Desperate Measures

12

Dino arrived, and they all sat down before the fire in Stone’s study.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so tired,” Stone said to Dino.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired,” Dino replied, taking a gulp of his drink. “I’m taking the Scottish remedy for fatigue. It’ll start to work soon.”

“Any news at all?”

“Not a whiff,” Dino said. “It’s like these people were going full steam ahead, then slammed on the brakes.”

“Are you disappointed?” Faith asked.

“No, I’m relieved, but I know more is coming. I just don’t know when.”

“Dino,” Stone said, “I know you’ve probably investigated it, but I think you should have another close look at the Keystone Hotel, on Lex.”

“You’re right. We’ve already looked at it. What makes you think it needs further attention?”

“A few nights ago, I dropped Faith off there to pick up her belongings, and she took so long, I got worried and went looking for her. The lobby was completely deserted, and that’s odd for a hotel.”

“Who should have been there?” Dino asked.

“A janitor mopping the floor — only his bucket and mop were there — the elevator operator, and the desk clerk. I tried to take myself up in the elevator, but it was locked. The operator finally showed up and took me upstairs, but Faith wasn’t there. When I came downstairs again, the janitor and the desk clerk had reemerged, and everything seemed normal.”

“Where was Faith?”

“In the car, waiting,” she said. “When the elevator operator didn’t answer my ring, I took the automatic elevator in the rear of the building and walked around the corner to where Fred was waiting in the car. I told Stone there was a ball game on TV, and they were probably watching it in the assistant manager’s office.”

“How long do you think the lobby was empty?” Dino asked.

“There’s no way to tell,” Stone replied.

“All three of them were there when I went into the building,” Faith said. “Between then and when Stone came back to the car again, maybe ten, fifteen minutes. I had some packing to do.”

“Is the lobby often deserted?” Dino asked.

“Yes. The only guests these days are airline people, who are on a contract. I think they’ve stopped taking other reservations.”

“Why is that?”

“I’ve heard that the hotel is scheduled for gutting and a complete renovation as a high-end hotel/condo combination. That’s what the desk clerk told me.”

“I don’t know what to make of that story,” Dino said.

“Neither do I,” Stone replied. “The whole business just struck me as creepy. Can you think of an excuse to have a look around the place, especially the lower levels?”

“Of course I can,” Dino replied, “and if I can’t, I’ve got a few hundred detectives who could come up with probable cause for a search warrant on the fly. I just don’t think I can spare the manpower while we’re in the middle of this murder spree to look again into something so ordinary and plausible.”

“Have you had the FBI in on this?” Stone asked.

“Why would I want those fuckers involved?” Dino asked. “I avoid them like the plague, unless I really need them for something, which isn’t often.”

“You don’t have any profilers on the force, do you? The FBI specializes in profiling prospective murder perps.”

“Yeah, and half the time it’s a lot of horseshit.”

“And what about the other half of the time?” Stone asked. “I think I’d use anything that had a fifty percent probability of producing some real leads.”

“Do I look that desperate?” Dino asked.

“You certainly do,” Stone replied.

Dino tossed down the rest of his drink and handed Stone his glass. “You still tending bar?”

“Sure.” Stone got up and poured the drink.

“All right,” Dino said.

“All right, what?”

“All right, I’ll call somebody over at Fedville tomorrow morning and get one of their readers of tea leaves sent over.”

“Good idea,” Stone said. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

“Mark my words,” Dino said. “They’re going to send me some little jerk fresh out of Quantico, who’ll gaze at the ceiling and spout a lot of crap.”

“Well, if he has only one good idea, it might be worth it.”

“Why don’t you have profilers in the NYPD?” Faith asked.

“We sent some people down to Quantico to do a course with those people, and they kept dozing off in the classes. When they got back, they were worse cops and more of a pain in the ass than before we sent them down there.”

“That sounds like a lot of grouch to me,” Faith said.

“Dino is mostly grouch,” Stone put in.

“I’m good at grouch,” Dino said. “Grouch has always worked very well for me. It keeps people on their toes.”

“I never knew grouch was a motivator,” Faith said.

“It also keeps their ideas on point and their sentences short,” Dino said. “You wouldn’t believe how much time grouch saves me.”

“Right,” Stone said. “Nobody wants to argue with somebody they know will bite their head off, if they say the wrong thing or don’t say it fast enough.”

“That’s what I want to avoid,” Dino said. “Them saying the wrong thing. I only give them time to say the right thing.”

“This is beginning to sound like one of those business management things,” Faith said. “‘Grouch your way to the top.’ That sort of thing.”

“Dino,” Stone said, “you could make a fortune giving classes to business leaders on grouch and its uses.”

“You mean, like Trump University?”

“Well, you’d need less content and more fraud for that,” Stone said. “Maybe you should just write the book. Faith has already given you the title. Start taking notes.”

“I could just leave a tape recorder running in my office,” Dino said, getting into the swing of things, “and have my secretary transcribe the good stuff at the end of the day.”

“Good idea,” Faith said. “Maybe you should attach one of those GoPro cameras to your head, so you can pick up the reactions of your victims.”

“‘Victims’?” Dino asked. “What victims?”

“Sorry, colleagues and staffers. Their reactions would be good to use in the television commercials.”

“Television commercials?”

“For the book. You’ll need a hot-and-heavy ad campaign to move sales.”

Fred came into the room with a sizzling porterhouse steak on a platter.

“Saved by the beef,” Stone said.