Stuart Woods - Dirty Work

A block behind her cab, a detective radioed the precinct. "Tell Bacchetti the lawyer got out of the cab at Seventy-seventh Street," he said. "We're still following." The light changed, and he drove on down Second Avenue.

Marie-Therese waited for the next change of the traffic light before she rolled from under the parked car, dusted off her clothes, and disappeared into the night.

Stone got Carpenter into a cab.

"I'm exhausted," Carpenter said.

"Let the cops and your people do their work," Stone said. "You can get some sleep at my house."

"That was a humiliating experience," Carpenter sighed, as they rode downtown.

"You might have mentioned to Dino earlier the fact that there were no charges against her in Europe."

"We didn't want Interpol or the various police agencies to interfere," she said.

"You just wanted to find her and quietly kill her. Is that it?"

Carpenter didn't reply.

"If there were no charges against her, how did you gather all this information about her – the people she's killed, and her methods?"

"From people we've… interrogated," Carpenter replied.

"Can't the testimony of those people be used to file charges against her, so Dino can make an arrest?"

"Those people are… no longer available to testify," Carpenter said.

Stone took a deep breath. "Oh," he said.

The detective following La Biche's taxi radioed in. "Tell Bacchetti the cab didn't go to the hotel. It's continuing downtown."

"This is Bacchetti," Dino said. "Where is the cab now?"

"At Second and Thirty-fourth, stopped at a light," the detective replied. "Wait a minute. The cab's light is on and a guy is getting in."

"Stop the cab," Dino said. "Arrest her for tampering with evidence. She stole the pistol."

The detective switched on his flashing light and drove up next to the cab. His partner got out and shone a light into the rear seat, then got back in. "Lieutenant," he said into the radio, "she's not in the cab anymore."

"What?"

"She's not there. We saw the lawyer get out, but not the woman. We thought she was still inside."

"Oh, swell," Dino said. He hung up and called Stone's house.

"Hello?" Stone said. Carpenter picked up the other bedside extension.

"We've lost her," he said.

"How?" Stone asked.

"My guys saw Kaminsky get out of the cab at Seventy-seventh Street, but not La Biche. Now she's not in the cab anymore. What's more, she stole back the pistol and the ice pick, took them right off the table in the interrogation room when I went to the door. Didn't any of you behind the mirror see that?"

"We were talking to each other," Stone said.

"It's not your fault, Dino," Carpenter said. "It's ours."

"Sorry, babe," Dino said. "I can put an APB out for her for stealing the pistol, if you like."

"Can you prove she stole it?"

"I can, if I can catch her with it."

"And what do you think the chances of that are?"

Dino was quiet.

"Good night, Dino." Carpenter hung up.

So did Stone. "What now?"

Carpenter dialed a number. "Mason," she said.

Stone picked up the extension.

"Mason," a man's voice said.

"Tell me you're still on her," Carpenter said "We're not, I'm afraid," Mason replied. "There was no way we could get to the precinct before she left."

"I was afraid of that. The NYPD lost her. They've been chasing an empty cab since Seventy-seventh Street."

"Good God. Why didn't they hold her?"

"That one is our fault, I'm afraid. We never filed any charges against her, and the NYPD had nothing on her. They found a pistol in the ladies' room at Elaine's, but the ballistics didn't match the slug from the diplomatic killing, and she didn't use a gun on the others."

"I'm very sorry to hear it," Mason said.

"On top of everything else, she stole the pistol back from the police, walked right out of the precinct with it in her handbag."

"So where we are now sounds very much like square one."

"Very much."

"Architect will not be amused."

"Well, no. Get some sleep, Mason. We'll speak in the morning."

"Where are you?"

"At Barrington's house."

"I'll send some people over."

"Don't bother. I think we're safe for tonight."

"Good night, then."

"Good night."

Stone and Carpenter hung up.

"I loved your house in Connecticut," she said.

Marie-Therese let herself into the twenty-four-hour-a-day storage facility, went to her closet, and unlocked the door, closing it behind her. The space was about eight by ten feet, much like a prison cell, she thought. She stripped down to the skin, took a fur coat from a rack of clothes, and spread it on the floor. She found another coat and wrapped herself in it, then lay down on the fur coat.

Now she had used her most valuable, most hoarded resource: her own identity. She would not be able to use it again. Not, she thought, unless they were so stupid as not to enter it into their computers and send it to Interpol.

She fell asleep thinking of the baby she had held in her lap all the way across the Atlantic.

Five men and four women got off a Concorde flight at JFK and got into two waiting vans. The driver of one handed one of the men a cell phone. "Just hold down the number one, sir."

He held down the number one, then put the phone to his ear.

"Trading Partners," a woman's voice said.

"Do you know who this is?"

"Yes, sir."

"We're en route. I want a meeting in one hour, with everybody, and I mean everybody."

"I understand, sir. I've been holding the conference room."

"Good." He snapped the phone shut and handed it back to the driver.

"It's yours, sir, while you're here," the driver said.

Architect put the phone in his pocket and turned his attention to The New York Times.

The phone rang in Stone's bedroom. "Hello?" he said sleepily, glancing at the clock.

"Miss Carpenter, please," a woman's voice said.

Stone shook Carpenter awake. "Call for you," he said.

"What time is it?" Carpenter asked, rolling over and picking up the extension.

Stone hung up his phone. "A little after two P.M. We slept pretty good."

"Hello?"

"Architect has arrived. There's a meeting here at three," the woman said. "Attendance is mandatory."

"Right," Carpenter said. She hung up. "I've got to get into a shower," she said to Stone. "My boss is in from London." She tossed off the covers and ran for the bathroom. "Any chance of some lunch?"

Stone went down to the kitchen and made a couple of ham sandwiches and brought them back upstairs. Carpenter came out of the shower, toweling her hair dry around the edges.

"That looks good," she said, grabbing a sandwich and taking a huge bite.

"So, what's this meeting going to be about?" Stone asked.

"I think you can guess."

"How the hell are you ever going to find her?" he asked.

"We'll find her, and we'll deal with her," Carpenter replied, her mouth full. She went back into the bathroom, taking her sandwich with her.

Stone picked up the phone and called Dino.

"Bacchetti."

"You had lunch?"

"I missed it," Dino said.

"Clarke's in half an hour?"

"You buying?"

"Yes."

"Then let's make it the Four Seasons." Dino hung up.

Stone went to his own bathroom and got into the shower. Twenty minutes later, he stood on his doorstep with Carpenter.

"Dinner?" he asked.

"I'll have to call you," she replied, kissing him. She ran down the steps and turned toward Third Avenue.

Stone turned toward Park.

The last of the lunch crowd lingered over their espressos in the Grill Room of the Four Seasons. Getting a table was easy, since half the crowd had gone back to their offices. Stone and Dino ordered salads and omelettes and a couple of glasses of wine.