Stuart Woods: Shoot Him If He Runs

“Thank you, Mr. Barrington. We are glad to have the opportunity to apologize to you for the treatment you received at the airport this afternoon.”

“I confess I was surprised; I thought there might be hard feelings left over from our courtroom appearance together some years ago.”

“Certainly not; your conduct was professional at all times, at least when you were wearing the robes and wig. Though it seems we were right about the lovely Allison, after all.”

“Well, you weren’t right about her murdering her husband, but I must admit you were a better judge of her character than I. She had me fooled, but not you.”

Sir Winston beamed.

“May I introduce my friends? Mr. Bacchetti, Ms. James, Ms. Heller.”

Sir Winston shook their hands. “We welcome all of you to St. Marks and wish you a most pleasant stay. Now, if you will excuse us.” He returned to his wife at their table.

“He was very cordial,” said Thomas, who had walked up behind the bar.

“Surprisingly so,” Stone said.

“You notice he has adopted the regal first person plural, instead of the more democratic first person singular?”

“I did notice that,” Stone said. “I would have thought that more appropriate for a king than for a prime minister.”

“Quite so,” Thomas replied, “but Winston tends to blur the line between the two. Your table is ready; will you follow me?” He stepped from behind the bar and led them to a table in a sort of gazebo in one corner of the dining room, with a fine view of the sea in the medium distance. “Will you allow me to order for you?” Thomas asked.

“Thank you, Thomas; we’d like that,” Stone replied.

Another round of gimlets arrived.

“I have a feeling,” Genevieve said, “that by the time we leave here I will be thoroughly pickled in vodka gimlets.”

“Just think of them as a preservative,” Dino said.

The steel band was replaced by a pianist and a bass player, who played soft jazz and ballads through the evening.

A first course of conch chowder arrived, followed by an enormous paella, made from local seafood. After dessert, Thomas brought them a pot of espresso and a bottle of good cognac and they invited him to pull up a chair. Dino and Genevieve repaired to the dance floor, and Thomas poured them all a brandy.

“All right,” he said, after they had raised their glasses, “what’s going on here?”

Stone and Holly exchanged a glance.

“Holly, I know who you are. I shot pistols against your father in the nationals some years ago, and you were there; I think we even were introduced. As I recall, you were just out of the army and serving as police chief in some little Florida burg.”

“Well, yes,” Holly said.

“I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have immediately recognized you had Stone not blurted out your name. Why are you here under an assumed name?”

“I think I’d better bring Thomas up to date,” Stone said to Holly.

“If you think it’s a good idea,” she replied.

“I think it’s a good idea, because we’re going to need Thomas’s help.”

“And that means you have to tell me everything,” Thomas said. “I don’t want Sir Winston’s police breathing down my neck.”

“It’s nothing illegal, Thomas,” Stone said. “We’re looking for a man named Teddy Fay.”

Thomas blinked. “I read in the New York Times that that gentleman was killed in some sort of airplane incident.”

“He certainly was not killed in that incident,” Stone said, “and he may still be alive.”

“And you think he’s alive here ?”

“Possibly. Do you know a woman, an American, named Irene Foster? Fiftyish, attractive?”

“Of course,” Thomas said. “Irene bought an old house up on Black Mountain and renovated it. She lived in the inn for a couple of months in the off-season, while the work was being done. Do you think she might have something to do with Fay?”

“They knew each other when they both worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, and Ms. Foster retired about the time Teddy disappeared for the second time. It’s thought she might have been helping him, though there’s no hard proof of that.”

“So Irene was CIA? And she told me she was a retired college professor,” Thomas said.

“Has she been spending a lot of time with any particular man?” Stone asked.

“Just the opposite,” Thomas replied. “Irene has a propensity for picking up single men, tourists, of a certain age, and doing what comes naturally. I’ve never seen her with the same man for more than two or three evenings.”

Stone produced the drawing of Teddy Fay. “Seen anyone who looks like this?”

Thomas looked at the picture. “Larry David? I always TiVo his show.”

“We’re hearing that a lot, but this is as close as we’ve been able to come to what he looks like. He destroyed every photograph of him ever taken.”

“No, no one like that. Who are you working for on this little search? The FBI?”

“We’d better not go into that,” Holly said.

“If you want my help, I want to know it all,” Thomas replied.

“All right, I work for the CIA now, and Stone and Dino are helping out. Genevieve is just along for the ride.”

“How long are you planning to be here?” Thomas asked.

“A week or so,” Holly replied. “Longer, if necessary.”

“Well, stick around here and you’ll see Irene in a day or two; she comes in a lot. You’ll probably get to see her in action.”

“Thomas,” Stone said, “we heard gunfire near the cottage earlier this evening. What was that about?”

“A man came ashore in a rubber dinghy from a larger boat offshore. The police shot him no more than a hundred yards farther down the beach from your cottage.”

“Drugs?”

“Probably. Certainly, they thought so; I don’t know what they found in the dinghy.”

“I get the impression that the police here might shoot first and ask questions later.”

“That is not a false impression,” Thomas said. He nodded toward Sir Winston, who was leaving the restaurant. “That’s the way he likes it.”

Stone woke up with his head in “Ginny’s” lap, and he took a moment to investigate how thorough the Agency’s makeover of Holly had been. He was impressed to find that she was a redhead all over. Lance was not taking any chances.

“What are you doing down there?” she asked.

“Easy, Ginny; just checking out your disguise.”

She laughed. “Check it out all you like,” she said, pushing his head down.

They had breakfast on the cottage’s patio, overlooking the beach. Stone and Dino were particularly interested to see that there was, apparently, no prohibition of nudity on the strands of St. Marks.

“Try looking at your eggs,” Genevieve said to Dino.

“As an investigator, I’m expected to be aware of my surroundings at all times,” Dino replied.

“Me too,” Stone added.

“Now you understand why Lance insisted that my disguise be complete,” Ginny said.

“I won’t ask,” Dino said.

“You won’t need to,” Ginny replied. She stood up, dropped her robe and ran for the water.

Stone swallowed the last of his coffee and followed her, just as naked. He caught up with her a few yards off the beach, and she splashed water in his face. “I didn’t think you’d do it,” he said.

“Well, Ginny is just full of surprises, isn’t she?”

Stone heard splashing and saw Dino and Genevieve running into the water. “You know, for as long as I’ve known Dino, I’ve never seen him naked?”

“I’m a little disturbed that you’re looking at him instead of Genevieve,” Holly said, ducking him.