Стюарт Вудс - Standup Guy

“Very nice,” Hank said, looking around the well-lit living room. “You must spend a fortune on lightbulbs.”

“The new lightbulbs cost a fortune,” Stone said, “but they’re supposed to outlive me.” He herded them toward the study, where the lights were already on, too. “Actually, the lights come on when the alarm code is entered. If it’s entered incorrectly, they flash on and off, the cops are called, and the surveillance cameras come on. What can I get you?”

“A cognac, if you have it.”

“I have it. Do you have a preference?”

“The costliest,” Hank replied.

Stone laughed and poured them all a vintage cognac.

“You seem a little on the paranoid side, Stone,” Hank said, settling into the leather sofa. “Security system, flashing lights, surveillance cameras.”

“He’s not paranoid enough,” Dino said, “and if I were you I wouldn’t get too near him, until a certain matter is resolved, or you could become collaterally damaged.”

Stone pressed a button and a panel slid silently up, revealing a safe. He opened it, retrieved a small handgun and a holster, and clipped it to his belt, then he joined Hank on the sofa.

“There,” he said. “Feel better?”

“Only slightly,” she said. “There’s always the chance that you’ll shoot me.”

“If it helps,” Viv said, “all of us here are armed, with the possible exception of yourself.”

Hank reached into her thick hair and produced an old-fashioned hatpin, about six inches long. “Only this,” she said, “for incipient rapists.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Stone said.

“Why, were you planning to rape me?”

“Not while that pig-sticker is in your hand.”

She returned the pin to her hair. “There,” she said, “out of the way.”

Everybody laughed. Then the doorbell rang, and the laughter stopped.

“Who the hell is that, this time of night?” Dino asked.

Stone pressed a button on the phone on his desk and a small screen lit up, revealing a well-lit person wearing a blue shirt and a blue baseball cap, standing with his back to the door. “Yes?” he asked into the phone.

The man didn’t turn around but waved something that looked like a FedEx envelope. “Mr. Barrington? Delivery.”

“Just put it through the slot in the door,” Stone replied.

“Sorry, I need a signature.”

“Be right with you.” Stone stood up.

“Watch yourself, pal,” Dino said, standing himself. He unholstered a handgun.

“Be right back,” Stone said, unholstering his own weapon.

Viv walked to the door and stood where she could see them.

Stone went to the door, put the chain on, and opened it a crack, standing well away from it. “Okay,” he said, “hand it through.”

An envelope came through the door and, simultaneously, there came two rapid booms from the other side of the door, and it moved inward, yanking the chain tight. Then there was the sound of running footsteps, the slamming of a car door, and the noise of rubber burning.

Stone unhooked the chain, but Dino grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back. “This is a police matter,” he said, stepping onto the front stoop, his gun held before him.

Stone pulled the door open and looked over his shoulder. Taillights turned right on Second Avenue. “You see anything?”

“Just the taillights,” Dino replied. He pointed at the front door, where pockmarks had been left and paint burned away.

“Looks like buckshot,” he said. “You’re going to need a painter.”

“Guess so,” Stone said. “You going to call this in?”

“Yeah, but it won’t help much. I’ll put a squad car out front for the night, though, so you can get some sleep.” He produced a cell phone and barked some orders.

When they returned to the study, Hank had not moved from the sofa. “What was that noise?” she asked.

“A shotgun,” Dino replied. “There was an attempt on Stone’s life. The front door took the damage.”

“Won’t a shotgun shoot through a door?”

“Not a heavy-gauge steel door,” Stone said, picking up his cognac and joining her on the sofa.

“Why do you have a heavy-gauge steel front door, instead of an oak one, like everybody else?” Hank asked.

“Oh, a thick oak door would have probably withstood the blast,” he said, “but it would have needed replacing. The steel door will just need a little filler and paint.”

“Suppose someone had fired through a window?”

“The windows are armored glass,” Stone replied. “I once had a guest important to the government for some days, and they replaced the door and all the windows, as a security precaution.”

“So your house is an impregnable fortress?”

“It probably wouldn’t stand up to a rocket-propelled grenade,” he said, “but those are in short supply in New York City.”

“You live in a different world from mine,” Hank said.

“Not really, mine just has harder surfaces.”

“How did you come to own this house?”

“Back when I was still a serving police detective, with Dino as a partner, my great-aunt—my maternal grandmother’s sister—died and left it to me. She and her husband had built it during the 1920s. I renovated it over a period of a year and a half, doing all the work myself that didn’t require a plumber’s or an electrician’s license. My father was a cabinet and furniture maker—an artist, really. He made all the shelves, all the doors, and much of the furniture, like the dining table and chairs. I refinished those, updated the kitchen and the electrical supply, air-conditioned it and, voilà, a home.”

“And a free one.”

“Hardly. It took all the money I had and all I could borrow, and thousands of hours of labor, most of it mine. I had to use my old law degree to pay the money back.”

“Was your mother Matilda Stone?”

“Yes.”

“I recognized these pictures,” Hank said, indicating the ones on the wall of the study. “I saw them in an exhibition of American painting at the Met some years ago.”

“I loaned them.”

“How many of her works do you have?”

“She left me four. Over the years I’ve managed to acquire another dozen.”

“I’d love to see them all.”

“They’re scattered around the house,” Stone said, “most of them in my bedroom.”

Dino laughed. “Here we go,” he said.

Everybody laughed.

“It’s late,” Hank said, “and I have work due in the morning. Another time?”

“Another time,” Stone said.

“We’ll send her home in my car,” Dino said.

19

John Fratelli sat in a deck chair on a terrace of the Breakers, the monumental, turn-of-the-twentieth-century hotel built by Henry Flagler, the partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil.

Fratelli was an honored guest in a small suite overlooking the Atlantic, and he had spent his time in Palm Beach well. He had obtained a birth certificate by visiting a Palm Beach cemetery and checking the birth and death dates. His name was now John Latimer Coulter. He had Googled the name and found nothing, so he had applied for and received a Florida driver’s license in that name and, through a visa expediter, a United States passport, both with the address of One South County Road, the address of the Breakers. He was also considering buying the suite that he occupied. It would put a dent in his capital, but he thought it a good investment.

An elderly man sat down next to him and snagged a passing waiter. “A piña colada,” he said, then he turned to Fratelli. “Can I buy you a drink, my friend?”

“Thank you, I’ll have the same.”

The waiter trotted off to the bar, and the elderly gentleman extended a hand. “I am Winston Carnagy,” he said.