Worst Fears Realized

57

STONE WENT BACK TO DOLCE’S PLACE AND packed his things. He was out of clean clothing, and he figured, what with the death of Erwin Hausman, it might be safe to go back to his own house. He left a note for Dolce, but after a moment’s thought, he kept the key she had given him.

Back in his own street he cruised the block a couple of times, looking for vans or other suspicious vehicles, but he saw nothing that alarmed him. He used his remote to open the garage door, drove inside, closed the door, took his things out of the trunk, and went upstairs.

The place was in good order. Helen had, apparently, with no instructions from him, continued to come in. It occurred to him that that might have put her in danger, and he winced at the thought that he had forgotten to tell her.

He threw his dirty clothing into a hamper and put away his cases. He was about to lock the 7.65 automatic in the gun safe, but he reflected that someone, probably Peter Hausman, was still out there, so he kept the pistol in its shoulder holster. He went down to his office and checked his machine for messages. There were a dozen or so, but none terribly urgent. Since settling his personal injury suit, there had been nothing much on his docket. There were three hangups recorded on the machine, and he wondered about that. He punched up the list of calls on his caller ID box and compared them to the messages. The three hangups were from a Brooklyn number that he didn’t recognize. The thought that it might be Eduardo Bianchi crossed his mind, but Eduardo had probably known where he was. He shrugged it off; if it was important, the caller would try again.

The upstairs doorbell rang. Stone started to answer it through the phone system, but instead, he opened the street door to the office and peeked up at the front stoop. A slickly dressed man in his mid-thirties stood there, tapping his foot impatiently.

“Hello,” Stone called out. “Can I help you?”

“You Stone Barrington?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

The man came down the steps and walked to the office door. “I tried to call you a couple times, but you weren’t answering the phone. My name is John Donato; does that mean anything to you?”

“I don’t think so,” Stone said, then, just as the man spoke again, he remembered.

“Funny, it ought to, since you been screwing my wife.”

“Ah, yes,” Stone said. “I know who you are, and you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

“I know Dolce,” Donato said, “and I ain’t jumping to any conclusions. You’re screwing her, all right, and I thought I would warn you just once before I stick a gun in your ear and blow your brains out.”

Stone snapped, throwing aside his lawyerly restraint. “Now, you listen to me, you dumb goombah,” he said. “I know exactly who you are; you’re the cheap, two-bit hood who used to be married to a girl who was way above you, and while you were married to her you spent most of your time screwing around with other women, so don’t come around here bitching to me about your marital rights.”

Donato took a step back, then he unbuttoned his jacket and opened it so that Stone could see the pistol under his arm. “You see that?” he asked.

“Yeah, I see it,” Stone said, unbuttoning his own jacket. “You see this?”

Donato blinked and stepped back again.

Stone took out his badge and flashed it. “And do you see this? It means that I can have half a dozen cops on your case with a single phone call. How would you like that? Or would you like to have the feds crawling all over your concrete business? I can arrange that, too. Are you beginning to get the picture?”

Donato looked a little shaken. He turned and walked back to the sidewalk. “You just remember that, as long as I’m around, Dolce is a married woman,” he said. Then he crossed the street, got into a waiting car, and drove away.

Stone went back inside, slamming the door behind him. His residence phone was ringing, and he pushed that button on his desk phone. “Hello?” he said, irritably.

“Well, don’t bite my head off,” Dolce said.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I got your note, and I’m very sad; I wanted you here when I got home.”

“Dolce, I really needed to get home. Good news: the man who has been trying to kill Dino and me and everyone we know, is dead. He was shot while in police custody.”

“That is good news,” she said. “Then it’s all over?”

“No, we haven’t got Mitteldorfer, and there appears to be one other man involved. Watch the six o’clock news.”

“Can I come over there and watch it?” she asked, her voice low.

“Sweetheart, I need a night off. I’ve got a grand-jury appearance first thing in the morning, and I need to think about my testimony.”

“Stone,” she purred, “just because you had a problem last night doesn’t mean you’ll have one tonight. Why don’t I come over and cook you something?”

At the mention of cooking, Stone weakened. “Okay, let me give you the address.”

“I have the address,” she said. “I’ll bring groceries, you do the wine.”

“What time?”

“Give me an hour or so.”

“Take your time; I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know you’re not,” she said.

Stone returned a few phone calls, then went to the cellar and chose some wines. That done, he went upstairs and changed into comfortable clothing, switching on the bedroom TV. The story was all over the tube, with the photograph of Mitteldorfer and a modified sketch of the second Hausman. He hoped to God they would get some more calls from that. The phone rang.

“Hello?”

“It’s Dino; you’re back in your own house?”

“Yeah, I figure with Erwin dead and Mitteldorfer’s picture on TV, the bad guys are in disarray, so it’s safe here.”

“I’m glad to see you out of the witch’s bed and back into your own.”

“Dino, Dolce is on her way over here right now, and I want you to stop saying all these terrible things about her.”

“I haven’t said anything that wasn’t true.”

“I like her, Dino; I’ll grant you, she can be a little overbearing at times, but I like her. I like her father, too. You may as well know that it was he who found out about the doctored tape used in the Dante trial, so we both owe him.”

“I don’t want to owe him,” Dino said.

“Well, that’s tough; you do, anyway, and I, for one, am glad to have all the help he can give us. I want my life back, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m trying to figure out whether to bring Mary Ann and Ben home.”

“Not yet; let’s be cautious for a few more days. Maybe the TV news story will produce some calls.”

“By the way, we got the warrant on Deacon’s place; Andy’s going to execute it tomorrow morning, as soon as he’s out of his apartment.”

“What do you expect to find?”

“Probably nothing; the guy’s not stupid enough to take the knife home. But we’ve got to make the effort. The fact that he was around the corner when Susan was killed isn’t enough.”

“Why don’t you brace Mick Kelly, too?”

“Good idea; I’ll have him picked up at the same time as Deacon.”

“Tomorrow morning, call me on my cell phone if you find out anything; I’d like to have as much ammunition as possible when I testify.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, by the way, Johnny Donato was here this afternoon.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Dino said. “You see what happens when you ignore my advice?”

“Tell me what you know about the guy, Dino.”

“Well, he’s not just a soldier, but he’s not a capo, either, though the word is, he might be one of these days, if somebody doesn’t pop him.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Who knows? He might call a hit on you, if he thought he could get away with it. In my judgment, he wouldn’t have the guts to do the job himself.”

“He showed me his gun, and I showed him mine.”

Dino laughed. “That’ll keep him off the block, anyway. Guys like Donato aren’t used to dealing with people who are as well armed as they are. You ought to be grateful to the guy, Stone; he’s a buffer between you and Dolce. As long as he’s alive, she can’t do anything permanent.”

“What makes you think she’d want to do anything permanent with me?” Stone asked.

“I don’t know, Stone. Eduardo apparently thinks highly of you, and he doesn’t have a history of admiring Dolce’s boyfriends.”

“And where are you getting this?”

“From Mary Ann, where else?”

“Dino, you’re making way too much of all this.”

“Just make sure you don’t shoot Donato; it wouldn’t be in your best interests.”

“Goodbye, Dino,” Stone said, and hung up. A moment later, the front door buzzed. Stone picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“Your dinner has arrived,” Dolce said.