Two-Dollar Bill

44

STONE WAS DREAMING that he was in bed with Arrington, when he suddenly woke to find himself in the backseat of a cop car. Dino and his driver were nowhere to be seen. He shook his head to clear it, then got out of the car and looked around. Nobody in sight. He walked to the corner and peered around the building into the block where the bar was. He could see nobody-not Dino's two cops, not the driver, not Dino. What the hell was going on?

As he watched, Dino and his driver came out of the bar and began walking back toward their car. Stone was waiting for them when they rounded the corner.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked.

"Relax, we just went in and had a drink, chatted with the bartender."

"Two to one he made you as cops."

"You think I don't know how not to act like a cop? Jesus, Stone."

"What did you find out?"

"There's an all-night poker game going on in the back room of the bar."

"That's what the bartender told you?"

"After I bought him a couple of twelve-year-old Scotches. I'm invited to come back and play tomorrow night; their rule is no new players when a guy first finds out about the game."

"Why do you think he was telling the truth?"

"Two other guys went back there while we were drinking. It looks like a game; it smells like a game. When the door opened, it sounded like a game."

They got back into the car. "Are we going to sit in on a poker game all night?"

"You got a better idea?"

"What was the other guy's name? The one who owns the other set of prints found in my house?"

"Martin Block. No criminal record in any database."

"Get somebody to find out more about him. Just because he doesn't have a record doesn't mean he's not a criminal. After all, he was in my house, and I didn't invite him."

Dino made a call to the squad room, then hung up. "They'll get back to me. Why are you so interested in this Martin Block?"

"I told you, he was in my house. He cannot be a good guy."

"Maybe he works for the phone company-you think of that?" Dino's phone rang, and he answered it. "Yeah? What a big surprise." Then he looked more interested. "Now, that is a surprise." He hung up.

"What?" Stone demanded.

"There's a whole bunch of Martin Blocks in the various New York City phone listings, but one of them lives in the same house that Rocco Bocca does."

"His sister's house in Queens?"

"I make him as Bocca's brother-in-law."

"Didn't you say there were two cars in the driveway?"

"Yeah."

"Run the plate on the other one."

"My two guys down the street will have the make and plate number." He made the call and got the information, then phoned the squad room again. He held on for the answer, then hung up. "A 2004 Lexus four hundred fifty, registered to Martin Block of Queens."

"We followed the wrong guy," Stone said. "Bocca is just a burglar; the other guy, the brother-in-law, is the smart one; he's the one who'll be dealing with Billy Bob."

Dino called his two detectives. "Get back out to the Queens house and sit on it until a man leaves in the Lexus, then follow it wherever it goes and report to me." He hung up. "We were pretty dumb, weren't we?"

"You said it, I didn't," Stone replied. "Let's go back to the Carlyle and wait to hear from your people. I doubt if Block is going to go to work in the middle of the night. In the meantime, get your people to find out everything they can on Martin Block-occupation, education, military service, high school, the works."

Dino made the call, and they headed back uptown.

STONE AND DINO were having breakfast the following morning, when Dino's cell phone rang.

"Bacchetti. Go ahead." He punched the speakerphone button and held it up so Stone could hear.

"Block is a Queens boy, born and bred. After high school, he went into the navy, served a four-year hitch, then reupped, but was discharged after another year. He came back to Queens a year after that and opened a car stereo and alarm business, which grew into something bigger. Now he deals in all sorts of electronic stuff and parts, too."

"Two questions," Stone said. "One: Why was he discharged from the navy one year after his second hitch began? Two: What did he do during the year after he left the navy, before he came home to Queens?"

"I'll look into it," the man said.

"Get back to me fast," Dino said, then hung up and turned to Stone. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm not thinking anything; I just find it odd that the guy left the navy a year into a four-year hitch."

"Bad conduct discharge?"

"Maybe, but he couldn't have reupped if he hadn't had a clean record the first four years. Did he suddenly go bad? Did he do some time? If he did, would it show up in your criminal-records search?"

"We searched the Pentagon database, too; if he'd done time in a military prison, it would have turned up."

"Maybe a hardship discharge? Sick mother, something like that?"

Dino got back on the phone again and asked for the reason for Block's discharge from the navy.

Shortly, the detective called back. "Okay, here's all I can get. The record of Block's discharge from the navy is unavailable, and we've been unable to find any trace of him for the year following-no phone listing, address, employment, nothing. There's no history for a year; it's a blank."

"Thanks," Dino said, and hung up. "What do you think?" he asked Stone.

"I think we're going to need Lance," Stone replied.