Стюарт Вудс - Barely Legal

Herbie felt bad about tricking Josh. He’d have to make it up to him, assuming he ever got out of this. He’d bail him out, pay his fine, try to make Dino understand that Josh wasn’t in on it at all. Herbie’d completely finessed him, feeding him the story about the loan shark, knowing it wasn’t going to fly, then reluctantly admitting the guy was Taperelli’s. If he’d led with that, Josh would have been suspicious. As it was, he didn’t have a clue. He probably still thought the guy was a hood. Well, whatever the case, Josh had done a great job.

Unfortunately, there was no one he could call on for the next part of his mission. He and he alone had a shot to save Melanie.

The cab pulled up on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Thirtieth Street. Herbie paid the driver and got out. The downstairs door was open. Herbie went in and rang for the elevator. The car came, an ancient one with buttons that stuck. He pushed eight and rumbled up to the eighth floor.

Herbie strode down the hallway and banged on the frosted glass door with the sign saying FINANCIAL PLANNER.

Carlo flung it open. He gawked when he saw who it was. “What the hell do you want?”

“I need to see your boss.”

“About what?”

“None of your fucking business.”

That was the right answer. Carlo stepped aside and let Herbie into the office.

Herbie’s heart was pounding. He had his gun on his hip, loosely covered by his sports jacket. He’d bullied Carlo to avoid a pat-down, and it had worked. Now if he could just carry it through.

Mario Payday sat behind his desk. Ollie the Ox and another big goon stood on either side of him.

Herbie walked up to Mario, spread his arms wide, and grinned. “It’s Payday.”

When he got the call, Dino Bacchetti came out of his chair. “You arrested who !?”

Ten minutes later the guard at the lockup let a rather sheepish-looking detective out of the cell.

“What the hell happened?” Dino said.

“Some guy attacked me for no reason.”

“You couldn’t handle him?”

“He sucker-punched me, and he knew what he was doing.”

“Why did he attack you? Was he drunk?”

“That’s how he acted, but I’d bet he was stone-cold sober. He hit me, and it was all I could do to respond. The next thing I know I’m in the back of a police car.”

“What was he like?”

“He looked like a marine sergeant, right down to the crew cut and square jaw.”

Dino turned to the officer accompanying him. “Let me see the arrest report.”

Dino looked at the report. He flipped a sheet. His eyes widened. “Damn it to hell!”

Joshua Hook was sitting on a cot, his face marred by a black eye and a bloody lip.

“Why’d you beat up my officer?”

“What officer?”

“You beat up the officer I had tailing Herbie Fisher.”

“That was a cop?”

“Who the hell did you think it was?”

Josh shrugged. “He looked like a thug.”

“You knew he was a cop. That’s why you did it. Would it surprise you to know the doorman observed Herbie Fisher leaving his apartment building at approximately the time the fight started?”

“They told me I don’t have to say anything until I see my lawyer. Are you him?”

“All right, don’t tell me, I’ll tell you. The cop was tailing Herbie for his own protection. Herbie always seems to pick a fight with the wrong people. This time he picked a fight with Tommy Taperelli, and Tommy Taperelli is not unresourceful, and Tommy Taperelli doesn’t play nice. Now, I don’t know what story Herbie told you about the guy, but there’s a good chance it was Tommy Taperelli who killed his girlfriend.”

“This wasn’t about a drug bust?”

Dino sighed. “It is and it isn’t. Look, Josh, anything Herbie told you about a drug bust is probably true. I’m guessing he didn’t tell you Taperelli probably killed his fiancée.”

“I thought it was a burglar.”

“So did we. But it might have been Taperelli. We just found out, but I think Herbie suspected all along. Since Herbie found out Taperelli may be behind it, he’s come unglued. I don’t know what he’s contemplating but it can’t be good.”

Josh frowned.

Dino sighed. “Look, Josh, I’m not just a good friend of Herbie, I happen to be a good friend of Mike Freeman, the founder and CEO of your parent company, Strategic Services, and Mike also happens to be a good friend of Herbie — in fact, Mike was the guy who hired Herbie to work with you in the first place. If I have to get Mike down here, I will, but I don’t really have the time. So if you know anything, anything at all that can help me deal with the situation, since thanks to you I have totally lost all contact with Herbie Fisher, you’d better tell me now.”

Dino called Stone. “Herbie got away.”

“What? How?”

“Herbie got Josh Hook of Strategic Defenses to beat up my detective. He also got him to give him a gun. That’s where he was this morning, at the upstate training facility brushing up on his shooting.”

“Josh beat up a cop?”

“He thought he was one of Taperelli’s men.”

“Why did he think that?”

“Herbie sold him on the idea. I don’t know how, but he did.”

“I can’t believe Herbie spotted your man. Your men are good.”

“Yeah, but Herbie’s running on pure adrenaline. He’s doing things he shouldn’t be able to do. He’s also attempting things he shouldn’t attempt.”

“Do you think he’d go after Taperelli?”

“That was my first thought. I rushed men to his office, but he’s gone for the day. I’m putting men on his house.”

“Where is Herbie now?”

“I have no idea. But didn’t Yvette show him that app?”

“Find My Phone?”

“Yeah. If we had his laptop, we could track him.”

“And if we had his phone, we could find his laptop.”

“Stone.”

“Relax. It’s probably at his apartment. I’m on my way.”

Stone thundered down the stairs. “Fred!” he yelled.

Mario was skeptical. “You don’t have the money?”

“I have the money. I don’t have it now.”

“That’s the same as you don’t have the money.”

“Not at all. I have the money, and I will give it to you. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Today. I will give it to you today because today is payday and you are Mario Payday, and you are the one who gets paid.”

“That is a lot of fancy talk for a man who doesn’t have the money.”

“Let me explain.”

“I don’t want to hear you explain. I just want the money.”

“I quite understand. Do you understand? Your business, I mean. Do you understand your business?”

Carlo took a step toward Herbie, but Mario stopped him. “I understand my business perfectly. I do not need a lecture from you.”

“You understand your business perfectly from your point of view. You don’t understand it from mine. What kind of a guy borrows ninety thousand dollars from Mario Payday?”

“You didn’t. You borrowed it from Vinnie the Vig.”

“Exactly. And more to the point, what type of guy borrows ninety thousand dollars from Vinnie the Vig?”

“He’d have to be pretty desperate,” Carlo said.

Mario gave him a look. It was bad enough listening to the guy’s talk. He didn’t need his own boys helping him.

“You’ve got to be a pretty bad risk to borrow from Vinnie the Vig,” Herbie said. “You need to be at loose ends because the interest is going to kill you more often than not. To put yourself in that kind of hole, you must be a hard-core addict, the type of gambler who can never walk away from the table a winner because as long as he’s got any cash at all, he’s going to bet it. You know that type of guy? Of course you know that type of guy. That type of guy pays for all your fancy suits.”