Stuart Woods - Cold Paradise

Stone did as he was told, and in a moment, he was handcuffed.

“All right, now you can sit back up here,” the man said.

His accent was Southern, sort of educated redneck, Stone thought. “So what’s this about?” he asked again.

“First, let’s get the introductions out of the way,” the man said. “You can call me Larry, and the feller driving is Ernest. And you would be one Mr. Stone Barrington.”

“How do you do?” Stone said.

“I do pretty good,” Larry replied. “Now, as to what this is about, we’re going to take a little drive out in the country, and then we’re gonna make a phone call.” His tone was pleasant, conversational. “I don’t enjoy putting violence on folks, so I’d ‘preciate it if you wouldn’t make that necessary. I can do it, if the need arises.”

“All right, I’ll behave,” Stone lied. He was going to get out of this at the first opportunity, and he was beginning to regret that he had gotten into the car without a fight. The rubber gloves were weighing heavily on his mind.

Shortly, they were in West Palm, driving west on one of its broad boulevards. “You were saying?” Stone asked.

“Oh, yeah. A friend of mine called me a couple of days ago and asked me to come down here and shoot your ass.”

“What friend is that?”

“Does it matter? He’s paying me and Ernest, here, fifty big ones to deal with you, and that’s the most I ever got for a hit.”

They stopped at a traffic light, and a police car pulled up next to them.

Larry stuck the gun in Stone’s crotch. “Don’t you even think about it” he said. “They can’t see us, and if they hear something, then I’m going to have to do you and the cop. Besides, wouldn’t you rather die with your dick still on?”

Stone didn’t answer that. “I’d like to know who your friend is,” he said.

“I don’t think you’d recognize the name,” Larry said. “He uses a lot of them.”

“What does he look like, then?”

“Tall feller, going gray.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Manning.”

“Manning? If you say so.”

“Funny thing is, I was about to try and give Mr. Manning a whole lot of money. Tell you what: Why don’t you call him right now and tell him that? It might have an effect on the outcome of your day and mine.”

“And why would you want to give him a lot of money?” Larry asked.

“I’m a lawyer. I represent a lady he knows. She’s willing to pay a large sum to get him to go away.”

“How much money we talking about?” Larry asked, clearly interested.

“She’s willing to give him a million dollars,” Stone said, “maybe more.” But not now, Stone thought. She won’t give him a fucking penny, if I have anything to say about it.

“You really expect me to believe that.”

“You don’t have to. Just make the call, and I’ll make him believe it.”

“What’s in it for me?” Larry asked.

“How much has he paid you so far?” Stone asked.

“Twenty-five thousand,” Larry replied. “There’s another twenty-five due when he shoots you.”

“When he shoots me? I thought he hired you to do that.”

“Well, yeah, but only if you give me any trouble. He wants to do it himself, if he has the time. Something personal, I don’t know.”

“Tell you what. You make the call. If I can get him to agree to a settlement, I’ll give you another fifty, on top of the twenty-five he’s already given you.”

“I don’t know,” Larry said,

“What have you got to lose? Tell you what. Drive me to the nearest bank, and I’ll give you the fifty right now, in cash. Any bank will do. I just have to make a phone call.”

“Well, see, I’ve got a lot of problems with that,” Larry said. “You could make all sorts of trouble for me in a bank.”

“You’ve got a point,” said Stone, who had been planning on making a lot of trouble for him.

“And that wouldn’t be the honorable thing to do, see? I mean, my deal is with Doug, not with you. Word got around about that, and I’d be short of clients.”

“So, call him and let me speak to him.”

“What the hell, why not? Ernest, give me the phone.”

Ernest passed back a cell phone, and Larry dialed, mouthing the numbers from memory.

Stone heard the electronic shriek from the phone, and the announcement that the cellular customer being called was unavailable or out of the calling area.

“No luck,” Larry said.

“Try him again in a minute,” Stone replied. They were out of West Palm, now, headed west on a narrowing, increasingly empty road that seemed to be heading straight into the Everglades. He didn’t want to go there.

“Okay,” Larry said.

“You do a lot of this work?” Stone asked.

“You bet. Make a nice living at it, too.”

“How’d you get into it?”

“Fellow offered me five grand once, when I was broke, so I got myself a mail-order book that tells you how to do it and get away with it.”

“The work doesn’t bother you?”

“Naw, it’s just business. I mean, I don’t have anything against the people I hit.”

“You know, in my line of work, I have clients who sometimes have need of somebody with your skills. Maybe you should give me your number?”

Larry grinned broadly. “Well, first, let’s see how this goes, okay?”

“Why don’t you try the number again?” Stone said.

“Sure thing.” Larry punched redial, then held the phone away from his ear, so Stone could hear the recorded message again. “Hey, Ernest,” Larry said. “It’s your next left, right?”

“Right,” Ernest said, and a moment later, he turned left onto a dirt road. A moment later, they were winding down a track that ran through scrub pines. To their right, mangrove grew in swamp water. Shortly, they came to a small clearing, and Ernest made a U-turn and stopped.

“Okay, out of the car,” Larry said, opening the door and helping Stone out of the rear seat.

“Let’s try the number again,” Stone said.

Larry punched redial, and again, the dreaded message repeated.

“Well, I guess you’re just shit out of luck,” Larry said, pocketing the phone. He pushed Stone toward the mangrove. ”My instructions were, if I couldn’t reach him, to do the deed and meet him tonight.“

“You’re doing this on credit, then?” Stone asked, trying not to panic.

“Don’t worry,” Larry said, “me and Mr. Barnacle go way back. We did a little stretch together.”

Suddenly the name rang a bell. “Barnacle? Douglas Barnacle ?”

“That’s his name.”

Stone realized that he was about to be murdered by a dead man. “Hang on,” he said.

“Listen, Mr. Barrington, there’s no use stretching this out. You don’t want to think about this any more than you have to.”

“Don’t you read the papers? Watch television? Listen to the radio?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you hear about the shoot-out in a Palm Beach restaurant last night?”

Ernest, who had gotten out of the car, walked up. “Yeah, I heard something about that,” he said.

“What shoot-out?”

“The guy you call Doug Barnacle was living in Palm Beach under the name of Paul Bartlett. The police killed him last night.”

That brought Larry up short. “Ernest, that was the name, wasn’t it? Paul Bartlett?”

“That’s what he was using yesterday,” Ernest said.

“Turn on the car radio,” Stone said. “Find an all-news station.”

“Do it, Ernest,” Larry said.

Larry went to the car, turned on the radio and found a station. Farm report, bank robbery in West Palm, weather.

Larry looked at his watch. “Ernest, we got a plane to catch.”