Class Act

54

Stone was halfway through his morning, when Joan buzzed. “Jack Coulter is here. Once again, he doesn’t have an appointment.”

“Send him in.”

Jack entered and sat down.

“Coffee?” Joan asked.

“Thank you, yes,” Jack said.

“I’ll pass,” Stone replied. “It keeps me awake in the afternoons.”

Joan brought a little tray with everything Jack needed.

“I’ve had an idea,” Jack said, when she had gone.

“Tell me.”

“I think we should do away with Sal Trafficante, and we should hire Mickey O’Brien to take care of it.”

Stone smiled. “What is it they say? Great minds think alike?”

“They do.”

“But why Mickey O’Brien?”

“He’s skilled at these things, and he always needs the money.”

“I thought he had come over all rich, courtesy of his mother.”

“He’s a degenerate gambler. I’ll bet he’s already blown it all on a sure thing.”

“I don’t want to employ Mickey O’Brien, for two reasons: first, I don’t trust him. He’d love to have something on me, and I’m not going to give it to him.”

“A perfectly good reason. What’s your second?”

“I’ve already made the arrangements.”

“Where?”

“At Sal’s home. I don’t know where it is. I’m leaving that to the contractor.”

Jack wrote something on a pad and gave it to Stone. “Here’s his address. Memorize it, then shred and burn it.”

Stone memorized it, then fed it into the shredder under his desk.

“Who’s the contractor?”

“Hilda Ross.”

Jack looked surprised “And you trust her? Hilda killed Cara, and she knows you sent Cara.”

“We’ve gotten past that,” Stone said.

“How does somebody get ‘past that’?”

“Greed, for one thing. I’m paying her a hundred thousand, and I’ve already given her the first fifty. Greed is her motive. That, and her deep hatred for Sal.”

“What makes you think she hasn’t been hired by Sal to kill you?” Jack asked.

“It would not shock me to hear that Sal had done that, nor that Hilda had taken the contract. She likes money, and she wouldn’t mind taking it from both ends of the deal.”

“How did you come to this arrangement with Hilda?”

“I saw her last night, in circumstances where it would have been unwise to kill me, and I gave her the first fifty thousand. Then I got the hell out of there, before she could change her mind. I was also repulsed when she told me how she killed Cara.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Not unless you want to get sick, but maybe you have a stronger stomach than I.”

Jack held up a hand. “No, please. I was fond of the girl.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“So, how is Hilda going to pull this off?”

“She already has a dinner date with him tonight at his place, where he likes to order in pizza from Domino’s. I’ll leave the rest to her. Oh, she did mention that she’d use a straight razor.”

“Then she’d better do it in the bathtub, or she’ll have a very messy crime scene on her hands.”

“She has some history of working in a bathroom.”

Jack threw up both hands this time. “No, don’t tell me. I’ll never be able to take a bath again.”

Stone remembered that he himself had been reluctant to take a shower that morning, but he had handled it.

“How are you going to verify that Sal is dead?”

“She’s going to e-mail me photographs.”

“I thought you had a weak stomach.”

“Strong enough for that,” Stone said. “Do you want to see them?”

“It’s not my contract, so no. You should erase them immediately, anyway, and restart your phone.”

“I’ll do that.”

“I’ll be relieved if this works out,” Jack said. “Then I can go back to being a solid citizen.”

“More than that, Jack. You’re a class act.”

“Thank you for that assessment,” Jack said, rising, “and for the coffee, too.”

“You’re very welcome for both,” Stone said, shaking his hand.

“Let me know how it goes,” Jack said, as he left.

“I will.”