Swimming to Catalina

28

The hour was near eleven when Stone, drained of any sexual desire and close to exhaustion, drove Barbara Tierney back to Marina Del Rey. As they pulled into the parking lot, she gasped and brought a hand to her mouth. “Oh, shit,” she said.

“What?”

“My friend is back; there’s his Porsche. What am I going to do? I can’t show up on the boat having been out all night.”

“Um,” Stone said, helpfully. Then he had an idea. “Why don’t you run into the chandlery and buy some shorts or something. Change, and you can say you’ve been for a walk.” He peeled off a couple of hundreds and handed them to her.

“You have a devious mind,” she said. “Thank God. Listen, you’d better beat it out of here before someone sees us together.” She leaned over and kissed him, then dug in her handbag, found a slip of paper, and wrote down a number. “You can call me here,” she said, handing it to him, “but only daytimes and…”

“If a man answers, hang up.”

“Right.”

“Before you go,” he said, “satisfy my curiosity.”

“About what?”

“I was in the chandlery the other day, and I thought I saw you drive away in a Mercedes roadster. Whose car was that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Bye.” She hopped out of the car and ran toward the chandlery.

Stone drove away, but not before he had made a note of the Porsche’s vanity plate, which readBIGBUKS. He got out his portable phone and called Rick Grant.

“Lieutenant Grant.”

“Rick, it’s Stone.”

“Hi. I was promised something on the boat registration before lunch.”

“Something else; can you run a plate and a phone number for me?”

“Sure.”

“The plate is a vanity, BIGBUKS.” He dictated the phone number.

“These won’t take long.”

“How about lunch?”

“Sure. See you at the Grange on Melrose in an hour?” He gave Stone directions.

“Good.”

“I should have something on the boat by then.”

“See you then.” Stone hung up and turned in the general direction of Beverly Hills.

They were seated in a garden again. Stone liked L.A.’s alfresco dining, which was a rarity in New York.

“Okay,” Rick said, taking out his notebook, “the plate you gave me is registered to a Martin Barone, of a Beverly Drive address in Beverly Hills; he’s CEO of something called Barone Financial Services. The phone number you gave me, however, is not in Barone’s name; it’s just an extension off the Marina Del Rey’s number, which means it’s on a boat.”

“What aboutPaloma?”

“The boat is more interesting; it’s registered to Abalone Fisheries, which is a processor of canned seafood.”

“Why is that interesting?” Stone asked.

“I pulled up some stuff about Abalone out of our financial database. It’s a cannery, all right, but it’s also a holding company; it owns, among other businesses, twenty-two percent of the stock of the Safe Harbor Bank. It also owns seventy-five percent of Barone Financial Services. Martin Barone owns the other twenty-five percent.”

“A cannery owns a bank and a finance company?”

“You don’t understand. You’ve heard of Warren Buffet?”

“The richest man in America? Sure.”

“His principal holding is Berkshire Hathaway, a textile mill. Years ago he bought the company, and he used it to invest in a lot of other companies, like Coca-Cola, and it’s now worth billions.”

“Yeah? Who owns Abalone Fisheries?”

“Onofrio Ippolito and David Sturmack. It’s their version of Berkshire Hathaway.”

“Ahhhhh.”

“I thought you’d like that.”

“Seems like every time I turn over a rock, Ippolito is under it.”

“What’s your interest in the boat?”

“When your guys spotted Arrington’s car at the marina, a girl drove it away, and the same girl, I think, is living on the boat. She’s a thing on the side for this Martin Barone, who’s married. Will you see what you can dig up on Barone?”

“I can find out if he has a sheet.”

“Thanks.” Stone took some prefolded hundreds from his pocket and slipped them into Grant’s jacket pocket. “Something on account.”

“I thank you.”

“By the way, I dropped by Vincent Mancuso’s deli on the Strip yesterday; I’d give you odds he’s running a book out of there.”

“I’ll mention it to the relevant squad,” Grant said. “Stone, something’s been bothering me.”

“What’s that?”

“This business of Mancuso being in your hotel room.”

“Bothers me, too.”

“You moved there from the girl’s house, right? Calder’s secretary?”

“Right.”

“Who else knew you moved in there?”

“My secretary, Dino, and a lawyer friend in New York.”

“And neither Dino or your lawyer friend would have mentioned it to somebody who knows Mancuso, would they?”

“Unlikely in the extreme.”

“That leaves the girl.”

Stone shook his head. “I’ve thought about this. I think I was followed to the hotel by Mancuso and his buddy.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Grant said, reaching into a pocket, “here’s Mancuso’s mug shot.”

Stone looked at the photograph. “He’s older and heavier now, but that’s the guy who was driving the Lincoln that followed me the other night.”

“And you think he followed you to the hotel?”

“Yeah, that’s what makes the most sense.”

“No, it’s not.”

“What do you mean?”

“You told me you changed cars at the rental agency and told the guy there to say he’d driven you to the airport if anybody asked.”

“Yeah,” Stone said. He didn’t like where this was leading.

“Assuming he did as you asked, that should have broken the tail, shouldn’t it?”

“Unless Mancuso followed me to the rental agency and saw me drive away in the sedan.”

“Were you followed?”

Stone shook his head. “If I was, then Mancuso dramatically improved his tailing technique overnight.”

“So that leaves the girl.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You think the girl might be screwing Calder?”

“She used to, she told me.”

“Okay, so she’s Calder’s former squeeze, and she works for him; he’s her sole means of support?”

“As far as I know.”

“How long you known her?”

“A few days.”

“So where do you think her loyalties lie?”

“She’s made it clear that they lie with Calder, but she knows I’m not doing anything to threaten him; I’m trying to find his wife, for Christ’s sake.”

“Calder sees that as a threat, doesn’t he?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, he tried to hustle you out of town, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“So he must think your presence in L.A. is not in his best interests.”

“I guess not.”

“So, if he feels that way, why wouldn’t Betty feel that way, too?”

“You could have a point,” Stone said, but he didn’t really want to admit that to himself.

“Let me ask you something else: where were you when Mancuso was in your hotel room?”

“I was at a resort out in the desert.”

“Alone?”

“No.”

“Who were you with?”

“Betty Southard,” Stone said.

“Whose idea was it to go out there?”

“Betty’s.”

“Stone, I think you’re letting your cock do your thinking,” he said, “and remember, a cock doesn’t have a brain.”