Stuart Woods - New York Dead

Cary laughed. A wonderful sound, Stone thought. “Do you deal much with Mafia guys?”

“Not unless there’s a homicide. My partner, Dino, grew up with them, though. Dino says that everybody he was in school with is either dead, in prison, or has his phones tapped by the FBI.”

“I’d like to meet Dino.”

“He’ll charm you right out of your pants,” Stone said.

She leaned close. “Only you can do that.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

They dined well, and Cary pointed out the regulars to him, told him who the producers and directors were. When coffee came, she was quiet for a while.

“That’s really strange, Barron not telling me that Sasha and I were going to be next-door neighbors,” she said finally.

“It really seems to bother you,” Stone said.

“It does. During the time I’ve been with Barron, he’s come to trust me on just about everything, I think, and then, when there’s something you’d think he would just naturally tell me about, he clams up. If Sasha’s stuff hadn’t got moved in there, I’d never have known about her buying the place.”

“Is Barron married?”

“Sure. He and Charlotte celebrated their twentieth anniversary last year. Now, that could have something to do with it. Maybe he didn’t want Dolly to know – but hell, that doesn’t make any sense either. How could he move her into the building and expect to keep it from Dolly? And why would he think I would tell her, anyway? I’ve never told her about anything else he’s done. I hardly know her.”

“What’s Charlotte like?”

“Straight arrow; utterly conventional. They were college sweethearts, and she worships the ground he slithers on.”

“Now, that is the first hard word I’ve heard you say about him. He slithers, does he?”

“Oh, I guess I’m just mad because he didn’t tell me about Sasha’s moving into the building.”

“Was Barron fucking Sasha?”

She turned and looked at him. “Are you on the job, Stone, or is this a personal conversation?”

He didn’t blink. “Every cop is always on the job. There are times when I can’t separate my work from my personal life. This is one of them.”

She didn’t blink either. “If you want to interrogate me about my boss, see me at my office. And I might lie to you.”

“You should never lie to a policeman,” he said.

“I will if I feel like it,” she replied evenly.

The evening suddenly turned cool.

Later, when her black car stopped in front of the Turtle Bay house, she declined to come in with him.

Before he got out, he turned to face her. “I’m sorry. I apologize. I stepped over the line, and I’ll try not to do it again.”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

He kissed her on the cheek, got out of the car, and closed the door.

She rolled down the window. “Stone,” she called after him.

He turned and walked back to the car, leaned down close to her.

“Barron was fucking Sasha,” she said. “Secretly, regularly, and for a long time. And I think I’m falling in love with you.” She rapped on the back of the front seat and the car drove away, leaving Stone standing in the street.

When Stone arrived at the precinct, a well-dressed, obviously irritated man was sitting next to Dino’s desk. Dino, unaccountably in the station house early, was interviewing him.

“Look, I’ve already explained,” he said, looking uncomfortably around him. A very dirty, handcuffed black man was sitting at the next desk, admiring the man’s clothes.

“Mr. Duncan, this is my partner, Stone Barrington. Stone, this is Mr. Evan Duncan, who has something interesting to tell us.”

“How do you do, Mr. Duncan,” Stone said, extending his hand. He stepped between Duncan and the black man.

“Would you please tell Detective Barrington what you saw, Mr. Duncan?” Dino asked politely.

Shielded from the black man and seeming to take confidence from the presence of Stone, who probably looked like most of the people he knew, Duncan nodded. “I’m an investment banker,” he said. “My office is in Rockefeller Plaza.” Having established that he was a person worthy of belief, he went on. “Last evening, about six thirty, a friend and I were leaving the Harvard Club, on West Forty-fourth Street. We had ordered a car from the club’s service, and a black car pulled up and let a man out. I looked at the number on the window and thought it was car number twelve, which was the number on the slip the steward had given me, so I opened the door and started to get into the car.” He paused, as if uncertain as to whether he should continue.

“Go on, Mr. Duncan,” Stone said, nodding reassuringly.

“Well, there was a woman in the backseat. She turned to me, surprised that someone was getting into her car. I apologized and began backing out, and she said, ‘Don’t worry about it, all these cars look alike.’ I closed the door and checked the number again, and it was number twenty-one, not twelve.” He stopped and looked to Stone as if for approval.

Stone wondered if he had missed something. “Mr. Duncan…”

“You didn’t tell him, Mr. Duncan,” Dino said to the man.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I quite missed the main point, didn’t I?” Duncan chuckled.

“Yes,” Dino said.

“What is the main point?” Stone asked, baffled.

“Oh, well, the woman was Sasha Nijinsky,” Duncan replied, as if Stone should have known it all along.

The hairs stood up on the back of Stone’s neck. Here was an obviously solid citizen with a close-up sighting. “Why did you think it was Sasha Nijinsky?” Stone asked, hoping against hope that the man was not simply some upper-class fruitcake.

“Well, I’ve seen her on television several hundred times.”

“Sometimes people on television look different in person,” Stone said.

“And I sat across the table from her at a dinner party less than two weeks ago,” Duncan said firmly.

Stone looked at Dino. Dino made a how-about-that face.

“Did she recognize you?” Stone asked.

“I don’t think so, and I was in and out of the car so fast that I never really engaged her in conversation. But it was Sasha Nijinsky, I’m absolutely certain of it. I wouldn’t really have come in here about this, but my wife said it could be important, since Sasha is missing.”

“Missing?” Stone asked. Nobody knew she was missing. The press still thought she was in some hospital or other.

Dino held up a fresh copy of the Daily News . SASHA VANISHES, a headline screamed.

Stone picked up the paper and opened it. “A source in the New York City Police Department confirmed last night that, since her fall from the terrace of her East Side penthouse apartment, Sasha Nijinsky has been missing, and no one knows if she is alive or dead.” He didn’t read the rest. Somebody, probably somebody in this room, was talking to a reporter.

“You did the right thing, Mr. Duncan,” Stone said. “Now the car number was twenty-one, the time was about six thirty, you said?”

“That’s right, just about exactly six thirty. That was the time I had ordered the car for.”

“And the name of the car service?”

“Minute Man. I use them all the time.”

Stone held out his hand. “Thank you very much for this information, Mr. Duncan,” he said. “You may be sure that we’ll check this out thoroughly.”

Dismissed, Duncan retrieved his trench coat from Dino’s desk and made his way out of the room, giving the leering black man a wide berth.

“Cat’s out of the bag, huh?” Stone said to Dino.

“I think a more appropriate description of the situation is that the shit has hit the fan,” Dino said. “Leary wants to see us.”