Kisser

50

STONE WALKED HOME, and as he came through the front door, Joan flagged him down.

“A Brian Doyle is waiting in your office,” she said. “He insisted; he showed me a badge.”

“Right,” Stone said. He tiptoed down the hall to his closed door and put his ear to it. He could hear the sound of drawers being opened and closed. Silently he turned the knob, then threw open the door.

Brian Doyle was caught with a handful of cancelled checks. “What do you want?” he demanded, as if Stone had entered his office unannounced.

“I think that’s my question,” Stone replied, “since you’re rifling my desk.”

“Oh, this?” Doyle tossed the bundle of checks onto the desk. “They were just lying here.”

“No. They were at the back of my center drawer,” Stone replied. “You’re the one doing the lying.”

“I have a perfect right to search your desk,” Doyle said, as if he really did.

“I think that’s called breaking and entering,” Stone said.

“Not if you’re my subordinate.”

Stone came around the desk, grabbed Doyle’s necktie, dragged him to a chair, and pushed him into it. “Let’s get something straight, Brian,” he said, “once and for all: I am not your subordinate in any sense of the word-intellectually, morally, or sartorially. I am your superior in every department, and if you think your little prank with the badge makes any fucking difference, I’ll stick it up your ass sideways.”

Doyle held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right, all right, just calm down.”

“State your business, then get out,” Stone said, glaring down at him.

“I just want to talk about the Sharpe and Larsen bust,” he said.

“So, talk.”

“I’m concerned about Mitzi’s safety,” Doyle said.

“So soon? I’ve been concerned about it from day one.”

“Well, me, too. Why do you think I put Tom there to take care of her?”

“Because he’s her partner, and it’s his responsibility, perhaps?”

“Well, sure, but he’s the right guy for the job.”

“So, why aren’t you talking to Tom instead of me?”

“Because since we have him set up as her driver, he’s not going to be welcome at the buy. You will be, though.”

“I’m aware of that,” Stone said. “I’ve just come from a meeting with Sharpe and Larsen where Mitzi proposed the big buy, and Sharpe agreed to the terms.”

“I heard that from Mitzi’s earpiece,” Doyle said. “And why weren’t you wearing yours?”

“Because it’s a pain in the ass and because I don’t want you listening to every word I say,” Stone replied. “I’ll wear it when it’s necessary.”

“It’s necessary every time you have a meet like that,” Doyle said. He was beginning to recover his composure and adopt his superior attitude again. “We’ve got to have yours as a backup, in case Mitzi’s goes on the fritz.”

“I’ll wear it when it’s necessary,” Stone repeated.

“I want us to have another meeting with Tiffany Baldwin about the bust,” Doyle said, changing the subject.

“You have another meeting with her, not I.”

“What, are you afraid of her?”

“If you knew her better,” Stone said, “you’d be afraid of her. You’d better watch your ass, Brian, because I think even the commissioner is a little afraid of her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been at the last meeting.”

“Why should I be afraid of that bitch?” Doyle asked.

“Because she could destroy you in a heartbeat if she felt like it,” Stone explained.

“And how would she do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, how about a federal grand jury indictment?”

“Indictment? For what?”

“Don’t you think that if she chose to put a couple of investigators on you she wouldn’t find something? You’re not exactly squeaky clean; you never have been.”

Doyle reddened. “I have nothing to fear from her.”

“No? Well, you’d better not screw up the Larsen part of the bust, because if you do she’ll come down on you like an Amazon goddess, and she’ll hand you your balls.”

Doyle pushed his chair back and stood up. “I can see I’m not going to get anywhere with you,” he said.

“Finally,” Stone said. “Now let me tell you how this bust is going to go down. Mitzi has set it up at the apartment, but you’re not going to have anybody in the building except me.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because Mitzi is borrowing the place from a friend of mine, and her neighbors would not take kindly to having a SWAT team in their lobby and elevators. And you can’t grab him when he comes out of the building, either. You’ll have to put four cars on him and wait until he’s well away from there.”

“At his place? Why?”

“Probably not at his place.”

“Then where?”

“If you want Sharpe and Larsen together, you’d better do it at Teterboro Airport, because they’re ready to run.”

Doyle shook his head. “I don’t want to pull any Jersey cops in on this.”

“Then you’d better have some FBI there, hadn’t you?”

“That’s what I want to talk to Tiffany about,” Doyle said. “I don’t want them there. This is our bust.”

“It’s yours because Tiffany allowed you to do it, and she said so in the presence of the commissioner,” Stone said. “So you’d better not fuck it up, and that means having a federal presence there.”

“I hate the FBI,” Doyle said sullenly.

“What cop doesn’t?” Stone asked. “You think you’ve got a monopoly?”

“I don’t want to ask her for help.”

“She’s waiting for you to do just that, and if you don’t, then this case is going to fall on you from a great height.”

Doyle thought this over. “Teterboro, huh?”

“That’s where Sharpe and Larsen have chartered in the past,” Stone said, “but you’d better have enough people to cover Westchester Airport if they decide to go there instead.”

“You think they might do that?”

“If they have the slightest inkling that you’re on to them, they could do anything.”

“How many people do you think we’ll need?”

“An army,” Stone replied. “Go put it together, and ask Tiffany for help.”

Doyle got up and left, muttering under his breath.