Class Act

17

Jack Coulter called Stone Barrington, and Joan put him right through.

“Good morning, Jack. How are you?”

“Very well, thank you, Stone. I want to thank you for putting me in touch with Charley Fox. I was very impressed with him.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Jack. Charley has certainly done very well for me.”

“I wired the funds to him an hour ago and got a confirmation right back, saying he’ll send me a list of what he buys for me and instructions as to how to check my account online.”

“That’s the way we do it. You don’t have to read the papers or watch CNBC to know where you are.”

“Tell me, what do you hear about Mickey O’Brien?”

“Funny. My guy, Bob Cantor, who’s been doing surveillance on Mickey, was in here this morning. I’d had his people watching him around the clock — you’ll get a bill for that — but he recommended easing off to one day a week, which was yesterday, and that’s when something happened.”

“What happened?”

“Mickey was called on at his new house by a guy dressed in a black raincoat and a black hat, and Bob’s guy on site recognized him as a known hitman named Willie Pasco. Do you know him?”

“Never heard of him,” Jack said. “But unless he’s my age, or older, I wouldn’t.”

“Anyway, Pasco was only in the house for a minute or two, then he left. We wondered if Mickey had been hit, but a couple of minutes later, he left the house looking angry and took a cab to Little Italy, where he braced the guy who used to be his bookie, one Tiny Blanco, stuck a gun in his face in an alley and talked to him earnestly for about a minute, then he got out of there, leaving Tiny in a near-fainting state.”

“What do you make of all that?”

“Bob thinks somebody hired Pasco to hit Mickey, or at least frighten him, and that made Mickey mad. I guess he thought Tiny ordered the bracing and went off his head.”

“And how does that relate to me?”

“We don’t know. I’d hoped the names might ring a bell or two for you, and you could tell us.”

“No, they don’t.”

“Oh, there was one other piece of the puzzle: one of Bob’s people recognized a guy from Florida named Vinnie, who was in town and in touch with Tiny the day before. Does that mean anything?”

“Yes, it does. A bookie named Vinnie, who works out of Hialeah, was the guy I placed a bundle of money with and got five percent a week.”

“I remember you mentioning that.”

“But when they failed to pay the interest one week, I demanded that money and my bundle back and gave them twenty-four hours to comply. I had a reputation in prison for keeping my promises, and I guess they figure it was less trouble to give the money back than to worry about me.”

“Who is the other party in ‘they’?”

“Oh, Vinnie works for a guy named Manny who runs the mob’s South Florida interests. My money would have been funneled through Vinnie and him to somebody else.”

“Do you think Vinnie would have put out a hit on you?”

“No, but Manny would, if he was pissed off. He’d have had Vinnie hire somebody. Now all this is making sense.”

“I’m sorry, I’m missing something. What would Vinnie — or, rather, Manny — want from you?”

“Manny would probably want my money back. He’s the greedy sort. And in order to get it back he’d have to find me, and that means he needs to know my new name. Vinnie knows me only as Fratelli. Mickey O’Brien is the only person I can think of who knows that name.”

“Ah,” Stone said. “I sort of understand. Is there anything you want Bob’s people to do about this? I don’t mean anything drastic.”

“No. I need to think about the whole thing and a way to throw a monkey wrench into their works.”

“Well, you’ve got your new nose working for you.”

Jack laughed. “Yes, there is that.”

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks, Stone, I think I know how to handle it. Do you have an address for Mickey?”

Stone gave it to him. “Oh, and Mickey has a girlfriend living with him named Marge: she was his real estate agent on the house.”

“Got it. Thank you again, Stone.” Jack hung up. He had to sleep on this before he did anything, but it was already clear that he had to do something.

Stone called Bob Cantor. “Hey. My client was on the phone this morning, the one who’s worried about Mick O’Brien.”

“What’s with that, anyway?” Cantor asked.

Stone took a deep breath. “I can’t tell you much. Let’s just say they knew each other in another life, and Mickey is the only one who knows about that life.”

“Okay, I buy that. Do you think he wants something done to Mickey? I mean, you and I don’t deal in that, right?”

“Very right.”

“Is your client capable of dealing with it directly?”

“My client is capable of wringing Mickey’s neck like a chicken’s. But we don’t want blood in the streets of Brooklyn, especially on my client’s hands. He’s an upstanding citizen.”

“Does this thing between them have anything to do with that big robbery at an apartment on Fifth Avenue? I mean, when I was redoing the security system, I saw Mickey there. He was one of the investigators.”

“My client attended that party.” Never mind that Jack was the host of that party, Stone said to himself. “Mickey might have seen him there on the night.”

“And he would have seen Mickey.”

“Possibly.”

“I’m getting the feeling that I’m tiptoeing a little too close to the edge here.”

Stone remained silent.

“Okay, let’s scrap that theory.”

“It could work, as long as it’s only a theory and not spread around.”

“I see,” Bob said. At least, he thought he saw.