Стюарт Вудс - Standup Guy

BOOKS BY STUART WOODS

FICTION

Doing Hard Time

Unintended Consequences †

Collateral Damage †

Severe Clear †

Unnatural Acts †

DC Dead †

Son of Stone †

Bel-Air Dead †

Lucid Intervals †

Strategic Moves †

Santa Fe Edge §

Kisser †

Hothouse Orchid*

Loitering with Intent †

Mounting Fears ‡

Hot Mahogany †

Santa Fe Dead §

Beverly Hills Dead

Shoot Him If He Runs †

Fresh Disasters †

Short Straw §

Dark Harbor †

Iron Orchid*

Two-Dollar Bill †

The Prince of Beverly Hills

Reckless Abandon †

Capital Crimes ‡

Dirty Work †

Blood Orchid*

The Short Forever †

Orchid Blues*

Cold Paradise †

L.A. Dead †

The Run ‡

Worst Fears Realized †

Orchid Beach*

Swimming to Catalina †

Dead in the Water †

Dirt †

Choke

Imperfect Strangers

Heat

Dead Eyes

L.A. Times

Santa Fe Rules §

New York Dead †

Palindrome

Grass Roots ‡

White Cargo

Deep Lie ‡

Under the Lake

Run Before the Wind ‡

Chiefs ‡

TRAVEL

A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland (1979)

MEMOIR

Blue Water, Green Skipper

*A Holly Barker Novel

†A Stone Barrington Novel

‡A Will Lee Novel

§An Ed Eagle Novel

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Publishers Since 1838

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Copyright © 2014 by Stuart Woods

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Woods, Stuart.

Standup guy / Stuart Woods.

p. cm.—(Stone Barrington ; 28)

ISBN 978-1-101-61588-1

1. Barrington, Stone (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.O642S73 2014 2013030289

813'.54—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

Contents

Books By Stuart Woods

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

1

Stone Barrington made it from his bed to his desk by ten AM, after something of a struggle with jet lag. Granted, the three-hour time change between Los Angeles and New York was not a killer, but it mattered. As soon as he sat down his intercom buzzed.

“Yes?” he said to his secretary, Joan Robertson.

“You have a visitor,” she said, “name of John Fratelli. Says he’s a friend of Eduardo.”

“Send him in,” Stone said. Any friend of Eduardo Bianci’s was a friend of his.

A vision of the mid-to-late twentieth century appeared in the doorway.

“Mr. Barrington? May I come in?”

“Of course,” Stone said, rising to greet his visitor, who was wearing a boxy, light gray flannel suit, a starched white shirt, and what appeared to be a clip-on bow tie. He was carrying a salesman’s suitcase and a porkpie hat and had a haircut that had probably been accomplished entirely with electric clippers—short sides and a Brylcreemed top. “Come in and have a seat, Mr. Fratelli.”

“Thank you,” the man replied. “It’s nice of you to see me.” This was delivered in what appeared to be an old-fashioned Brooklyn accent, the likes of which had not been heard for many years from a man as young as Fratelli, who appeared to be no older than fifty. He came in and took the proffered chair across the desk and set down the suitcase.

“How may I help you?” Stone said, hoping the man was not a salesman.

Fratelli stood again, reached into a pocket, and pulled out a wad of bills; he peeled off five hundreds and placed them carefully on Stone’s desk.

“All right,” Stone said, “you’ve paid for a consultation and bought yourself some attorney-client confidentiality.”

“Good,” Fratelli said, sitting down again.

“I should inform you, though, that if you confess to a crime and I end up representing you in court, I will not be able to call you to the stand to testify on your own behalf.”

“Why not?” Fratelli inquired.

“Because I cannot call a witness to the stand who I know will lie under oath.”

“I understand,” Fratelli said. “That’s reasonable, I guess.”

“How is Mr. Bianci?” Stone asked, by way of getting the man to relax.

“Who?”

“Did you not tell my secretary that Eduardo had sent you to me?”

“Oh, I meant Eduardo Buono.”

“Not Bianci?”

“No, Buono.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” Stone said.

“Well, he knows you.”

“How does he know me?”

“He read an article about you in a magazine— Vanity Fair .”

That magazine had published an excerpt from a book about Stone’s late wife, Arrington. “I’m afraid I—”

“Eduardo says you’re a standup guy.”

“Well, as kind a characterization as that may be—”

“Eduardo and I shared a living space for twenty-two years.”

“I’m happy for you both, but that still doesn’t—”

“Eduardo was a very smart man, even if he did get caught.”

“Ahhhh,” Stone said. Now he understood. “Where did you do your time, Mr. Fratelli?”

“Sing Sing.”

“And when did you get out?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“How long were you away?”

“Twenty-five years, to the day. I did my whole sentence, no parole.”