Distant Thunder

16

Stone and Dino were having dinner at Clarke’s when Lance entered the dining room and sat down at their table.

“Would you like to join us, Lance?” Stone asked.

“Thank you, I already have,” Lance replied, waving at a passing waiter and ordering a steak. “Would you like something?” Lance asked Stone.

“Thank you, we’ve already ordered.”

“I want to talk to you about the John Collins matter.”

“Is it all right if Dino listens in?”

“Dino has the same clearances as you,” Lance said.

“Granted, but I’m not sure he has the same tolerance for unadulterated horseshit,” Stone replied.

“Goddamn it, Stone,” Lance said, unusually profane, “you’re meddling in something that’s not your business!”

“Oh, really? A man, an employee of the federal government, leaves the island of my summer home, and boards or is dragged forcibly onto the local ferry, where he is beaten by likely two, probably three, men and forced to drink an entire bottle of vodka, then knocked unconscious and shot twice in the head. His body is abandoned there, later to be brought to and stored in my garage. Subsequently, I am able to discover, by the simple device of reading, that he is carrying a large sum of cash and has a seven-figure balance in an offshore bank and likely connections to the Russian mob. Please tell me how this is not everybody’s business.”

“Yeah,” Dino said. “I want to hear this.”

The waiter came and set Lance’s steak before him.

“Hey!” Dino yelled. “We ordered half an hour ago! Where are our steaks?”

“We’re felling an ox now,” the waiter shouted back over his shoulder, then disappeared into the kitchen.

“He knows I’m in a hurry,” Lance said, sawing a chunk off his steak.

“Answer my question,” Stone said to Lance.

“Yeah,” Dino echoed. “Why isn’t it everybody’s business?”

Lance poured himself a glass of wine. “Because I decide whose business it is, and I have decided that it is not yours.”

“Then why did you ask me to chair an investigation into the circumstances of his death?”

“I didn’t ask you to chair, just advise,” Lance said, making a large portion of a baked potato disappear. “And I realize that was a mistake because you chose that moment to be unhelpful.”

“You chose the moment. And you didn’t want the matter investigated, just buried.”

“Are you now, belatedly, offering to chair the investigation?”

“No. Once again, I am declining to be associated with a CIA cover-up.”

“You make it sound as if my province is cover-ups,” Lance said hotly.

“It is when you want to cover up something, and you clearly want the Collins matter covered up. Besides, I’ve already given you a full explanation of what happened to Collins. I just want to know why.”

“What is your reason?”

“Because Collins’s widow is my client, and she wants to know.”

“So you want to haul an innocent woman into this, just to satisfy your own curiosity?”

“That’s a good enough reason, though not the only one.”

“Children, children,” Dino sang out. “Please! You’re disturbing the other diners. Now they want to know what’s going on!”

“Tell them to go fuck themselves,” Lance said, but he did lower his voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dino announced to the room, “the director...”

Lance stabbed at Dino’s hand with a fork, barely missing, but it had the effect of interrupting his announcement.

“Dino,” Lance said, “you came within an ace of violating federal law by divulging classified information. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would now be on your way to a federal detention center.”

“So now you’re threating the poor, innocent police commissioner with arrest and imprisonment,” Stone said.

“Would you like me to include you?” Lance asked.

The maître d’ strolled over. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he said soothingly. “If you keep this up, Mr. Cabot is going to have to arrest the whole dining room, and that would be bad for business. Cool it, please!”

Lance carved a chunk of steak. Stone stabbed it and stuffed it into his mouth. “I’m starved,” he explained, then stood up. “I will seek out dining companions elsewhere,” he said, and stalked out of the dining room.

“His check is yours,” Dino said.