Stuart Woods: Bel-Air dead

The man seemed to be breathing more rapidly. “I’m afraid there’s a problem,” he said. “There’s a man in my office from the Drug Enforcement Agency, and he has presented me with a court order freezing Mr. Prince’s account. Therefore, I can’t pay the check.”

“I’d like you to tell your client that,” Stone said, and handed the phone to Prince.

“What?” Prince said, then put the phone to his ear. “Yes?” As he listened his face slowly fell into an expression of disbelief. “That’s preposterous!” he said, then listened some more. “There’s nothing you can do?” He listened some more. “I’ll get my attorney on this immediately.” He closed the phone and looked at Stone. “I’m afraid I’m going to need an extension,” he said.

Stone took a deep breath. “Denied. The deal, at your specification, was to be closed by noon.” Stone looked at his watch. “One minute past, and no closing.”

“What happened?” Carolyn asked. She had stopped pacing.

“The DEA has frozen Mr. Prince’s bank account,” Stone said. “He can’t fund the deal.”

A smile spread across her face. She took a step toward the table and opened her briefcase. “I’m so sorry, Terry,” she said. She removed a sheaf of documents from her briefcase and handed them to Stone. “I would like to present my offer for the property,” she said. “And I have a perfectly valid check for the closing amount.” She handed a cashier’s check to Stone. “Feel free to call my banker,” she said, handing him a card.

Prince, who had been staring at her, open-mouthed, recovered enough to speak. “You incredible bitch!” he said. “Do you think I’m going to let you and that woman get away with this?” He stood up, and there was a gun in his hand.

From Stone’s point of view, what happened next was reduced to slow motion: Prince pointed the gun at Carolyn Blaine; she threw up her hands and turned her head away, closing her eyes tightly. Dino threw away his newspaper and clawed at his belt for his own weapon. Prince fired a single shot.

Stone saw a pink cloud explode from the back of Carolyn’s head. The force of the bullet spun her around, and she fell into the pool. The water around her head became pink.

Stone dove for Prince’s wrist, got hold of it and twisted up and out. Prince lost his grip on the gun and fell backward. Stone jumped on him. “Cuffs!” he yelled to Dino. The handcuffs landed on the flagstones next to him. He rolled Prince over, twisted his arm up and got one cuff on, then he looked over his shoulder and saw Carolyn floating facedown in the pool, in a patch of red water. “The girl!” he yelled at Dino.

Dino knelt on the edge of the pool and tried to reach Carolyn’s left foot, but he couldn’t quite reach it.

“Go in!” Stone shouted, trying to get the struggling Prince’s other wrist cuffed.

Dino shucked off his jacket and jumped into the pool.

Stone left the handcuffed Prince and ran to help him. They got her out of the pool and lifted her onto a chaise longue.

Suddenly, Carolyn spat water at both of them. “What the hell happened?” she yelled, coughing up more water.

“Be quiet,” Stone said. “You’ve been shot.” He picked up a towel and pressed it behind her head, then checked it: red, but no gray matter. “Looks like it just creased you.”

“But there’s so much blood!” she yelled.

“Calm down,” Stone said, “scalp wounds always bleed a lot. Dino, call your pals at the LAPD. Tell them we need the medics, too.”

Dino got on his cell phone.

“Stone, sign my deal,” Carolyn said. “Sign the papers, take the check.”

“I’m sorry, Carolyn,” Stone replied. “We have another buyer.”

“Another buyer! Who?”

Stone was about to answer her when Manolo walked out onto the patio and looked, appalled, at Prince, handcuffed on the flagstones, and Carolyn, bleeding into one of Mrs. Calder’s good towels. “Excuse me, Mr. Stone, but there are some people here from the Santa Fe, New Mexico, Police Department. They want to speak to Ms. Blaine.”

Stone grinned. “Send them right out, Manolo.” He turned to Prince. “You’ll have to wait for the LAPD,” he said.

Stone was packing the following morning when his cell phone rang. “Hello?”

“Stone, it’s Ed Eagle.”

“Hello, Ed. I tried to reach you yesterday, but everything turned out all right. She has a slight head wound, but the SFPD showed up at the perfect moment and took her away. And now Terry Prince has a second attempted murder charge against him.”

“Everything didn’t turn out entirely all right, Stone,” Eagle said. “The cops took her to an emergency room, where she got some stitches, and the doctor insisted on keeping her overnight for observation. They put her in a room with another patient, with a cop on guard outside her door. She stole her roommate’s clothes, and while the cop was in the john, she ran out of the hospital and found a cab dropping somebody off at the ER.”

“Amazing,” Stone said. “Then what?”

“The cops went to her address and found the garage door open. They think she had a second car there, but they had no idea what kind, so all they could do was issue an APB for her, with no description of the vehicle. Unless the cops get very lucky, she’s gone.”

“I hope they fingerprinted her at the ER,” Stone said.

“Nope, apparently they don’t have that facility. And she still has the cash in the foreign bank account that nobody can find.”

“I wonder how much she stole from Terry Prince,” Stone said.

An hour later, Stone took off from Santa Monica Airport and got vectors toward Palmdale, to the east. The weather forecast was for ninety-knot westerly winds.

“We’ll make Wichita on the first leg,” Stone said. “Then from there, if we’re lucky with the winds, all the way to Teterboro.”

“Take your time,” Dino said, opening a book of New York Times crossword puzzles, “I’ve got all day.”

Stone leveled off at forty-one thousand feet and turned into the sun.