Stuart Woods - Reckless Abandon

Holly came up the steps behind him. “That was close,” she said.

“Don’t move,” Stone replied.

“What? Oh, God. Daisy! Stand down!” She brushed past Stone and took the dog’s collar. “Sit.”

Daisy sat down and looked at Stone warily.

“This is Stone,” she said. “Stone is good. Good.”

Daisy walked over and nuzzled Stone’s hand.

“How do you do, Daisy?” Stone said.

She licked his hand.

“Sorry about that,” Holly said. “You okay?”

“My heart rate is returning to normal. So this is your friend?”

“Yep. Isn’t she beautiful?”

“You didn’t mention that your friend is a Doberman pinscher.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No.”

“I hope it’s okay if Daisy stays, too. We can always go to a hotel.”

“Holly, in hotels, chambermaids enter your room several times a day when you aren’t there. You don’t want a dead chambermaid on your conscience, do you?”

“Daisy’s not like that.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.”

“She only kills on command.”

Stone looked at her askance.

“Just kidding.”

“Go to bed,” Stone said. He watched as she walked ahead of him to the elevator. It was a pleasant sight.

Stone was nearly asleep when he felt Holly sit on his bed. He wasn’t all that sleepy after all, he thought. He reached for her, and his hand found a warm, furry body.

“Go to sleep, Daisy,” he groaned.

Daisy sighed, snuggled against Stone, and settled in for the night.

STONE WAS SLEEPING soundly when he was disturbed by a chink, chink sound. He opened an eye and found Holly sitting on his bed in one of his terry cloth bathrobes, eating cereal from a bowl.

“Good morning,” she said. “I made myself some breakfast. Can I get you some?”

Stone pressed the button that made his bed sit up, then rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Six-fifteen,” she replied.

Daisy, who had been snuggled close to Stone, sat up and yawned.

“Six-fifteen,” Stone repeated tonelessly.

“Too early for you? What time do you normally get up?”

“I wake up around seven, then have some breakfast in bed and read the Times and do the crossword. I usually get out of bed around nine.”

“Lazy guy, huh?”

“I’m not running a police force in a Florida town,” Stone said, “and I don’t have people pounding on my door at the crack of dawn, demanding to see me. It’s one of the advantages of being self-employed.”

Holly nodded. “Guess so. I see Daisy slept with you last night,” she said.

Stone nodded. “Apparently so. You’ll need to avert your eyes while I dash to the bathroom. And doesn’t Daisy have to go out in the mornings, or does she use a flush toilet?”

“She has to go out. And why do I have to avert my eyes?”

“Suit yourself,” Stone said, getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom. When he came back, Holly was still there.

“And don’t forget the plastic bag,” he said, climbing back into bed.

“Plastic bag?”

“For Daisy.”

“You want me to put Daisy in a plastic bag?”

Stone shook his head. “It’s the law in New York that when the dog poops, the owner picks it up and puts it into the nearest trash can. It’s a hundred-dollar fine if you fail to do so. And don’t bring it back into the house.”

“Well, I never,” Holly said. “What’ll they think of next in the big city?” She stood up. “Where do I find a plastic bag?”

“Kitchenette,” Stone said, pointing. “Next to my dressing room; saves an elevator ride at breakfast time.”

Holly went and found a plastic bag. “Guess I’d better shower and get dressed, if we’re going out,” she said to the dog. “Come on, Daisy.”

“Doesn’t she have to go out right now ?” Stone asked.

“She can hold it, don’t worry. You want to take her out?”

Stone rolled over and pulled the covers over his head.

At mid-morning Stone had finished breakfast and was dressing when Holly came upstairs, looking good in a sweater and wool slacks, Daisy at her side.

“Nice neighborhood,” she said. “Why is it called Turtle Bay?”

“There used to be a bay called Turtle Bay here, a long time ago. It got filled in.”

She went and looked out a rear window. “Beautiful garden. Do all the houses get to use it?”

“Yep, it’s a common garden. All the houses open onto it.”

“Nice feature.”

“So what are you going to do today?”

“Start looking for Trini Rodriguez, I guess.”

“Oh? Where?”

“Where do mafiosi hang out?”

Stone slipped his feet into a pair of loafers. “Hang on a minute. Trini is in the Federal Witness Protection Program, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, the Feds usually put people in there when they’re going to testify against the Mafia, when they’re running from the mob, you know?”

“Oh, I don’t think Trini would ever testify against his people.”

“Then who are the Feds protecting him from?”

“Probably me.”

“Holly, that just doesn’t make any sense. Why would they protect him from you?”

“Because he’s theirs, and they don’t want me getting him tried in Indian River County. And they think if he’s theirs, nobody else has a right to him. Well, I have a right to him.”

“You’re a very determined gir… woman, aren’t you?”

“Yes, and I don’t mind being called a girl, except at work. So where do the Mafia guys hang out?”

“Well, they used to hang out in Little Italy, but these days they seem to be more scattered. I guess there are some in each borough.”

“Borough?”

“There are five in New York: Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx, and Manhattan. Until the turn of the century, they were separate cities.”

“So where’s Little Italy?”

“Downtown.”

“Will a cabdriver know it?”

“That’s problematical these days,” Stone said. “Tell you what: I’ve got a light day; I’ll drive you down there, maybe buy you some lunch.”

“Hey, that sounds great, but I’m buying. You get the gas.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

She put a hand under Daisy’s chin and gazed into her eyes. “You stay here and be a good girl,” she said, then she turned to Stone. “Do you want her to kill anybody who comes into the house?”

“No, thanks,” Stone replied. “I wouldn’t want to come home and find my secretary dead.”

Stone slipped into a tweed jacket. “Okay, let’s go.” He led her downstairs to the garage, opened the door, and backed out, closing the garage door with a remote control.

“Your car makes a nice noise,” she said, as he accelerated toward Second Avenue. It’s an E55, isn’t it?”

“Very good. Most people can’t distinguish it from the ordinary E-class Mercedes.”

“I drove one, once; pretended that I was a prospective customer. I liked it.”

“Did you train Daisy yourself?”

“No, she was trained by an old army buddy of my father’s who got murdered. I bought her from his daughter. Daisy is what’s called in dog-breeding circles an ‘Excellent Working Bitch.’ ”

Stone laughed. “I like that.”

“Applies to me, too,” Holly said, grinning.

Soon they were creeping through traffic through the little streets of Little Italy. “That’s Umberto’s Clam House,” Stone said, pointing at a little restaurant. “Joey Gallo got shot there. Down the street is a coffeehouse, where some other don got it while playing bocce in the back garden. You may have seen that photograph of the corpse, with a cigar still clamped in his teeth.”