Stuart Woods - Hot Mahogany

The three of them sprinted back along the path they had come, and as they ducked behind the stone wall, spotlights came on around the eaves of the house, and there were three short sharp blasts from a loud horn.

They huddled behind the wall, panting.

“That noise means the system is now fully armed,” Holly said. “Another second and the exterior motion detectors would have caught us.”

“Why didn’t you disarm the system as soon as we were inside?” Stone asked, panting.

“How could I know the caretaker is a fast eater?” she replied.

“Anyway, it’s lucky I didn’t, or he would have found the system inop and called the cops.”

“Well,” Barton said, “that’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

“Stone, lead the way to the car,” Holly said, handing him a flashlight. “And don’t use that any more than you have to.”

Half an hour later they were back on the main highway, headed for Barton’s house.

“He doesn’t have the secretary,” Barton said. “It’s not in the house.”

“Maybe it’s upstairs in a bedroom,” Stone said.

“No, he’d never put it there; he’d want it on display, for all to see.”

“Well,” Holly said, “he’s made a space for it. My guess is it’ll be here as soon as the painting’s done.”

“It could still be in New York,” Stone said.

“Probably is,” Barton agreed. “There’s nowhere around here he could store it without causing comment.”

“Barton,” Stone said, “we could just wait for his paint to dry, wait for him to move it up here, then report it stolen, get a search warrant and go get the thing.”

“No,” Barton said. “If the police get into this and it makes the press – and it will – then everything will be ruined.”

Stone wondered what he meant by everything .

Stone and Holly went to the Mayflower Inn the following morning for Sunday brunch and lingered over their food.

“Stone, where would Abner Kramer hide the secretary in New York?”

“Kramer strikes me as the type who would be very well prepared,” Stone replied. “He may have rented storage space for it.”

“Or it could be in his house or apartment.”

“That’s a possibility, too.”

“So, let’s go to New York and break into his place.”

“Well,” Stone said, “I now have a fairly complete set of burglar tools. It would be a shame not to put them to use.”

“Good.”

“I’m kidding. I’ve had enough of housebreaking; I don’t have the innate sneakiness required for the work.”

“Are you saying I’m sneaky?”

“Let me be clear: You are sneaky. Isn’t that one of the prime requisites for working at the CIA? I’ll bet you aced the Sneaky 101 final at the Farm.”

Holly giggled. “You know me too well.”

“Are you going to stick around here for a few more days?”

“Well, it’s a paid vacation, isn’t it? And I’ve got a free house. I miss Daisy, but she’s staying with my housemate.”

“You have a housemate? I’m jealous.”

“It’s a female-type person. The place had a spare bedroom, so I cut my rent in half.”

“Sounds sensible.” Stone waved for a check. “I’m going to have to go back to the city.”

“Why don’t you just hang out here with me?” Holly asked.

“Well, I do have a law practice that requires my attention from time to time if I want to earn a living, and I have to look into the other guy from Barton’s Marine outfit… What’s his name?”

“Charles Crow.”

“Right. From the Bronx.”

“That’s the one.”

“Watch your ass, Stone.”

“You mean more than usual?”

“Remember, Crow is the operator, according to Barton. Sounds like a guy with few, if any, scruples.”

“Okay. I’ll watch my ass.”

Stone got back to the city late in the afternoon, went through his mail and checked his phone messages. Alarmingly little business activity, he thought. He was going to have to make some money pretty soon.

Dino was already at Elaine’s when Stone got there.

“How was the country?” Dino asked.

“Gorgeous. The leaves have started to turn.”

“Not here, yet.”

“Soon. Trust me.”

“What did you find out up there?”

Stone gave him a rundown of his activities in Connecticut, including their housebreaking adventure.

“You’re not sneaky enough to be a burglar, Stone.”

“Exactly what I told Holly.”

“If you don’t watch it, I’m going to be bailing you out of some country jail.”

“I hope not. Have you spread the word about the secretary among your colleagues in blue?”

“I have, discreetly.”

“And a photo?”

“Yes. Otherwise they wouldn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. They’re cops, not readers of antiques magazines.”

“Granted. I’ve got to look into the other member of Barton’s outfit who seems a candidate for all this. Can you do a search on arrests and convictions for a Charles Crow?”

“The real estate guy?”

“There’s a real estate guy named Charles Crow?”

“You don’t ever read the papers, do you?”

“Every day.”

“Not the Times , the Daily News and the Post .”

“Dino, I know you consider those rags newspapers, but there’s nothing in them that I need to know.”

“If you read them, you’d know about Charlie Crow.”

“What would I know?”

“Crow is this hotshot real estate… speculator, I guess you’d say. Made a bunch of money, got himself a trophy third wife and a publicist to get him on Page Six. You know what Page Six is?”

“Of course, Dino.” Page Six was the Post ’s gossip page.

“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Crow make an appearance there at least once a week, every day during the trial.”

“Trial?”

“Yeah, he got caught in some sort of property swindle, but he got off. Cost him a couple of million in legal fees, though.”

“That could put a dent in a fellow’s wallet, couldn’t it? Especially if he has a trophy wife and a publicist to support.”

“I guess so. Charlie Crow was in Barton’s outfit?”

“Yeah, and Barton says he was a wheeler-dealer even then.”

“Are you sure it’s the same Charlie Crow?”

“No, I’m not,” Stone said. “That was your contention. Is he from the Bronx?”

“Yeah, and you can take the boy out of the Bronx, but…”

“I get the picture,” Stone said. “Charlie is still a little rough around the edges, then?”

“Correct picture.”

“I’d like to know if he has a sheet for anything besides his real estate scam.”

Dino unsheathed his cell phone and made the call. “They’ll get back to me,” he said, putting the phone away.

“Who’s Charlie’s publicist?” Stone asked.

“Ask the guy behind you.”

Stone turned and found Bobby Zarem, ace publicist, at the next table. “Hey, Bobby,” he said.

“Hey, Stone.”

“You ever heard of a guy named Charlie Crow?”

“Hasn’t everybody?”

“You don’t, by any chance, represent him, do you?”

“Too sleazy for my taste,” Zarem said. “He’s one of Irv Kaplan’s clients. They’re well suited to each other.”

“Thanks, Bobby.” Stone turned back to Dino. “You hear that?”

Dino held up a hand while he opened his cell phone. “Bacchetti. Yeah? Yeah. Read it to me. Thanks.” Dino hung up. “Charlie had a juvey record, small time stuff: joyriding in other people’s cars, petty theft. Nothing after that. Maybe the Marines straightened him out.”

“From what Barton says, they just made him a better criminal.”