Hit List

42

There were shouts and the sound of feet on stairs, then a man with a pistol burst into Stone’s office.

“Relax,” Stone said to Jenna, “he’s with us.”

“Anybody come in here?” the man asked.

“No,” Stone said.

The agent ran out of Stone’s office and through the storage room, the exercise room, and the kitchen, to the back door, where he checked the lock, then he turned around and worked his way more slowly along the path he had followed, emerging once again into Stone’s office.

“Any luck?” Stone asked him.

The agent shook his head. “It’s clear all the way to the garden, and the rear door and windows are secure.”

“Then work your way upstairs with the others,” Stone said, and the agent left.

“Is it always this exciting around here?” Jenna asked.

“No, the house is normally an island of serenity,” Stone replied. He reached for the phone and pressed a button. “Tell you what,” he said, “we’ll both go shopping. Fred? Get the car ready to leave via the garage. Jenna and I are going shopping.”

“Sir,” Fred said, “I trust you remember what happened the last time you went shopping.”

“I do, and very clearly,” Stone replied. “Ten minutes. Go heeled.” He hung up.

“Tell me about Fred,” Jenna said.

“A French friend gave me a year of Fred’s services as a gift. Long before the year was up, I hired him. He is an ex — Royal Marine commando, expert at hand-to-hand combat and the British interservice pistol champion. He and my housekeeper and cook, Helene, are married, and they live in an apartment next door, in a house I now own. Joan lives there, too, and Faith, my pilot.”

“I don’t think I’ll worry while shopping,” Jenna said.

Stone looked at his watch. “Do you need anything from upstairs?”

She held up her handbag. “I’m okay.”

Stone got a pistol from his safe and secured it in a belt holster, along with a spare magazine, then they went to the garage, where Fred was ready to start the engine. As Stone closed the rear door, Fred opened the garage door with his remote and drove into the street. A cop from the waiting patrol car stood in the street, waving him on, then he returned to his car and followed the Bentley.

“I bought this car from Strategic Services,” Stone said. “They have a division that armors vehicles, so this is pretty much bulletproof.”

“What a good idea,” Jenna said.

“Fred,” Stone said, “get us over to the FDR Drive and turn south. Let’s see if we’re wagging a tail. When we get to the Brooklyn Bridge, do a U-turn and go back to the Upper East Side. Jenna, where do you want to start?”

“How about Bloomingdale’s?” she said.

“Fred, you have your instructions. Let the patrol car behind us know what our intentions are.”

Fred used a police handheld radio, then went about his business.

Stone called Joan.

“Yes, sir?”

“Let Mike Freeman know we’re going to Bloomingdale’s. I’d like a male-female team to meet us at the Lexington Avenue entrance and to stick with us for the day. They can ride in the patrol car that will be following us.”

“Yes, sir.” She hung up.

They arrived at Bloomingdale’s, and Stone spotted the Strategic Services team, whom he knew from another occasion.

“Now we are very well cosseted,” Stone said to Jenna. He picked out a couple of magazines from the seat pocket in front of them. He needed them, because they were in Bloomingdale’s for nearly two hours.

They then spent another hour and a half at Bergdorf-Goodman, and half an hour at a luggage shop on Park Avenue, where, at Stone’s insistence, Jenna chose a new set of luggage, as the lone suitcase she had brought with her was inadequate to the task.

Finally, they pulled into Stone’s garage, and Fred began unloading and dealing with Jenna’s booty.

“Drinks in half an hour,” Stone said, “if you’d like to freshen up.”

Jenna followed Fred upstairs, like an obedient puppy.

Everyone gathered in Stone’s study for drinks, except Dino, who phoned to say he would be late. They were on their second drinks when Dino arrived, looking tired and angry.

“What’s wrong, Dino? You look terrible.”

“I lost a good man today,” Dino said.

“Lost how?”

“By resignation.”

“Was he the leak?”

“Very possibly. He was a detective first grade in Homicide, name of Willis Crowder. He had a spotless record.”

“Until today?”

“Yes. We went through a process of elimination and interrogated three officers who, though there was no hard evidence, smelled a little hinky to me. Two of them were nervous; Crowder wasn’t. He calmly told us that he didn’t need a lawyer, and he wasn’t going to answer any questions. We got a search warrant and went through his fairly modest apartment in Brooklyn, where we found a safe he wouldn’t open for us.”

“I assume you brought in a yegg.”

“Yep. He had twelve grand in hundreds and a bankbook with a two-hundred-thousand-dollar-plus balance, in his wife’s name. He’d apparently been on the take for years. A search of his history told us that he had worked a case with the FBI some years ago, and Sig Larkin was on it, too. After we confronted him with that, Crowder said, ‘All I did was save the lives of two cops.’” He now resides at Rikers Island, and we put him on suicide watch, to try to keep him alive long enough to try in a court of law. The DA is taking it to a grand jury tomorrow.”

“You think he’ll give up Larkin, if the DA offers him a sweet deal?”

“I don’t know. I suspect that he may be more afraid of Larkin than of prison. His nostrils flare every time Larkin is mentioned.”

Ed Eagle spoke up. “He’ll cave after it sinks into his skull that he’s facing the rest of his life in prison, if he is.”

“He may not be,” Dino said. “We have nothing to connect him to the earlier murders, and he’ll probably say that Larkin said he wanted to free his girlfriend, not murder her.”

“Come on, Dino,” Stone managed to say. “She was pointing a silenced pistol at me.”

“Let me put it this way,” Eagle said, “in court, I’d rather be the defense attorney than the assistant DA prosecuting.”

Dinner was served, and they didn’t mention Larkin again, for a while.