Stuart Woods - Cold Paradise

“Please.”

“I’ll get the wire off now, and we should have a confirmation today, I expect.”

“Great. What else is happening?”

“One or two calls; I put them off. When are you coming back?”

“Thad Shames has asked me to stay on a few days. I’ll let you know later in the week.”

“Okay. Remember, sunshine causes skin cancer.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” He punched off and turned to Liz. “The money’s on its way to the insurance company.”

“Wonderful. Can I buy you lunch to celebrate? We can go back to Renato’s.”

“Sure. I liked it there.”

They ate pasta and chatted. “Now that you’re going to be a truly free woman, what are your plans?” he asked.

“Well, I think that depends on how it goes with Thad,” she said. “So far, so good. He’s very sweet… and virile.” She smiled.

Stone laughed. “He’d have to be to keep up with you, as I recall.”

“We were quite something for a short time, weren’t we?”

“I guess we were, at that.”

“You were the first man I’d slept with besides Paul for a very long time, and I found the experience, well, liberating.”

“I’m glad.”

“I have the distinct impression that you’re liberating Callie Hodges, at the moment.”

“I didn’t say that,” he blustered.

“You didn’t have to. I took one look at her this morning-or rather she took one look at me-and I knew. She knows we slept together, doesn’t she?”

Stone nodded and sipped his wine. “I thought it best to tell her.”

“You getting serious about this girl?”

“Too soon to say,” Stone said, uncomfortable.

She placed her hand on his. “I’m sorry to embarrass you, Stone. It’s just that I think I envy her a little. Maybe more than a little.”

Stone didn’t know what to say.

“But,” Liz said, “we must learn to be content with our lot, mustn’t we? Lord knows, I have no complaints. I was just feeling a little greedy.”

“I’m flattered,” Stone said.

They walked back to the car, and as Stone opened the door for Liz, he noticed that the rear tire on the curb side had gone flat. He squatted and examined it. There was a large hole in the tread, too big a hole for a slow leak. It was as if somebody had plunged a knife into it.

Stone shrugged off his jacket and tossed it into the rear seat. “I’m afraid we’ve got a flat,” he said. “It’ll just take a couple of minutes to change.”

“Why don’t you call the Mercedes service people?” she asked. “They’ll come and change it.”

“It’ll only take a minute.” He opened the trunk and went to work. He thought about it as he cranked the jack. Was somebody really crazy enough to slash a tire in broad daylight in the middle of Worth Avenue?

Stone spent the afternoon reading, and late in the day Joan Robertson called from New York.

“We’ve closed with the insurance company,” she said, “and I’ve wired the funds. Want me to fax you a fully executed copy of the document?”

“Please,” Stone replied. “I expect Mrs. Harding would like to have it.”

“Right away.” She paused. “Stone?”

“Yes?”

“There’s something I think I ought to mention. It seemed like nothing, really, but I just have a feeling…”

“What is it?”

“You’ve had some phone calls the last few days, from a man who wouldn’t give his name.”

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to speak to you; then, when I told him you were away, he wanted to know where you were.”

“Did you tell him?”

“No, I felt uneasy about it. I just told him that I’d have you call him, but he wouldn’t leave a number.”

“How did he sound?”

“Nice, at first, then insistent. He was very annoyed that I wouldn’t tell him where you were.”

“And he wouldn’t leave a number?”

“No, but I nailed him on caller ID. The first two times he called from the Brooke Hotel, on Park Avenue.”

“Did the readout give a room number?”

“No, just the phone number. I called it and got the hotel operator. Then, after that when he called, the caller ID didn’t report a number, said it was outside the area or something.”

“When were the first phone calls?”

“Thursday and Friday.”

“Okay, if he calls back again, give him my cell phone number.”

“You sure? I have this creepy feeling.”

“I’m sure. He won’t know where I am.”

“Okay.”

“Anything else?”

“Everything else seems normal,” she said.

“Talk to you later, then.” He hung up and thought about the calls for a few minutes, then he dialed the number of Bob Berman, an ex-cop who sometimes undertook investigative work for him, particularly work that Stone could pretend not to know about.

“Hello,” Bob said.

“Hi, it’s Stone.”

“How you doing?”

“Pretty good. I’m in Florida at the moment.”

“You’re just trying to hurt me, aren’t you?”

“Yes. You up for some work?”

“Sure. What you got?”

“I’ve had a couple of phone calls that are worrying Joan. The first two came from the Brooke Hotel, on Park-she got that from caller ID. You know anybody at the Brooke? Maybe somebody in security, an ex-cop?”

“Nah, not a soul. You got a room number?”

“No.”

“Could the calls have come from a pay phone?”

“No, the number reported was the hotel’s.”

“Would the guest list for that time help?”

“Maybe,” Stone said. “How hard would it be to get it?”

“I might be able to hack into their computer,” Bob replied. “Depends on how tough their security fire wall is. My guess is, if a travel agent can get in to check availability, I can get in. I know a guy at the phone company. He can give me a list of all their lines. Probably cost five hundred, though.”

“Spend the money,” Stone said. “At least I can see if there’s a familiar name on the list.”

“What day did the guy call?”

“Thursday and Friday. I suppose the guest list for either day would do. See if you can get the home addresses of the guests, too.”

“I’m on it,” Bob said.

“Call me on my cell phone when you get something.”

“Will do.” Bob hung up.

Juanito appeared with an envelope. “A fax for you, Mr. Barrington,” he said.

“Thank you, Juanito,” Stone said, accepting the envelope. He opened it to find the fully executed agreement with the insurance company.

“And you have a telephone call,” Juanito said, handing him a cordless phone.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Barrington?”

“Yes?”

“This is Dan Griggs, from the Palm Beach Police Department.”

“How are you, Chief?”

“Okay, I guess. I ran a check on this Paul Manning fellow. He’s dead. He was hanged for murder on a Caribbean island called St. Marks a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry, Chief, I should have given you a heads up on that.”

“You knew he was dead?” The chief sounded annoyed.

“He’s not dead. St. Marks is a small, independent nation with a strange justice system and a greedy prime minister. He was bought out.”

“Bought out of a hanging?”

“For half a million dollars.”

“I never heard of anything like that,” Griggs said.

“There are some places where it happens.”

“So you think we might have a murderer loose around here?”

“If’s possible. I still don’t have any concrete evidence of that, but if I come across any, I’ll let you know.”

“How many people did he kill?”

“Three.”

“Well, I think I’d like to see him in my jail.”