Стюарт Вудс - Desperate Measures

“Okay, I said you’re a task force. Now get out of here and clear this case.” He pointed at Muldoon. “And get Barrington out of your thick head!” He shooed them out of his office.

Stone and Dino walked out of the building and stood on the front porch. Rain was pouring again, and a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder greeted them. Caroline Whitehorn was standing on the porch, clutching a folding umbrella. “I don’t think this is going to do it,” she said, holding up the tiny umbrella, “and the motor pool doesn’t have a car available.”

“Can I give you a lift?” Stone said.

She looked at him sharply. “Where?”

“Where are you going?”

“The River Café, Brooklyn.”

“Of course. You can drop me at my house on the way,” Stone said. He looked through the gloom for his car but couldn’t see it. He got out his phone and called Fred.

“Yes, sir?”

“Where are you?”

“They made me wait outside the gate, sir.”

Stone looked at the gate that was about two hundred feet away.

“I’ve got this,” Caroline said. She took a remote control from her pocket and pressed a button. Down the driveway, the gate rolled open.

“Okay, Fred, gate’s open,” Stone said, then hung up.

A moment later, the Bentley emerged from the gloom and stopped. Stone got the door for Caroline.

“How about me?” Dino asked.

“I believe the City of New York provides you with transportation,” Stone said. He got in and closed the door, while Dino got out his cell phone and started calling his car.

“That was mean,” Caroline said, but couldn’t suppress a laugh.

“It’s an unhappy story,” Stone said. “It will save us both a lot of time if you will just accept that he richly deserves it.”

“I’ll try.”

“Fred, please drop me off at the house, so I can get a ham and cheese sandwich on stale bread, then take Ms. Whitehorn to the glorious River Café, under the Brooklyn Bridge, where she’s having a sumptuous dinner.”

Fred got the car back on the streets. “Sir, shall I wait while you eat your stale sandwich?”

“No, I’ll have it alone in the kitchen and watch the rain roll down the windows.”

“Oh, all right!” Caroline said. “Would you like to join me?”

“That depends on who you’re joining,” Stone said. “He might not fully appreciate my company.”

“It’s not a he, it’s a she.”

“In that case, I’d love to join you. Fred, never mind the stale sandwich. We’ll both go to the River Café.” He turned to Caroline. “Dinner will be on me.”

“Are you sure you can afford three meals at the River Café?”

“Fred can sell the Bentley while we’re dining.”

“Yes, sir!” Fred said. “I’m sure I can get top dollar in Brooklyn!”

Stone and Caroline Whitehorn walked into the River Café and were immediately shown to a table, where a brunette version of Caroline sat waiting.

“Stone Barrington, my older sister, Charlotte Whitehorn,” Caroline said.

“I’m not that much older,” Charlotte said, offering Stone her hand.

“Ages older,” Caroline said.

“A year and a half,” Charlotte responded.

“Twenty months,” Caroline replied.

“Now, now, ladies,” Stone said. “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Are you calling me a sleeping dog?” Charlotte asked.

“No, I’m simply employing a cliché, to no effect whatsoever. I suppose this argument has been going on your whole lives?”

“Ever since Caroline learned to count,” Charlotte replied. “How did you two meet?”

“Stone told me to go fuck myself,” Caroline replied.

“That always works with Caroline,” her sister said.

“Then he weaseled his way into this dinner by giving me a lift and threatening me with a stale sandwich.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Caroline means that I rescued her from a downpour and ferried her all the way from Gracie Mansion to here, and she only invited me to dinner when I said I’d pay for it.”

“That’s my little sister,” Charlotte said.

“She calls me that because she knows it makes me crazy,” Caroline said, “and you didn’t offer to pay until after I had invited you to join us.”

“Tell me,” Stone said, “are your parents still living, or are they reposing in an insane asylum somewhere?”

That got a laugh from both of them.

“I suppose we deserved that,” Caroline said.

“You must be related to Mikeford Whitehorn?”

“His granddaughters,” Charlotte said. “Our dad was Mikeford, Jr.”

Stone was jostled when someone passed his chair. He looked up, annoyed, to see the back of Donald Trask being seated two tables away with a much younger woman.

“Wasn’t that Donald Trask?” Charlotte asked.

“It was.”

“I read about him in the papers this morning. Isn’t he one of two suspects in his wife’s murder?”

“He is the only suspect,” Stone said firmly. “The police finally came to their senses about the other, entirely innocent, fellow.”

“Stone was the other suspect, until the mayor cleared him today,” Caroline said.

“You weren’t at that meeting,” Stone said.

“I was, sort of,” she replied.

“You were eavesdropping?”

“The mayor often asks me to do so. He sometimes likes to have a witness.”

“She’s just nosy,” Charlotte said. “If Donald Trask is the only suspect in his wife’s murder, what’s he doing dining at the River Café with someone a third of his age?”

“The police didn’t have enough evidence to cancel his reservation,” Stone replied.

“And women that young are the only ones stupid enough to be seen with him,” Caroline added.

“Are we certain about Stone’s innocence?” Charlotte asked, archly.

“Sort of certain,” Caroline replied.

“If I’m ever on trial for murder,” Stone said, “I hope you two are not on the jury.”

“Never mind,” Charlotte said, picking up a menu. “What are we having?”

A waiter came and took their order, and Stone ordered a bottle of the Far Niente chardonnay.

“Very nice,” Caroline said, sipping the wine.

“I ordered it because it has the most beautiful label of any wine,” Stone replied.

“So, apart from the aesthetics, you are ignorant of wines?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m also fond of the wine.”

“I think you’re right about the label,” Charlotte said, examining it, “and about the wine, too.”

“It’s good to have my judgment affirmed,” Stone said.

They had finished two courses and had ordered dessert when Stone rose. “Will you excuse me? Nature calls.”

They nodded. Stone left the table and headed back toward the entrance, where the restrooms were. When the thick door closed behind him, noise from the restaurant ceased. He attended to nature, and as he was zipping his fly, he heard restaurant noise again, then silence, then a voice.

“Turn around,” it said, and it was thoroughly unpleasant, as voices go.

Stone turned to find Donald Trask standing, leaning against the door, holding a small semiautomatic pistol in his outstretched hand.

“You’re under arrest,” Stone said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Yeah? For what?”

“For carrying a firearm in New York City without a license.”

“I have a license,” Trask replied.

“Revoked,” Stone said.

“Oh, what does it matter?” Trask said, then he fired the pistol.

Stone had already begun to turn away from him and to sweep an arm toward the gun, when he felt a sharp pain in his head and collapsed onto the floor, striking his head on the sink on the way down. He passed out just as he heard the door slam.