Стюарт Вудс - Desperate Measures

“Hey!” he yelled at the woman as she got in.

“Bye!” she yelled back and slammed the door. The cab’s overhead light turned off, and it drove away.

Stone thought about calling Fred, but he knew as soon as he did a cab would arrive. He stood there for another ten minutes before a cruising black town car pulled to the curb, and the window slid down. “Where you headed?” the driver yelled.

“Turtle Bay!” Stone yelled back. “Ten bucks!”

“Thirty!” the driver yelled.

“Twenty!”

“Thirty!” the driver yelled.

Stone ran across the sidewalk and dove into the town car.

“Up front,” the driver said, rubbing his fingers together.

Stone dug out his cash. “I’ve only got a fifty,” he said. “You got change?”

“Nope. I just started work. What’s it gonna be, pal?”

Stone gave him the fifty. “I’ll get change when we get there.”

After fifteen minutes of dangerous driving, the car pulled up to Stone’s house. “Hang on,” he said, “I’ll get some change.”

He got out and ran for the office door, then rang the bell. The town car drove away. “Hey!” Stone yelled at him.

Joan opened the door. “Hey, yourself,” she said, then pushed a finger into his lapel. “You’re soaking wet.”

Stone went inside and shook like a dog. Bob, his Labrador retriever, came over, sniffed at him, and backed away. “We went in Dino’s car,” he said, “so I didn’t take a coat or an umbrella, then Dino got a call and abandoned me.”

“Hang on,” Joan said, “the phone’s ringing.”

Stone shrugged off his sodden jacket and hung it on a hat rack; his trousers followed.

“It’s Dino,” Joan said, “on one.”

“Tell him to go fuck himself,” Stone said.

“I can’t tell the police commissioner that. He might have me arrested.”

“Okay,” Stone said, dumping out his shoes and squishing across the carpet in his stocking feet, “I’ll tell him myself.” He picked up the phone. “Go fuck yourself,” he said.

“I beg your pardon,” a woman’s voice said.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Deputy Mayor Whitehorn,” she said.

“I’m so sorry. I thought you were Dino Bacchetti.”

“Do I look like Dino Bacchetti?”

“I can’t see you.”

Dino came on the line. “Did you really tell Caroline to go fuck herself?”

“I thought it was you, but as long as you’re on the line, go fuck yourself.”

“The mayor has asked that you join us for a task force meeting on the Scott homicide.”

“When?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

“First, I’ll need to throw away all of my clothes, which have been ruined in the rain.”

“Why didn’t you take a cab?”

“Don’t start. I’ll be there in half an hour. If that’s not soon enough, you can tell the mayor to go—”

“Yeah, I know,” Dino interrupted. “Shake your ass.” He hung up.

“Joan!” Stone yelled. “Tell Fred to get the car out, while I change clothes.”

“Fred’s out.”

“Find him fast and get him here!” Stone went up to his bedroom, hung everything up in his bathroom to dry, and toweled off. He got into fresh clothes and went down to his office, where he pulled on a trench coat, jammed a hat on his head, and grabbed an umbrella.

“Fred’s waiting at the curb,” Joan said. “When will you be back?”

“Who the hell knows?” Stone said. He hit the outside door at a run, opening the umbrella, then he stopped. He was standing in bright sunshine. The only water around was dripping from the trees on the block. He got into the car.

“Where to, sir?” Fred asked.

“Gracie Mansion.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I’ve never been there. What is it?”

“The mayor’s residence: Eighty-eighth and East End Avenue, approximately. Go there, and we’ll find it together.”

Fred headed uptown, splashing through huge puddles left by the rainstorm. They found the mayoral mansion, more or less where Stone had said it would be, and a guard admitted them to the grounds. Stone got out of his coat and left it with his hat and umbrella on the backseat. “I don’t know how long I’ll be, Fred. Don’t get lost.”

Someone opened the car door for him, and someone inside the house opened the front door. The inside door opener turned out to be a leggy blonde in a business suit.

“Hi,” she said, sticking out a hand. “I’m Caroline Whitehorn. I’ve recently gone and fucked myself. Right this way.”

Stone followed Caroline Whitehorn down a hallway, appreciating the view from the rear, until she opened a door, which turned out to be the mayor’s office.

“Have a seat,” she said, “they’ll be here in a moment.”

“Keep me company,” Stone said.

“All right,” she replied, taking a facing chair. “What are you doing here?”

“I haven’t the vaguest idea.”

“The task force?”

“That must be it.”

“You’re not a cop.”

“Retired, a long time ago.”

“How come you’re dry, when everybody else in the group is soaking wet?”

“It’s a long and sad story.”

“I’ll bet.”

Another door opened, and the mayor walked in, followed by Dino, Muldoon, Calabrese, and a uniformed assistant chief Stone didn’t know.

The mayor was Dino’s predecessor in the commissioner’s job and had engineered Dino’s rise in the department. He offered his hand. “Thanks for coming all the way uptown, Stone,” he said. “How come you’re not soaking wet like everybody else?”

“I lead a pure life, Mr. Mayor. God is good to me.”

The mayor chuckled and sat down behind his desk. The others were in various states of dampness. Dino looked him up and down, amazed.

“Don’t ask,” Stone said before he could.

“All right,” the mayor said. “What the hell is going on? Don’t you even have a suspect?”

“We have two, sir,” Muldoon said.

“And who might they be?”

“The ex-husband and Mr. Barrington.”

The mayor laughed out loud.

“Mr. Barrington was on the scene and armed,” Muldoon said.

“Don’t mention Mr. Barrington and the word suspect to me again in the same sentence,” the mayor said. “Who’s the ex-husband?”

“One Donald Trask, former hedge fund operator.”

“I know a Donald Trask from the Athletic Club,” the mayor said.

“That’s the one,” Muldoon replied.

“I can see him as the perpetrator,” the mayor said. “The man’s a bully and an ass.”

“That’s the one,” Stone said.

“So why isn’t he vacationing at Riker’s?”

“Sir,” Dino said, “we’ve got circumstantial and inconclusive evidence, but nothing that will convict him.” He related Trask’s story and what they believed to be the truth. “And,” Dino added, “Alfred Goddard just came on the case.”

“Ah,” the mayor said. “If Trask would just shoot Goddard, we could remove two thorns from our flesh.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get that lucky,” Dino said.

“So you want me to declare this little group a task force so it will get your detectives off other cases and make more resources available?”

“In short, yes, sir,” Dino replied.

“All right,” the mayor said, waving his hands like a magician. “ Pfffft! You’re a task force.” He looked around at the silent men. “Come on, one of you must know that joke.”

Stone raised a hand. “Guy goes into a soda shop and says to the soda jerk, ‘Make me a malted.’ The soda jerk says, ‘Okay, pfffft! You’re a malted!’”

The mayor roared as if he had never before heard it. Everybody else pretended to laugh.