Stuart Woods - Cold Paradise

“You’re really trying to piss me off, aren’t you?”

“Can’t you take a joke?”

“I’m going to sic the Italian-American Defamation League onto your ass,” Dino said.

“Didn’t the people who ran that fine organization all get gunned down while eating clams?”

“Only some of them. Are we trolling for Paul Manning, too?”

“No, I think Mr. Manning has retired from the field.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“I explained to him that I knew about his little bank escapades, and that I could very easily cause the FBI to know about them, too, if he should annoy me.”

“And you think that will get rid of him.”

“I do.”

“I expect it pissed him off, too.”

“Oh, yes, I took some pleasure in pissing him off.”

“Stone, you don’t want to piss off crazy people with homicidal tendencies.”

“I think he’s smart enough to stay out of my way, now.”

“Smart doesn’t enter into it,” Dino said. “Revenge has a way of doing away with smart.”

Stone stopped and looked into a jewelry shop window. “See if you can spot Guido and his friends.”

Dino didn’t even turn around. “You mean the three goombahs in the red Cadillac, parked across the street?”

Stone sighed. “Tell me you’re just saying that to annoy me.”

“I’m just saying that to annoy you,” Dino said. “They’re really parked about fifty feet up the street.”

“I told him to stay well away from me,” Stone said.

“Goombahs like Guido don’t listen, unless it involves an illegal profit, or the fun of shooting somebody in the head.”

“I don’t understand why Eduardo would send people like that to do this.”

“Who else is he going to trust?” Dino asked. “They’re his people. He’s not going to ask his fellow board members at the Metropolitan Opera to come to Palm Beach and bring his crazy daughter home.”

Stone started to walk again. “Once again, you have a point, but couldn’t he have hired some private security people? Somebody with a little more discretion?”

“Then strangers would know his business,” Dino said, “and Eduardo doesn’t want anybody outside the family to know his business. To tell you the truth, I’m a little surprised he hasn’t had you capped. After all, you’re not exactly family, although you almost were.”

“I guess I dodged that bullet,” Stone said.

“Not yet, pal,” Dino replied. “But at least you’re not bound to them by a Catholic marriage and family obligations.”

“I still feel obligated to Dolce.”

“Eduardo doesn’t feel you have any obligation to her, so why do you?”

“He has been very apologetic about this,” Stone said.

“You’re lucky he’s Italian,” Dino said. “If you’d been through the same experience with the daughter of some high Episcopalian, the old man would be out there ruining your reputation, even as we speak. He wouldn’t have you shot, but you’d never get invited to dinner again by anybody with an Anglo-Saxon name, and you’d be kicked out of your clubs-if you belonged to any clubs.”

“Yeah, keep telling me how lucky I am,” Stone said. He turned into Tiffany amp; Company. “Come on, I’ve got to find a wedding present for Thad and Liz.”

“Listen, those people ought to be giving you a wedding present,” Dino said.

“Nevertheless.” Stone looked, first at crystal, then moved up to sterling. “What do you think of this?” he asked, holding up a handsome silver bowl.

“What would they keep in that, their money?”

“Fruit.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll take this,” Stone said to a saleslady. “Could you gift wrap it?”

“Of course,” the woman said. “I’ll just be a moment.” She vanished into a back room.

Dino went rigid. “Don’t turn around,” he said. “Dolce’s looking in the window.”

Involuntarily, Stone turned around and looked. He saw a disappearing flash of color.

“You stay right here,” Dino said. “Don’t move.” He walked quickly to the front door and outside, looking up and down the street.

Stone waited impatiently until the saleswoman returned, then waited even more impatiently while she rang up the sale and had his credit card authorized. Finally, blue shopping bag in hand, he hurried to the front door. He looked up and down the street as far he could see, then stepped outside. Dino was nowhere in sight, and neither was the red Cadillac.

Stone stood in the bright sunlight, feeling helpless, not knowing which way to turn. He waited for five long minutes, then made a decision: He turned right and walked rapidly along the street, checking shop-windows for Dolce and looking up and down the street for the red Cadillac.

Suddenly, Dino stepped out of a doorway and ran head-on into Stone. “Didn’t I tell you to stay where you were?” he demanded.

“I did, for a very long time,” Stone said. “Did you lose her?”

“Yeah, and I don’t understand it.”

Then, from not too great a distance, they heard three rapid reports.

“Gun!” Dino said, and started running toward the noise.

Stone followed, and the two of them turned a corner and ran toward a parking lot behind Worth Avenue. Stone could see the trunk of the red Cadillac protruding into the street.

Dino got there first. Women were screaming, and people in cars were trying desperately to get out of the parking lot. The Cadillac sat, blocking the entrance, three of its four doors open, with three bullet holes in the windshield. It was empty.

Dino flashed his badge at a parking attendant, who was crouching in a booth at the entrance. “What happened?” he asked the trembling man.

“I don’t know, exactly,” he said. “I was about to give the man in the Cadillac his parking check when the windshield seemed to explode.”

“Anybody hit?”

“I don’t know. I dove in here in about half a second.”

“Call nine-one-one,” Dino said, then he turned to Stone. “Let’s get out of here.”

As they walked quickly away, Stone looked around the lot and the street for a familiar face, but Dolce was gone, and so were Guido and his two goombahs.

They got back to the yacht without sighting Dolce, and Stone was in his cabin, putting away his wedding gift, when Juanito knocked on the door.

“Yes?” Stone called.

“Mr. Barrington, there’s somebody to see you on the afterdeck.”

“Be right there,” Stone said. He retrieved the 9mm automatic from under his pillow and tucked it into his waistband in the small of his back. He wasn’t expecting visitors.

His visitor turned out to be Dan Griggs, and Stone was relieved until Griggs started to talk. He looked very serious. “Stone, there was an attempted shooting in a parking lot downtown, and one of my people saw you leaving the scene. You want to tell me about that?”

“Don’t worry, Dan, they weren’t shooting at me.”

Griggs didn’t smile. “I thought maybe it was you doing the shooting.”

Stone shook his head. “No, Dino and I were shopping on Worth Avenue, when we heard gunfire. Dino was armed, and we ran around the corner and saw the car with the bullet holes in it. That’s all we saw. We told the parking lot attendant to dial nine-one-one, then left.”

“Did you see the occupants of the car?”

“No.”

“Did you see the shooter?”

“No.”

“Witnesses said there were three men in the car, out-of-towners, by the look of them, and the shooter was a good-looking woman.”

Stone said nothing.

“Why did you leave the scene?” Griggs asked.

“We didn’t see anything. It’s not like we were witnesses. There was nothing there for us to do.” Stone was relieved that he could tell the truth about this, even if he was withholding information.