Hot Mahogany

20

Stone and Holly went to the Mayflower Inn the following morning for Sunday brunch and lingered over their food.

“Stone, where would Abner Kramer hide the secretary in New York?”

“Kramer strikes me as the type who would be very well prepared,” Stone replied. “He may have rented storage space for it.”

“Or it could be in his house or apartment.”

“That’s a possibility, too.”

“So, let’s go to New York and break into his place.”

“Well,” Stone said, “I now have a fairly complete set of burglar tools. It would be a shame not to put them to use.”

“Good.”

“I’m kidding. I’ve had enough of housebreaking; I don’t have the innate sneakiness required for the work.”

“Are you saying I’m sneaky?”

“Let me be clear: You are sneaky. Isn’t that one of the prime requisites for working at the CIA? I’ll bet you aced the Sneaky 101 final at the Farm.”

Holly giggled. “You know me too well.”

“Are you going to stick around here for a few more days?”

“Well, it’s a paid vacation, isn’t it? And I’ve got a free house. I miss Daisy, but she’s staying with my housemate.”

“You have a housemate? I’m jealous.”

“It’s a female-type person. The place had a spare bedroom, so I cut my rent in half.”

“Sounds sensible.” Stone waved for a check. “I’m going to have to go back to the city.”

“Why don’t you just hang out here with me?” Holly asked.

“Well, I do have a law practice that requires my attention from time to time if I want to earn a living, and I have to look into the other guy from Barton’s Marine outfit… What’s his name?”

“Charles Crow.”

“Right. From the Bronx.”

“That’s the one.”

“Watch your ass, Stone.”

“You mean more than usual?”

“Remember, Crow is the operator, according to Barton. Sounds like a guy with few, if any, scruples.”

“Okay. I’ll watch my ass.”

Stone got back to the city late in the afternoon, went through his mail and checked his phone messages. Alarmingly little business activity, he thought. He was going to have to make some money pretty soon.

Dino was already at Elaine’s when Stone got there.

“How was the country?” Dino asked.

“Gorgeous. The leaves have started to turn.”

“Not here, yet.”

“Soon. Trust me.”

“What did you find out up there?”

Stone gave him a rundown of his activities in Connecticut, including their housebreaking adventure.

“You’re not sneaky enough to be a burglar, Stone.”

“Exactly what I told Holly.”

“If you don’t watch it, I’m going to be bailing you out of some country jail.”

“I hope not. Have you spread the word about the secretary among your colleagues in blue?”

“I have, discreetly.”

“And a photo?”

“Yes. Otherwise they wouldn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. They’re cops, not readers of antiques magazines.”

“Granted. I’ve got to look into the other member of Barton’s outfit who seems a candidate for all this. Can you do a search on arrests and convictions for a Charles Crow?”

“The real estate guy?”

“There’s a real estate guy named Charles Crow?”

“You don’t ever read the papers, do you?”

“Every day.”

“Not the Times, the Daily News and the Post.”

“Dino, I know you consider those rags newspapers, but there’s nothing in them that I need to know.”

“If you read them, you’d know about Charlie Crow.”

“What would I know?”

“Crow is this hotshot real estate… speculator, I guess you’d say. Made a bunch of money, got himself a trophy third wife and a publicist to get him on Page Six. You know what Page Six is?”

“Of course, Dino.” Page Six was the Post’s gossip page.

“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Crow make an appearance there at least once a week, every day during the trial.”

“Trial?”

“Yeah, he got caught in some sort of property swindle, but he got off. Cost him a couple of million in legal fees, though.”

“That could put a dent in a fellow’s wallet, couldn’t it? Especially if he has a trophy wife and a publicist to support.”

“I guess so. Charlie Crow was in Barton’s outfit?”

“Yeah, and Barton says he was a wheeler-dealer even then.”

“Are you sure it’s the same Charlie Crow?”

“No, I’m not,” Stone said. “That was your contention. Is he from the Bronx?”

“Yeah, and you can take the boy out of the Bronx, but…”

“I get the picture,” Stone said. “Charlie is still a little rough around the edges, then?”

“Correct picture.”

“I’d like to know if he has a sheet for anything besides his real estate scam.”

Dino unsheathed his cell phone and made the call. “They’ll get back to me,” he said, putting the phone away.

“Who’s Charlie’s publicist?” Stone asked.

“Ask the guy behind you.”

Stone turned and found Bobby Zarem, ace publicist, at the next table. “Hey, Bobby,” he said.

“Hey, Stone.”

“You ever heard of a guy named Charlie Crow?”

“Hasn’t everybody?”

“You don’t, by any chance, represent him, do you?”

“Too sleazy for my taste,” Zarem said. “He’s one of Irv Kaplan’s clients. They’re well suited to each other.”

“Thanks, Bobby.” Stone turned back to Dino. “You hear that?”

Dino held up a hand while he opened his cell phone. “Bacchetti. Yeah? Yeah. Read it to me. Thanks.” Dino hung up. “Charlie had a juvey record, small time stuff: joyriding in other people’s cars, petty theft. Nothing after that. Maybe the Marines straightened him out.”

“From what Barton says, they just made him a better criminal.”

“Barton should talk.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you about the gold double eagle.” Stone told him the story.

“So, when Barton gets a little short, he can always stamp out another twenty-dollar gold piece and sell it for a few million?”

“He’s admitted to doing that twice but not recently.”

“Our Barton is quite the card, isn’t he?”

“He certainly is,” Stone agreed. “Did I mention that the die for the gold coin was in a drawer of the secretary when it was stolen?”

“You did not mention that, but I guess it makes Barton more anxious than ever to get the furniture back.”

“Yes, it certainly must,” Stone said.

“Well, let’s hope whoever has the thing doesn’t go through the drawers; he might recognize it. What does a die look like, anyway?”

“I’m not sure, but I once had a tour through a factory that makes class rings, and they had this good-sized machine that stamped them out. They’d put a blank piece of gold, already cut to shape, into the thing, and bang, the thing stamped the design onto it. The die part was pretty small, though, not a lot bigger than the ring it stamped out.”

“So you could put the die in your pocket?”

“Or in a small drawer in a large piece of furniture.”

“Having the die would be like having a license to print money, wouldn’t it?”

“It would be like not having a license to print money, just a printing press.”

“That would do me,” Dino said.