Stuart Woods: Dirty Work

"Yeah, so what?"

"Ever have a knee injury?"

"Yeah."

"Remember how much it hurt?"

"Yeah."

She pointed the pistol at his right knee. "This is going to hurt a lot more," she said.

He held his hands out in front of him in a pacifying motion. "Okay, okay, whatever you say."

Marie-Therese walked to the window, keeping the gun pointed at him, and looked out. She was only three floors above street level, and she had thoughts of tying the bedsheets together, but there were two police cars parked in the street, their lights flashing. She turned back to her captive.

"Just tell me what you want," he said.

"I want a ride out of here," she replied.

Stone, Dino, and Carpenter stood in the hallway, their backs against the wall, on either side of the door.

"Kick it in," Carpenter said. "That's what cops do, isn't it?"

"That kind of door don't kick," Dino said, "unless you want to break an ankle." He put the handheld radio to his mouth. "This is Bacchetti. We've got the suspect cornered in a room on the third floor. I want a SWAT team with a battering ram up here now."

"Lieutenant, it's Sergeant Rivera," a voice came back. "We don't have a SWAT team on site – you didn't ask for one earlier. I'll have to call it in, so it's going to be a few minutes."

"She isn't going anywhere," Stone said.

"Okay," Dino said into the radio, "tell them to shake their asses."

"What do we do now?" Carpenter asked.

"Let me see if I can talk her out," Stone said.

"Feel free," Dino replied.

Stone moved closer to the door and rapped on it sharply. "Marie-Therese, it's Stone Barrington."

"Well, hi there, Stone," her muffled voice came back. "What brings you to see me?"

"I want to get you out of here alive," Stone said.

"Sounds good to me. How do we go about that?"

"It's simple. You open the door, toss out your weapon, and walk out with your hands on your head. I guarantee you'll be safe."

"Carpenter's out there, isn't she?"

"Yes, she's here."

"Can you guarantee I'll be safe from her? After the lie about the money transfer, I don't trust her."

"I sent the money!" Carpenter shouted. "It's in your account!"

Stone motioned for her to be quiet. "Carpenter is not going to shoot you, but a SWAT team is on the way, and unless we get you out of there now, they're going to be battering the door down, and anything could happen."

"Well, we don't want that, do we? All right, I'm coming out. Everybody stand away from the door."

The three of them backed across the hallway and waited.

"We're out of the way," Stone said.

"Okay, here I come."

The knob turned, and the door swung inward.

Stone blinked. A man stood there, a man so big that he filled the whole doorway. His fingers were interlaced across his belly, and from under his arms protruded two female feet, in heels. Marie-Therese peeked over his shoulder, an arm around his neck, and her pistol was against his temple.

"Giddyup," she said, "but take it slow."

The man moved slowly through the doorway.

"Just don't turn your back on them," Marie-Therese said.

Dino spoke up. "Hey, I know you, don't I?" he said to the man. "Weren't you a linebacker for the Jets a while back?"

"Yeah," the man replied.

"Billy Franco, The Freezer!"

"Yeah, right, now could you just please do whatever it takes to get this lady offa my back and outa my life?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt this sports chat," Marie-Therese said, "but we're going to do a little dance now. Everybody is going to rotate counterclockwise until we've changed places."

The three began moving in that direction, and Franco moved at the same time, until his back was to the opposite wall, and they were standing in the doorway of the room.

"Now, everybody back into the room and close the door, and then I won't have to splash Mr. Freezer's brains all over the place."

"Then what?" Franco asked.

"Then I'm going to ride you out of this hotel and into the nearest car."

"I got a better idea," Franco said.

"What?"

He took a quick step backward and slammed Marie-Therese against the wall, then dove sideways.

Marie-Therese made a sound like air rushing from a blown tire and ended up in a sitting position on the floor. Then, with the last of her strength, she raised the pistol, pointed it in the general direction of the three, and pulled the trigger. There was a soft click as the hammer fell on the empty chamber.

For a moment, no one moved, then Carpenter fired two bullets into Marie-Therese.

Stone swung an arm, knocking Carpenter off her feet. "Stop it!" he yelled.

Franco, who had been lying facedown in the hallway, his hands covering his head, turned and looked. "Did somebody get shot?" he asked.

Stone bent over Marie-Therese and held his fingers to her throat. "Yes," he said. "Shot dead."

Stone got back to his house around noon. There was a courier package on his doorstep, and he took it inside and dumped it on the hall table. He was exhausted and dispirited, and he was in no mood to read anything. What he needed was sleep.

He left a trail of clothing from the elevator to the bedroom and climbed into bed, pausing only to press the privacy button on his telephone.

When he awoke it was dark outside. The bedside clock said just after eight. He got his feet on the floor, stood up, and walked to the bathroom. Five minutes of hot shower on the back of his neck made him feel nearly human again.

He went back into the bedroom, thinking of food. He hadn't had anything to eat since the night before. He switched off the privacy button on the phone, and it rang immediately.

"It's Dino. Get your ass up to Elaine's."

"I don't know, Dino. I just woke up."

"Carpenter's leaving. She tried to call you, but I guess you had the phone turned off. She's stopping by on her way to the airport."

"All right, I'll be there." He hung up, then shaved and got into some clean clothes, still a little fuzzy around the edges. As he was about to leave the house, his eye fell on the package on his front hall table. The return address was the Carlyle hotel. He opened it. Inside were several sheets of paper and a fairly thick envelope.

Stone:

I have the very odd feeling that I am at the end of something, maybe of everything. I wish I could stop, but I can't, not until I've done what I set out to do. I know you think I'm a fool, and you had me convinced of that, until I was faced with the duplicity of the people I oppose. If things go well, I will probably be out of the country by the time you read this. If things go wrong, as I fear they might, then you have your instructions. I have enclosed the name of my lawyer in Zurich. When he is notified, he will know what to do. I wish to be cremated and have my ashes sent to him. Thank you for what you tried to do.

Marie-Therese Stone looked at the attached document, which was neatly typed and notarized. It authorized him to act as her attorney in the United States, before and after her death. Another sheet of paper was a copy of a letter to her Zurich attorney, apprising him of Stone's involvement in her affairs. He ripped open the envelope to find a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills, the same as the last time she had paid him. He tossed the package onto the table, left the house, and looked for a cab.

Dino was alone when Stone arrived. He sat down, and without a word, Dino shoved a copy of the New York Post across the table, open to a story inside.

Jeffrey Purdue, a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, was found shot to death in a suite in the Waldorf Towers this morning. Police sources said that he had picked up Darlene King, a high-priced prostitute, the evening before and had taken her to his suite, and that, after a night together, she had robbed and murdered him.