Stuart Woods - Kisser

When he finally got downtown to his building, after suspecting a dozen other vehicles along the way, he drove around the block twice before using the remote control to open the garage door on the ground floor of his building. Only when the steel door had closed behind him did he feel safe.

He took the big lift up to his studio and let himself in. Hildy was stretched out on a sofa at the end of the big room, which covered the width of the building.

“How did your business go?” she asked, yawning.

“Very well,” he replied. “Has anyone come to the door?”

“No, it’s been very quiet.”

“Any phone calls, especially with the caller hanging up?”

“The answering machine took a couple of calls,” she said. “Messages were left.”

Sharpe went to the machine and replayed the messages, both routine calls from an arts material supplier and a stationer. He walked from the studio into the office, where two middle-aged women worked keeping books and paying bills, then on to the lower level of his apartment.

He went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, grabbed a handle inside, and rolled the big unit away from the wall. Behind it was a cutout in the Sheetrock, with the cutout replaced. He took a small knife from his pocket and pried out the loose area, revealing a large Fort Knox safe. He entered the code into the keypad, spun the wheel, and swung open the double doors. Inside were stacks of tightly packed plastic bags in the lower half and papers and stacks of cash above. He opened his briefcase, removed the brown envelope, and stacked the newly earned money on a shelf. Then he took a ledger from the safe and made a coded entry. He closed the door, replaced the Sheetrock, wheeled the big refrigerator back into its place, and then leaned against it and mopped his brow.

He was getting paranoid, he thought. He had never made such a large delivery so far from his base, and the experience had wrecked him. The thought of the money in the safe made him feel better, though. How could he have thought that Mitzi Reynolds could be a cop?

Sharpe went upstairs and changed into paint-stained work clothes, then he went back to the studio, where he found Sig Larsen seated next to Hildy on the old sofa waiting for him. “Hildy, make yourself scarce,” he said to her. “Sig and I have to talk.”

Hildy left the room without a word.

Sharpe collapsed on the sofa. “Jesus,” he said, mopping his brow again. “I must be getting old.”

“What’s wrong?” Larsen asked.

“I made that delivery to Mitzi uptown,” he said, “and every cell in my body was in alarm mode. Once I was there I thought I’d be busted with all that product. For a minute, I even thought that Mitzi might be a cop.”

“That’s called paranoia,” Larsen said. “If Mitzi is a cop, then I’m Warren Buffett.”

“Or maybe Stone, who used to be a cop,” Sharpe said. “He was there for the buy, but he was in the kitchen. He must have stayed the night.”

“But you got out okay?”

“Yeah, but then I thought every car I saw was the cops.”

“Derek, you need to take some time off,” Larsen said. “Why don’t you take Patti to a hotel and fuck her for a couple of days? She could use it and, apparently, so could you.”

“So could Hildy, but it’s so boring with her, why bother?”

“When does she come into the money?”

“In a few weeks. She’s cagey about when her birthday is, so I don’t know exactly.”

“I can’t wait,” Larsen said. “I want her out of our lives.”

“So do I,” Sharpe replied. “You can’t imagine.”

“I can imagine. Patti’s got to go, too; she’s beginning to take being called my wife seriously. If we can scam both Hildy and Mitzi we’ll have enough to get out of this town to some place with nice weather and no extradition treaty with the United States.”

“And where is that going to be?”

“How does Brazil strike you?”

“I could never learn to speak Portuguese,” Sharpe replied.

“How about Spanish?”

“I’ve got my Tex-Mex from back home; I could get by on that.”

“Let me do some research.”

“You’d better research some passports for us, too.”

“The trick is to leave legally, with our own passports, before the Feds or the cops shut us down.”

“We’ve got to move some cash soon,” Sharpe said. “The safe is full.”

“Sell the product that’s in there, and I’ll take a couple of suitcases down to the Bahamas and make the hop to the Caymans.”

“Not without me, you won’t,” Sharpe said. “Anyway, the jet charter is cheaper per person, if you have a few people aboard.”

“You don’t think like an accountant, Derek.”

“Have you sent that prospectus to Stone Barrington?” Sharpe asked.

“It’s on the way uptown as we speak.”

“You think he has any money?”

“Not enough for us to bother with,” Larsen said.

STONE HAD MADE IT HOME and was at his desk when Joan buzzed him.

“A man to see you. He says he’s from Sig Larsen,” Joan said on the intercom.

“Send him in,” Stone replied.

The man did not look like someone from a messenger service; he looked like someone from the Russian mob, tall and thick. “Good morning,” he said in unaccented English. He handed Stone an envelope. “Mr. Larsen says you can read this, but you can’t copy it; I have to take it back with me.”

“Would you like some coffee?” Stone asked.

“Yes, thank you.” The man took the offered chair. “Black, please.”

Stone buzzed Joan and asked for a large coffee, and she brought it in.

The proposal was forty-one pages long, and Stone began to read every line.

The man finished his coffee and began to look restless.

Stone was on page eight.

“Could I use a restroom?” the man asked.

“Right over there,” Stone said, pointing to a door.

The man got up, went to the toilet, and closed the door.

Stone picked up the proposal and ran down the hall to Joan’s office. She watched incredulously while he shoved the stack of papers into the Xerox machine and pressed the button. “How many pages a minute does this thing copy?”

“I don’t know, maybe twenty-five.”

Stone tapped his foot impatiently, and when the last copy came out he grabbed the original and ran back to his office. He had just sat down when the man let himself out of the toilet.

“Sorry this is taking so long,” Stone said.

“Take your time,” the man replied.

Stone began reading faster, then scanning. Finally, he restacked the sheets and handed them to the man. “Tell Sig thanks,” he said.

The man returned the pages to their envelope and left.

Stone called Mitzi.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Stone. Sig sent over his proposal, and I read it.”

“What was it like?”

“Too good to be true. There is no corporation or company mentioned, no names of the principals, and no audited balance sheet.”

“A scam, then?”

“Of course, what did you expect?”

“And you weren’t allowed to copy it?”

“I wasn’t allowed, but I copied it anyway, while the messenger was in the john.”

“Oh, good. Will you fax it to the U.S. Attorney’s office?”

“No, but I’ll give it to you, and you can fax it to her without mentioning my name in any context.”

“Is it really that bad between you and her?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.”

“Okay, here’s the fax number at the apartment.” She gave it to him. “Dinner tonight?”

“Can’t tonight.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Let me call you; I’m still in recovery.”

She laughed. “Poor baby.”