Стюарт Вудс - Standup Guy

“Now listen, Howard,” Manny said. “I’ve made you whole, right?”

“Right.”

“And I’ve saved you from going to prison or getting a hole in your head, if you keep your mouth shut. You going to keep your mouth shut, Howard?”

“Yes, Manny, I certainly am. And I very much appreciate your help in all this.”

“Not a word to another soul, Howard, or people will come after you. If anybody asks you about a hundred with a red stamp, you don’t know nothing, you never heard of such a thing, got it?”

“Got it.”

Manny walked Howard back into the club, then he took the elevator down to the parking lot and walked a hundred yards, where he came to a parked Cadillac with an Airstream trailer attached to it. He hammered a code knock on the door, which was opened by the bookkeeper.

“I got twelve thousand, one hundred bucks in hundred-dollar bills,” he said. “You shipping today?”

“I ship every day,” the bookkeeper said.

“Give me eleven thousand one hundred from your shipment and replace it with this.”

The man counted out the money and accepted the stack from Manny. “What’s this about, Manny?”

“Accounting,” Manny said. “Now send your shipment, and we never had this conversation.”

The man nodded, and Manny left the trailer and went back to the clubhouse.

Meanwhile there were seventy-nine series 1966 hundred-dollar bills in the wind in and around Lauderdale and points north, south, east, and west, for all he knew. Since they weren’t bundled, there was a good chance they’d just disappear, until some scanner in some bank somewhere picked them up. It was pretty near untraceable, and it was the best he could do. He put it out of his mind and went back to handicapping.

25

Stone’s day was closing, and he called Holly Barker.

“Yes?”

“It’s Stone. Dinner tonight?”

“You poor dear, did last weekend make you think I was available for a social life again?”

“It gave me hope.”

“Stone, I had a little break in work, and I was randy, just like you.”

“You certainly know how to sweet-talk a guy.”

“I am once again submerged in work, and there’s no time for sweet talk. I’ll call you if I can ever breathe again, all right?”

“All right.”

“I do love you, baby, but my country needs me more than you do right now.”

“Okay.” They both hung up. That had been a little depressing, but that was the way Holly was. In the meantime, he had no plans for the evening, and Dino wasn’t pretty enough. It occurred to him that he had not called Hank Cromwell, who had drawn such a nice portrait of him. He did so.

“Well, I wasn’t sure you would call,” she said.

“O ye of little faith.”

“You didn’t say you would.”

“That was implicit in my request for your phone number.”

“I guess it was, at that.”

“I know it’s late to call, but would you like to have dinner tonight?”

“I would,” she replied. “Where and what time?”

“Where do you live?”

“Murray Hill.”

“In that case, may we meet at Patroon at eight?” He gave her the address.

“Sounds good. I don’t know the restaurant. How dressy is it?”

“I’ll wear a necktie.”

“Ooookay. See you then.”

Stone hung up, and Joan came to the door. “Anything else? I thought I’d get out of here at a decent hour.”

“Good idea. I just have to sort out what’s on my desk, so I’ll remember tomorrow what I was doing today, then I’m out of here, too.”

“Good night, then.” She vanished.

Five minutes later, the phone rang. “Hello?”

“It’s Emma. How are you, darling?”

“Just thinking I would never hear from you again. And you?”

“Feeling guilty for not having called since you gave me the name of that sweet DCI Throckmorton.”

“Sweet? Are we talking about the same grizzled curmudgeon?”

“Oh, his mustache and eyebrows could use a trim, and he’s a little grouchy, but he responds well to gentle treatment and a smile.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. I thought he was some sort of android invented by the Metropolitan Police.”

“Well, he knows what he’s doing, I’ll give him that. It took him three days to sort out my problem.”

“And how did he do that?”

“He began questioning everybody with access to my designs, and he can be a very intimidating questioner. He just asks and sits there like he’s daring them to lie to him. Very effective.”

“I must remember that technique.”

“Anyway, it was the art director on our account at our ad agency. He started asking questions in that way of his, and she crumbled like a biscuit. She’d been color faxing somebody in Paris every design of ours that crossed her desk, which was about ten percent of our output, just the things we were using in our advertising.”

“I congratulate you.”

“I gave Throckmorton a check for ten thousand pounds. Do you think that was fair?”

“Fair? I’m surprised he didn’t clutch his chest and turn blue.”

“It wasn’t enough?”

“It was more than enough. I doubt he’s seen that much cash in one place in his whole life, unless it was the proceeds of a bank robbery he was investigating. Are you sending your design thief to prison?”

“I declined to bring charges against the poor woman, but she got fired.”

“That was wise of you. I doubt if she’ll do it again, if she can find another job in the ad business. Does this happy turn of events mean you’ll be coming to New York now?”

“I will be, but not now. It’s very, very busy here, and we’re planning the bigger office in L.A.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t be sad, my dear. We’ll see each other soon. Sooner, if you’d like to turn up in London for a few days.”

“Now, that’s an interesting thought. Do I have to stay at the Connaught?”

“Certainly not, you’re not allowed to stay anywhere but with me.”

“You’re sure you have room?”

“It’s a king-sized bed, or as I like to think of it, playing field.”

“Let me see when I can carve a few days out of my busy schedule. Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

“Promise?”

“Sort of. Joan has already gone home, and she’s the only person who can give me permission to leave town.”

“Then I will look forward to hearing from you. Good night.”

Stone hung up. Ah, London: it had been a while, and he loved London.

26

Alvin Griggs was called into his boss’s office during what would ordinarily have been his coffee break, and told to sit down. He did.

“Al, we’ve taken in six more series 1966 hundred-dollar bills,” the AIC said. “Two of them at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, where somebody, we don’t know who, yet, paid cash for an airline ticket, we don’t know where to, yet.”

“And the others?”

“Two at the Greyhound bus station ticket office in Miami—again from whom and to where remain to be determined. Then there was one given to a livery driver in Miami and deposited into his bank account, and one—this will amuse you—taken from a high-end hooker who got busted.”

Griggs was not amused. “So, the money is being used for the purposes of travel and entertainment? Sounds like tourists to me—two of whom were on their way home to wherever. It occurs to me, too, that since we have found so few of these notes, not very much of the money is in circulation—certainly not seven million dollars of it.”

“I’m entertaining the notion that what we’ve found is like the fuse to a bomb.”

“You mean, if we follow the trail, it will blow up in our faces? I tend to agree.”