Loitering with Intent

2

EGGERS AND KEATING had just left when Dino Bacchetti, Stone’s former partner in his days on the NYPD, walked into Elaine’s, shucking off and shaking his overcoat. Dino was still on the force, a lieutenant now running the detective squad at the 19th, the Upper East Side precinct.

“It’s coming down out there,” Dino said, hanging up his coat and taking a seat, while making drinking motions at a waiter, who was already in gear. He stopped and looked at Stone. “You look like you’ve just been dumped again.”

“Again? What’s that supposed to mean?” Stone asked.

“Well, you’re always getting dumped,” Dino said.

“I have to go to Key West tomorrow; you want to come along?”

“What about this weather?” Dino asked.

“The snowstorm is supposed to pass off the coast early in the morning, followed by clear weather.”

“Yeah,” Dino said, “I’d like to take a trip to Key West in the dead of winter, and I’ve got some time off coming.”

“You’re on,” Stone said, sipping his drink and reaching for a menu.

Elaine got up from a nearby table, walked over and sat down.

“So,” she said, “Tati dumped you?”

“I knew it,” Dino chimed in.

“We had a conversation,” Stone said.

“It looked to me like she was doing all the talking,” Elaine pointed out.

“All right, all right; she’s taking her husband back.”

“That ass?” Dino said, incredulous. “He’s a drunk, and he beat her.”

“She says he’s been sober for ninety-one days, and he’s a changed man.”

Elaine spoke up. “When they have to count the days, they haven’t changed yet. Sounds like he’s in AA, though, and that can’t be a bad thing.”

“Forgive me if I view anything that would get him back into her house as a bad thing,” Stone said.

“Don’t worry,” Dino said. “You haven’t heard the last of her.”

“What kind of job did Bill Eggers stick you with?” Elaine asked.

“Actually, it’s not so bad. Dino and I are flying to Key West tomorrow morning.”

“This is work?”

“This is work.”

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch, aren’t you?” she said.

“Sometimes.”

“Later,” Elaine said, getting up to greet some regulars who had just wandered in.

“So what is it we have to do down there?” Dino asked. “I take it we’re not going to spend all our time on the beach.”

“I hate the beach,” Stone said. “It’s hot and sandy and uncomfortable. Have you ever made love on a beach? Sand gets into everything, and I mean everything. Even your ears.”

“Your ears?”

“Trust me.”

“I guess I’ll have to. You know anybody in Key West?”

“I met a lawyer from there once, at a meeting in Atlanta, but I can’t remember his name. Jack something, I think; nice guy.”

“You remember Tommy Sculley, from the old days?”

“Yeah, he was a few years ahead of us on the squad.”

“He put in his thirty and retired down there a few years ago, but he couldn’t stand it, so he got a job on the local force.”

“Good. Let’s look him up.”

“You didn’t answer my question: What do we have to do down there?”

Stone handed him the photograph. “Find this kid.”

“What, he didn’t come back from spring break last year?”

“That’s an old picture, from his college days. He’s a big boy now, twenty-six.”

“So we have to throw a bag over his head and bring him home to Mommy?”

“Nope. All we have to do is get his signature on a couple of documents, notarized, and we’re done. We can FedEx them back, then take a few days off and play some golf or some tennis or something.”

Stone explained the sale of the family business.

“What’s the problem between the kid and his daddy?”

“One of them is a kid; the other one’s a daddy.” Stone told Dino about the message on the postcard.

“That seems pretty definitive,” Dino observed.

“We don’t have to get him to kiss and make up—just sign the documents and collect a big check, his share of the sale of the business. That shouldn’t be too diffi cult.”

“Not the check part, anyway.”

“The kid has already got what the daddy describes as ‘a nice little trust fund,’ from his mother’s side of the family, so I doubt if he’s hurting too much.”

“Still, the other check sounds like a big one, if they’ve got nineteen factories around the world.”

“I didn’t ask, but I guess so.”

“You didn’t read the documents?”

“Not yet.”

“Read them; I’d like to know what we’re dealing with.”

Stone opened the envelope and flipped through the pages.

“Well, the tone is a little Dickensian— I guess that’s what you get when you’re dealing with his great-great-grandfather’s will.” Stone stopped flipping. “Holy shit,” he said.

“That much?”

“That much. It would be a breach of attorney-client confi dential ity to tell you how much, but I think you’d be impressed.”

“This is getting easier and easier. Where are we staying?”

“Good question.” Stone got out his cell phone and called his twenty-four-hour-a-day travel agent. He explained himself and waited for a moment. “Sounds good,” he said. “A week, I guess. What’s the address?” He jotted some notes, thanked the woman on the line and hung up.

“Find something?”

“Place called the Marquesa. It sounds comfortable, and it has a good restaurant, too.”

“All I’m eating is shrimp and conch.”

“Conch? That spiral shell thing you find on the beach?”

“Something lives inside that shell thing, and there are lots of ways to cook it, and it’s really, really good.”

“If you say so.”

“Native-born Key Westers call themselves Conchs, too.”

“You’re a mine of information, Dino; what else do you know about Key West?”

“They have nice sunsets, and you can see the Green Flash, if you’ve had enough margaritas.”

“I can do that,” Stone said.