Naked Greed
Authors: Stuart Woods
Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #General
BOOKS BY STUART WOODS
FICTION
Hot Pursuit
Insatiable Appetites
†
Paris Match
†
Cut and Thrust
†
Carnal Curiosity
†
Standup Guy
†
Doing Hard Time
†
Unintended Consequences
†
Collateral Damage
†
Severe Clear
†
Unnatural Acts
†
D.C. Dead
†
Son of Stone
†
Bel-Air Dead
†
Strategic Moves
†
Santa Fe Edge
§
Lucid Intervals
†
Kisser
†
Hothouse Orchid*
Loitering with Intent
†
Mounting Fears
‡
Hot Mahogany
†
Santa Fe Dead
§
Beverly Hills Dead
Shoot Him If He Runs
†
Fresh Disasters
†
Short Straw
§
Dark Harbor
†
Iron Orchid*
Two-Dollar Bill
†
The Prince of Beverly Hills
Reckless Abandon
†
Capital Crimes
‡
Dirty Work
†
Blood Orchid*
The Short Forever
†
Orchid Blues*
Cold Paradise
†
L.A. Dead
†
The Run
‡
Worst Fears Realized
†
Orchid Beach*
Swimming to Catalina
†
Dead in the Water
†
Dirt
†
Choke
Imperfect Strangers
Heat
Dead Eyes
L.A. Times
Santa Fe Rules
§
New York Dead
†
Palindrome
Grass Roots
‡
White Cargo
Under the Lake
Deep Lie
‡
Run Before the Wind
‡
Chiefs
‡
TRAVEL
A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland
(1979)
MEMOIR
Blue Water, Green Skipper
*A Holly Barker Novel
†
A Stone Barrington Novel
‡
A Will Lee Novel
§
An Ed Eagle Novel
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2015 by Stuart Woods
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woods, Stuart.
Naked greed / Stuart Woods.
p. cm.—(Stone Barrington ; 34)
ISBN 978-1-101-66424-7
1. Barrington, Stone (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.O642N35 2015 2015007427
813'.54—dc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
CONTENTS
Stone Barrington and Dino Bacchetti were having dinner at Patroon, a favorite restaurant. Dino’s wife, Viv, was out of town on business—she was an executive at the world’s second-largest security company, Strategic Services, and had to travel a lot, so Stone and Dino were having, perhaps, their thousandth dinner together, just the two of them.
The owner, Ken Aretzky, stopped by and bought them a drink, then continued on his rounds. They ordered the Caesar salad, a house specialty prepared at the table, and the chateaubriand, medium rare, and Stone ordered a bottle of the Laughing Hare Cabernet.
“Laughing Hare?” Dino asked.
“A Cabernet you never heard of,” Stone said. “Honest public servants can’t afford it.” Dino was New York City’s commissioner of police, but the two men had been partners as homicide detectives many years before. “That’s why I’m buying.”
The waiter brought the bottle and poured them a taste. Dino sampled it. “So I should consider this a bribe?”
“Let’s call it a bribe in the bank, since there’s nothing in particular I want from you at the moment.”
“That makes a nice change,” Dino said, and took a larger swig of the wine. “Not bad.”
“You are given to understatement,” Stone said.