Naked Greed (11 page)

The group was too large for Stone’s study, so they had drinks in the living room. Fred poured the champagne and the drinks and by the time the last guests, Herbie Fisher and his beautiful new girlfriend, Heather, arrived the party had upshifted from cordiality to conviviality, though nobody was wearing a lamp shade yet.

At the stroke of eight o’clock, Fred rang the silver dinner gong that Stone had found at a shop in the King’s Road, London, some years before, and the guests began looking for their place cards. Stone had put Ian Rattle and Caroline at the far end of the table from where he sat with Holly on his right and Heather to his left. For insurance, in case Caroline did not find Ian sufficiently attractive, he had placed Herbie on her other side.

“What brings you to New York, Ian?” Bill Eggers asked.

“Oh, a bit of housekeeping at our UN embassy,” Ian replied smoothly. “Very boring, but periodically necessary.”

“You’re with the Foreign Office, then?”

“For my sins.”

That received a chuckle, and no one probed further.

“Holly, what’s your excuse to get out of Washington?” Eggers’s most recent wife, Eleanora, asked.

“I’m speaking at a luncheon tomorrow at the Foreign Policy Association.”

“And your subject?”

“The Middle East, what else?”

“Are you for it or against it?” Stone asked.

“You’ll have to sit through a rubber chicken lunch to find out,” she replied, then turned to Dino. “Dino, I hear that you somehow were recently appointed police commissioner, or is that just an ill-founded rumor?”

“I’m afraid it is so,” Dino said.

“Next, you’ll be running for president.”

“If that should ever happen, Stone has promised to shoot me.”

“And I will keep that promise,” Stone said.

“Dino,” Herbie said, “you’ve been getting remarkably good press since you moved into One Police Plaza. How do you do that?”

“By keeping my mouth shut,” Dino replied. “If you don’t say anything, they can’t quote you.”

“I’ve been telling him to shut up for years,” Stone said.

The dinner moved from a foie gras course, through a duck course and a soufflé course to a cheese course. Fred had decanted two bottles of port Stone had been saving for a special occasion, and a perfect Stilton was served with it.

“My God,” Ian exclaimed after tasting the wine. “What
is
this?”

“It’s a Quinta do Noval Nacional ’61.”

“I know Noval, but what is Nacional?”

“It’s a tiny area in the Noval vineyard, planted with ungrafted, pre-phylloxera vines, and virtually unobtainable, unless you know somebody. Fortunately, I know Marcel du Bois, our French partner in the Arrington hotels, who gave me four bottles for Christmas last year.”

“This wine is older than my parents!” Heather said, getting a laugh.

When the guests moved to leave, not a drop of the port had been wasted.

—

W
hen the last guest had left, Stone invited Ian into his study and gave him a glass of very old Armagnac.

“That was a perfect dinner,” Ian said. “I didn’t know California wines could be that good, and the port, of course, was nothing short of sensational.”

“We try to keep our royalist cousins entertained when they cross the pond,” Stone said. “Especially when they’re chased across the pond.”

“Holly explained, did she?”

“She did. How does it feel to be quarry?”

“Hot. Their first attempt was a car bomb that killed a parking attendant. The second was a silenced bullet through a sixteenth-century glass pane at a country house during dinner. That last one put the wind up Dame Felicity. I mean, it was supposed to be a
safe
house, you know?”

“Holly says Felicity is sparing no effort in her investigation. She compared it to the Philby foofaraw.”

“Oh, that was an aggravated case of old-boyism. They couldn’t believe that someone of their own class could be working for the opposition. In this case, well, I’m a military brat—no family connections. The culprit will probably turn out to be a cleaning lady or a driver, or some such person, no doubt for money.”

“I don’t know much about Dahai.”

Ian shrugged. “It’s a sultan’s palace perched on a lake of oil, not much else.”

“And why do they think Millie Martindale is in no danger?”

“Oh, greater London has a large Middle Eastern immigrant population that can conceal an operative. Washington doesn’t. They’d have to go at her through the Dahai embassy there, and since the outing of their chargé d’affaires, they can’t operate quite so freely. In fact, I’m surprised the State Department hasn’t shut them down and shipped them home. That’s what our Foreign Office did.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m a bit of a target myself, at the present time.” Stone told him about the Perado affair and Gino Parisi’s hoods.

Ian raised his glass. “Brothers in arms,” he said.

Stone drank to that.

Ian yawned. “I think I’d better go fight the jet lag,” he said, setting his glass down.

“Of course,” Stone said, rising and shaking his hand. “Sleep well.” He had seen Caroline slip into the elevator.

Dino called the following morning to thank Stone for dinner. “The port was fantastic.”

“Way too good for you,” Stone replied.

“I hesitate to bring this up,” Dino said, “but I believe Caroline and the Brit were hatching something.”

“They were indeed,” Stone said. “I heard her slip out at six
AM
.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“I discovered I’m not very good at sprinting over distance, and Caroline is indefatigable.”

“So you planned that?”

“Let’s just say I thought seating them together was a good idea. And speaking of ideas, I’ve had a thought about resolving the Gino Parisi thing.”

“You’re going to kill him?”

“Certainly not. Tell me this: Does your department have somebody undercover who might deliver a little message to Frank and Charlie?”

“Maybe. What kind of message?”

“I’d like for them to hear that Gino wants to get rid of them.”

“You want them to hear that Gino is firing them?”

“No, I want them to hear that Gino thinks they’re too expensive, that it’s cheaper for him to hire someone else to, ah, fire them.”

“That’s a dirty, rotten thing to do to anybody,” Dino said. “I love it.”

“I thought you might.”

“Let me see what I can do. This would have to happen very subtly.”

“I thought your fine Italian hand could manage that.”

“I’ll get back to you.” Dino hung up.

Joan came into the office. “The two goons are back—the real goons, not the ersatz ones.”

“Tell you what,” Stone said, “ask Fred to take them some coffee and Danish. Maybe they haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“Now, why would you want to do that?”

“I want them to think well of me.”

She looked at him narrowly. “Why?”

“Because if they think well of me they might be a little less interested in causing me harm.”

“You think you can buy off a pair of pro goons with coffee and Danish?”

“It can’t hurt to try. And do it every morning. I want them to get used to it.”

There was a rap on the back door to Stone’s office.

“Come in!”

Ian Rattle let himself in from the kitchen. “Good morning.”

“Come in and have a seat, Ian. This is my secretary, Joan Robertson. Joan, our houseguest, Major Ian Rattle.”

Joan shook his hand.

“I think you have a delivery to arrange,” Stone said to her.

Joan left, shaking her head.

“I wanted to thank you again for last evening,” Ian said.

“Did you enjoy your second dessert?”

Ian seemed surprised. “Did you arrange that?”

“No, Caroline arranged it. All I did was give her the opportunity.”

“The generosity of Americans never ceases to amaze me!”

“Really, it was less an act of generosity than self-preservation. Are you comfortable in your suite?”

“It’s bloody marvelous,” Ian replied. “Better than my London flat.”

“Peter did a nice job on it, I thought. He’s left a DVD collection of old films. You’re welcome to sample them.”

“I love good movies. He’s a film buff, is he?”

“He’s a film director, and a very good one. My library is available, too, if you want to read. I don’t want you to start getting cabin fever.”

“Frankly, I could use the rest, if I can have an occasional visit from Caroline.”

“If that’s what you think of as rest, go right ahead. Does she understand that you’re not really here?”

“We discussed that.”

“Invite anyone you like, as long as you trust them.”

“My orders are to have no one in, unless they’ve been approved by my service.”

“I see. We can call Caroline my guest, then.”

“Thank you. Holly said that the Agency had taken special security precautions here. What sort of precautions?”

“They removed the brick veneer from the front and rear of the house, put up half-inch steel plating, then replaced the brick. They also replaced all the windows in the house with armored glass in steel frames. You won’t have that problem with the windowpanes that you did in your so-called safe house.”

“That’s a relief. I’ve been instinctively staying away from windows ever since.”

“I’ll see you at lunchtime in the kitchen,” Stone said, and Ian went upstairs.

Arnie Jacobs tended bar at a joint downtown, and he had a very nice sideline in snitching for the NYPD. Bartenders were invisible to a lot of people, who would talk freely while he was standing there, polishing glasses. Now he had new instructions from a detective in the Organized Crime Division, and he was polishing glasses and thinking about how he was going to reverse the process when Frank Russo came in with his buddy Charlie Carney. He poured them both their usual without being asked.

“Hey, Arnie,” Frank said.

“Hey, Frank.” Arnie leaned in. “I picked up a little something yesterday, might interest you.”

“I’m all ears, Arnie.”

“Coupla guys I didn’t know came in yesterday, ordered beers and started gabbin’. Lotsa people think bartenders don’t got ears, y’know?”

“Okay.”

“I hear your name mentioned.”

“How mentioned?”

Arnie looked carefully around. “Not so good.”

“Then I better hear it.”

“They’re talking about some guy named Gino. I didn’t get his other name.”

“Yeah? I know a Gino or two.”

“This one owes you money.”

“Oh,
that
Gino.”

“I guess. Problem is, he doesn’t wanta pay.”

“I tell ya, Arnie,
nobody
wants to pay.”

“This one thinks it’s maybe cheaper to take you out. Charlie, too.”

Frank froze. “Tell me exactly how he said it.”

“One guy says, ‘Gino wants to hire us to take out Frank and Charlie, says it’s cheaper than payin’ him.’”

“Exactly like that?”

“Exactly.”

“No doubt in your mind?”

“Not a one.”

Frank tossed off his drink and put a hundred on the bar. “Thanks, Arnie.”

Arnie made the hundred disappear. “Always a pleasure, Frank.”

“C’mon, Charlie,” Frank said, standing up. “We got a collection call to make. You drive.”

—

I
n the car Frank produced a nicely made silencer and screwed it into the barrel of his little 9mm, then tucked it into his belt.

“You gonna off ’im?” Charlie asked.

“Depends,” Frank said, getting out his cell phone. “Gino? Frank. I gotta see you right now. Yeah, I know it’s quitting time, but it’s important. I’ll be there in ten.” He hung up.

They parked in the garage next door to Gino’s office building. “C’mon,” Frank said. Charlie followed him next door and inside. On Gino’s floor, Frank said, “Stay by the door, don’t let nobody in.”

Charlie nodded and took up his station. Frank went in and found Gino at his desk.

“What’s the problem, Frank?” Gino asked. “I’ll be late for dinner.”

“Problem is, you owe me two grand,” Frank said. He tossed a list of his expenses on Gino’s desk.

“You ain’t done nothing yet,” Gino said.

“I got the better part of a week in this, and I got expenses, just like you.”