”

  “I’d love to see them all.”

  “They’re scattered around the house,” Stone said, “most of them in my bedroom.”

  Dino laughed. “Here we go,” he said.

  Everybody laughed.

  “It’s late,” Hank said, “and I have work due in the morning. Another time?”

  “Another time,” Stone said.

  “We’ll send her home in my car,” Dino said.

  19

  John Fratelli sat in a deck chair on a terrace of the Breakers, the monumental, turn-of-the-twentieth-century hotel built by Henry Flagler, the partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil.

  Fratelli was an honored guest in a small suite overlooking the Atlantic, and he had spent his time in Palm Beach well. He had obtained a birth certificate by visiting a Palm Beach cemetery and checking the birth and death dates. His name was now John Latimer Coulter. He had Googled the name and found nothing, so he had applied for and received a Florida driver’s license in that name and, through a visa expediter, a United States passport, both with the address of One South County Road, the address of the Breakers. He was also considering buying the suite that he occupied. It would put a dent in his capital, but he thought it a good investment.

  An elderly man sat down next to him and snagged a passing waiter. “A piña colada,” he said, then he turned to Fratelli. “Can I buy you a drink, my friend?”

  “Thank you, I’ll have the same.”

  The waiter trotted off to the bar, and the elderly gentleman extended a hand. “I am Winston Carnagy,” he said.

  “Like Andrew?”

  “With an ‘a’ instead of an ‘e’ and a ‘y’ instead of an ‘ie.’ No relation.”

  “I’m Jack Coulter.”

  “What brings you to Palm Beach, Jack?”

  “What brings anybody to Palm Beach?” Fratelli asked with a shrug.

  The man laughed heartily. “You’re quite right. Where are you from?”

  “I was actually born in Palm Beach,” Fratelli said, “but for many years my home was in upstate New York. I’m considering buying an apartment here in the hotel.”

  “I have already done so,” Carnagy replied. “It’s a wise move, if you can afford it.”

  “You live here during the season?”

  “The year ’round,” Carnagy replied. “I’m a retired investment banker, but I still trade a little to keep myself entertained.”

  The two chatted for a while, then repaired to the outdoor restaurant for lunch, where Carnagy’s wife joined them. Tall and elegant, perfectly coiffed and dressed in fashionable beachwear, Elizabeth Carnagy enchanted Fratelli. She revealed that they had two daughters and three grandchildren and pointed them out on the beach below. It occurred to Fratelli that these were the first civilians he had met since leaving Sing Sing.

  Soon, Fratelli began to feel that the Carnagys were old friends. Elizabeth finished her salad and went to join her daughters and grandchildren on the beach.

  “What business are you in?” Winston Carnagy asked.

  “I’m a retired entrepreneur,” Fratelli replied. “Tell me, Winston, have you any experience of offshore banking?” Fratelli, having always had an imitative ear, had already begun to adopt Carnagy’s manner of speech and some of his accent.

  Carnagy looked around furtively, as if there might be an Internal Revenue agent behind a potted palm. “I do,” he said. “Are you contemplating such an arrangement?”

  “I am, but I know nothing about it.”

  “Have you greenback dollar bills to lodge somewhere?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Here’s how you do it,” Carnagy said. “You look in the yellow pages under ‘aviation’ and charter a light airplane—a small twin-engine job will do—to fly you to Nassau, where you check into a previously booked hotel. The following morning, without checking out of your hotel, you do the same at the Nassau airport, and you fly to Georgetown in the Cayman Islands—just the other side of Cuba. Once there, ask the immigration official you deal with not to stamp your passport. Have your pilot wait, and take a taxi into Georgetown.” He produced a business card and wrote something on the back. “Go to this bank and ask for this gentleman, who is the officer in charge of foreign accounts. Open an account with him and deposit your cash.”

  “As easy as that?”

  “Quite. You needn’t give him your name, as the account will be identified only by a number, which you must memorize. You may check your statement on the bank’s Internet website, using a password of your own invention. Also, they will furnish you with a debit card that may be used anywhere in the world to charge anything, or to obtain cash from any ATM.”

  “That sounds very handy,” Fratelli said. “Does the IRS have any sort of access to the bank’s records?”

  “No, but don’t count on that continuing. However, since your only connection with the bank is a number, and since they do not have your name and address, you needn’t worry about that. You can also ring them up at will and order a cashier’s check FedExed to you, should you wish to make a large purchase, like a car or even an apartment in this hotel.”

  “Winston, you are a mine of information,” Fratelli said.

  “A
nd should you wish to make investments, I can recommend a local stockbroker.”

  “Thank you, Winston, but I have other investments in mind.”

  In fact, Fratelli had already looked up an old “school” acquaintance, now operating as a bookie and loan shark around South Florida. He had lodged a million dollars cash with him, in return for a weekly delivery of fifty thousand dollars cash, or five percent. The man would loan it at ten percent a week and would take care of any necessary leg-breaking out of his cut. But Fratelli would not share that information with Carnagy, who would no doubt be shocked.

  That was a million dollars in out-of-date hundreds laundered. A Cayman Islands bank would launder the rest of the contents of his luggage, which now resided in the hotel’s vault.

  “Do you have a wife?” Carnagy asked.

  “No, I have lived the life of a bachelor, though perhaps it’s time for me to shop around for more permanent companionship.”

  “My wife has a very attractive niece,” Carnagy said. “Divorced, childless, and with her own money. You might enjoy meeting her.”

  “I am sure I would,” Fratelli replied, “just as soon as I get back from, ah, the Bahamas.”

  The two gentlemen shared a chuckle.

  • • •

  Down the coast, in Fort Lauderdale, Fratelli’s old “school” friend sat in his boss’s office, sweating lightly. His boss held up a hundred-dollar bill that sported a red seal.

  “Do you know what this is, Manny?” the boss asked.

  “Sure, Vinnie, it’s a C-note.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Get it? Me?”

  “One of our handlers spotted it, said it came from you.”

  “It looks just like any other C-note,” Manny said. “Is it bogus? If it is, I’ve never seen better.”

  “No, it’s not bogus,” the boss said, “it’s just old.”

  “Still legal tender?”

  “It is. But if you come across another one, bring it to me, and we’ll talk.”

  “Sure thing,” Manny said. “Anything else?”

  “That’s it. Keep up the good work.”

  Manny left the office flapping his open jacket to cool himself down. He hoped his boss hadn’t noticed the sweat.