Reckless Abandon

21

STONE WAS HAVING breakfast the following morning when Holly and Daisy returned from the park.

“I had a call on my cell phone this morning,” she said. “My FBI ex-friend, Grant Harrison, is in town, and he wants to see me; says it’s business.”

“So, see him,” Stone said. “You want to ask him over here?”

“I said I’d meet him for lunch, but I didn’t know a good place.”

“Tell him La Goulue, Madison at Sixty-fifth. I’ll book a table for you.”

“Will you come along?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I’m just not comfortable with this. He’s less likely to shout at me if you’re along.”

“Oh, all right.”

Grant Early Harrison was standing in front of La Goulue when their cab stopped.

“That’s him,” Holly said, pointing.

He was better-looking than Stone had imagined.

They got out of the cab and approached him.

“Hello, Grant,” Holly said, “this is my friend Stone Barrington.”

Grant managed a perfunctory handshake. “I thought I was seeing you alone.”

“Why did you think that?” Holly asked. “Anyway, anything you have to say, you can say in front of Stone. He’s also my lawyer.”

Grant cut Stone a sharp glance. “Do you need a lawyer?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Holly said.

Stone kept a straight face. “Shall we go in?”

They were greeted by Suzanne, and Stone gave her a kiss. “Something in the back, I think,” he said.

“Right this way.” She led them to a table.

“Does this place get crowded?” Grant asked.

“It’ll be jammed in fifteen minutes,” Stone replied.

They ordered a glass of wine and looked at menus. When they had ordered lunch, Grant started in. “I got a call from our New York office last night,” he said. “The NYPD is all over them about Trini Rodriguez. What did you have to do with that?”

“Last night, Trini apparently shot a New York City cop, in a deli in Little Italy,” she said. “I had nothing at all to do with that.”

“Why do they think it was Trini?” Grant asked.

“Oh, I had something to do with that. The perp’s description matched Trini’s, and I mentioned that to an NYPD detective.”

“Great, thanks a lot.”

“What, you wanted nobody to bother Trini? Gee, I’m awfully sorry about that.”

“He’s working something very important to us.”

“So, he killed a cop on his coffee break?”

“You don’t know it was Trini.”

“You don’t know it wasn’t.”

“He denies it.”

“So you’ve talked? What did you expect him to say?”

Grant turned to Stone. “How do you come into this?”

“Holly is staying at my house,” Stone said, “and I sometimes give her legal advice. Otherwise, I’m not in it.”

“Then that’s where you should stay,” Grant said, “not in it.”

“Leave Stone out of this, Grant,” Holly said.

“That’s what I’m hoping to do.”

“Tell me, exactly why is the FBI so interested in keeping a cop killer on the streets?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Grant said.

“Is what he’s doing more important than the lives of cops on the street?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why haven’t you turned him in to the NYPD?”

“We only need another day or two to wrap up this whole thing, then they can have him, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You’d better hope to God the newspapers don’t get wind of this,” Holly said.

“Oh? Are you going to tell them?”

“I hadn’t planned to, but…”

“That’s what I thought. If you blow this case, Holly, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?”

“Hey, hey,” Stone said. “Let’s hold it down, all right? People are staring at us.”

Grant threw his napkin on the table and stood up. “If you screw up this case, I’ll have you for obstruction of justice, and I may throw in that money thing, too.”

“Oh? What money thing is that?”

“Your five million dollars.”

“What five million dollars?”

“Just remember what I said,” Grant said, and stalked out of the restaurant.

Stone thought the other customers looked relieved. “Now why did you want to go and piss him off?” he asked.

“I enjoy pissing him off,” Holly said.

A waiter brought three lunches and went away.

“Holly, speaking as your sometime lawyer, he has a point about interfering with a federal investigation.”

“Oh, sure. You think he’s going to arrest me and let it get out that the FBI has been harboring a cop killer?”

“Well, probably not.”

“That was just a lot of bluster. Grant blusters a lot.”

“Especially where you’re concerned, I’ll bet. And he knows about the money?”

“He’s known about it almost from the day I put it in the tree.”

“Does he know which tree?”

“He has no idea where it is. He can’t even prove that it exists, and even if he could, he’d have a hard time explaining why he’s known about it for months and didn’t report it. Don’t worry, Grant isn’t going to cause any trouble for himself.”

“Holly, I’ve been thinking about this, and I think you should leave the money in that tree.”

“And wait for the putative lumberjack to discover it?”

“If somebody finds it, then you can confiscate it as the fruit of a crime.”

“Anybody who found it would be a fool to tell anybody.”

“And you’d be a fool to go back to the tree. Right now, you’re clean. Only Grant knows about it, and, as you’ve pointed out, he’s unlikely to mention it to his superiors. But if you go back to the tree and get it, there’s always the chance that someone will see you do it or that something else might go wrong. You just can’t take the chance.”

“Okay, I’ve had your full views on this subject. Can we change it now, please?”

“Sure, what would you like to talk about?”

“How can I take Trini before the NYPD does?”

“Holly, you’d better forget about Trini. Let them take him, then you can get in line to prosecute him.”

“Which means never.”

“Lots of people could match that description, surely you know that.”

“It’s Trini. I know it in my bones.”

“If it is, wouldn’t you just as soon see him get the death penalty in New York as in Florida?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I want to sit in a Florida prison and watch him take the needle.”

“Dino can arrange for you to sit in a New York prison and watch. Wouldn’t that do?”

“No. I want to arrest him.”

“You want to kill him, don’t you?”

“If he gave me an excuse, I would.”

“Don’t you realize that he’d have as good a chance of killing you, maybe better?”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“So you’re going to pursue Trini with reckless abandon.”

“Right up until the moment somebody takes him off the street, and I hope it’s me.” Holly set her empty plate aside and started eating Grant’s lunch.