6 Stone Barrington Novels (170 page)

STONE WAS WAKENED
by the smell of seared meat. He rolled over and checked the bedside clock: 8:30
A
.
M
. He had overslept. He struggled out of bed, got into a robe and walked downstairs to the kitchen.

Billy Bob Barnstormer was standing before the Viking range, turning over a thick strip steak on the integral gas grill, while stirring something in a saucepan on an adjacent burner. He looked over at Stone. “Hey! G'mornin'! I didn't wake you up, did I?”

“You did. What are you doing?” Stone looked at the steaks; he had bought them at Grace's Marketplace, at hideous expense, with the idea of cooking them in the company of a woman he knew.

“Why, I'm just rustlin' up some grub for us,” Billy Bob said. “I had to go with what I could find in the icebox, 'cept for the grits. I brought those with me.”

“You travel with grits?” Stone asked.

“Only when I go north,” Billy Bob explained. “You cain't get 'em up here. How you like your beef cooked?”

“Medium to medium rare,” Stone said, annoyed with himself for cooperating in this endeavor. “I'm not sure I can eat a steak at this hour of the day.”

“Don't worry, you'll have the grits and some eggs to cut the grease. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, y'know.” Billy Bob
picked up a bowl of what looked like a dozen eggs, whisked them briefly with a fork and dumped them into a skillet holding a quarter pound of melted butter. “Have a seat,” he said. “Oughta be two minutes, now.” He turned the steaks again.

Stone got a container of fresh orange juice out of the Sub-Zero and poured two glasses, put some coffee on, then set the table and sat down. Reconsidering, he got up and found two steak knives, then sat down again.

Billy Bob forked the steaks onto the two plates, then scooped out some grits, then filled the unoccupied portion of the plates with scrambled eggs. He took a bottle of Tabasco sauce and sprinkled it liberally over his eggs, but when he tried for Stone's plate, Stone snatched it away.

“Hold the Tabasco,” Stone said. “You're trying to put me in the hospital, aren't you?”

“Aw, it's good for you.” Billy Bob sat down and sawed his steak in half. It was blood rare, blue in the middle.

So was Stone's. He got up and put it back on the grill, then sat down and started on his eggs and grits.

“You like your meat burnt, then?” Billy Bob asked through a mouthful of food.

“I like it medium to medium rare,” Stone said, getting up and flipping the steak. He waited another couple of minutes, then removed the meat to his plate.

“Real nice morning out there.” Billy Bob said. “I brought in your paper.”

“The forecast for this morning was six degrees Fahrenheit,” Stone said.

“Yeah, I guess it's about that,” Billy Bob agreed.

“You call that a real nice morning?”

“Well, the sun's shining bright,” Billy Bob said. “That's good enough for me.”

“Did you come to New York without an overcoat?” Stone asked.

“I never really needed one,” Billy Bob said. “I spent a week in Nome, Alaska, on an oil deal once, in the middle of the winter, and I got by all right without one. What'd you do with my gun?”

“I locked it in my safe,” Stone said. “You can have it back when you're on your way out of town.”

“You folks sure are fussy about what a man carries,” Billy Bob said.

“It's not us folks; it's the NYPD.”

“You're my lawyer; get me a license for the thing.”

“You have no idea what you're asking,” Stone said. “The process is so long and drawn out that most people stop when they see the forms. And in the end, you only get it if you can prove you carry diamonds or large amounts of cash.”

“How large is a large amount of cash?”

“I don't know, fifty grand, maybe.”

“Well, shoot, I'm carrying that right now. I mean, it's in my briefcase. That's pocket money where I come from.”

“In New York it's an invitation to get hit over the head. You think that had anything to do with your getting shot at last night?”

“You know, I've been thinking on that, and you know what? Them bullets was fired at
your
side of the car.”

Stone stopped eating. “They were
not
fired at me.”

“Well, we just don't know that, do we? You made any enemies lately?”

“I'm a lawyer,” Stone said. “People don't shoot at lawyers.”

“Why, shucks,” Billy Bob said, “in Texas, every lawyer I know is packin'. Don't you ever pack?”

“Sometimes, when it's called for.”

“Well, there you go.”

“They weren't shooting at me. Nobody has ever shot at me, except when I was a cop.”

“Maybe there's bad people you put in the pokey; maybe they're all pissed off about it.”

There had, in fact, been such a case in Stone's past, but only one, and he was not about to admit it to Billy Bob Barnstormer. “Nope.”

“Well, how 'bout that feller with the German name that got after you and Dino that time?” Billy Bob asked.

“How'd you hear about that?” Stone asked.

“I got my sources. You think I'd hire you without checking you out?”

“You haven't hired me, Billy Bob, and it's my considered opinion that there's no reason why you should.”

“I don't see how you figure that,” Billy Bob replied. “I needed a lawyer last night.”

“Not really; all you needed was somebody to disarm you. I just made the investigation go a little faster.”

“Funny, I thought it was when I mentioned Mike Bloomberg that things got to going faster.”

“Right, you see? You don't need a lawyer.”

“Well, I think I'm going to be the judge of that,” Billy Bob said, taking an envelope from a pocket and laying it on the table.

“What's that?”

“Your retainer,” Billy Bob said.

“My retainer for what?”

“For representing me as my lawyer. It's a check for fifty grand.”

Stone gulped and washed down some eggs with some orange juice. “What are you involved in, Billy Bob?”

“Why, I don't know what you mean.”

“I mean, you got shot at last night, and you seem real anxious to have a lawyer.”

“Just in case.”

“Just in case of
what?
”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I
don't
know what you mean.”

“Everybody ought to have a lawyer. I have a lawyer ever' place I do business.”

“And how many lawyers is that?”

“A whole mess of 'em.”

“At fifty grand a pop?”

“Well, I pay less in the boondocks, but when you're in a place like New York, you got to go first class.”

“I appreciate that, Billy Bob, but if I'm going to be your lawyer, you're going to have to level with me.”

“Stone, I promise you, the second there's something to level with you about, I'll level with you.”

Stone eyed the envelope with the check. He had been prepared to instruct his secretary to sell some stock this morning, since he was cash poor.

“Well, all right, I'll represent you, but you've got to keep me up-to-date on what you're doing, if I'm going to be effective.”

“Why, sure I will,” Billy Bob said soothingly.

Stone didn't feel soothed. He felt stuffed like a pig, having just eaten the biggest breakfast of his life. All he needed now was an apple in his mouth. He read the
Times
and tried to forget his stomach.

The phone rang, and Stone picked up the kitchen extension. “Hello?”

“Good morning,” a man said. “May I speak with Billy Bob Barnstormer, please? This is Warren Buffett calling.” Stone was stunned into silence for a moment.

“Hello?” Buffett said.

“Sorry, just a moment.” Stone held out the phone to Billy Bob. “It's for you.”

Billy Bob took the phone. “Hello? Hey, Warren, how you doin'? Just fine thanks. We ready to go? Shoot, I been ready for a month. You want some money? How much? Thirty? That gonna be enough to
give us a decent cash reserve? You sure you don't need more? Well, it's there if you need it. I'll get it to you this morning. Nah, I got your account number from last time. Great, you take care now.” Billy Bob hung up. “Mind if I make a long-distance call on your phone? I'll pay, of course.”

“As long as it's not to Hong Kong, be my guest.”

Billy Bob dialed a number. “Hey, Ralph. You up yet? Okay, when you get to the office wire Warren Buffett thirty million dollars. Yeah, same account as last time and the time before that. You know the drill. Okay, talk to you later.” Billy Bob hung up. “Well, we're off!”

Stone stared at him, wondering. Well, he'd seen Buffett on television lately, and it had
sounded
like him.

STONE WORKED
in his office most of the day, clearing his desk of papers that had piled up over the past couple of weeks. It went like that, usually—he neglected things, then got them done in a rush. He had his secretary, Joan Robertson, deposit Billy Bob's check, and she looked relieved to have the money in the bank.

Late in the afternoon he went upstairs and looked for Billy Bob, but he had, apparently, checked out of the Stone Hotel. For a moment, Stone was confused by the pile of alligator luggage still in the guest bedroom. Then he found a note: “Thanks for the sack, Stone. Keep the luggage as a house present. I got some more. Billy Bob B.”

Stone gazed at the cases in disbelief, pushing at them with a toe as if they might bite. They felt empty. He'd leave them there and argue with Billy Bob about it later.

He had a big event, starting at six o'clock—Woodman & Weld's annual firm party at the Four Seasons restaurant. He got out a fresh tuxedo, shirt, shoes, jewelry and a bow tie, then shaved and got into a shower. He had just finished and turned off the water when he heard a noise from the direction of his bedroom and the murmur of voices.

He grabbed a terry-cloth robe and walked toward the sounds. Two men in suits were having a look around his bedroom. “Who the hell are you?” Stone demanded.

The two men turned and looked at him, unsurprised. “FBI,” one of them said, and they both flashed IDs.

“What are you doing in my bedroom?”

“Your secretary let us in and told us to wait.”

“She didn't tell you to wait in my bedroom.”

“She wasn't specific.”

“What do you want?”

“The United States Attorney wants to see you.”

“Well, tell him to call and make an appointment.”

“Wants to speak with you
now.
”

Stone checked the bedside clock. “At this hour of the day?”

“Get dressed,” the man said.

What the hell could the U.S. Attorney want with him? Stone wondered. He went back into the bathroom, dried and combed his hair, then went back into the bedroom. The two FBI agents were still standing there, looking bored. He went into his dressing room and got his clothes on.

“The occasion isn't formal,” an agent said, when Stone reappeared.

“I always dress for the U.S. Attorney,” Stone said. “Let's go.” They went downstairs, and Stone grabbed a heavy, black cashmere topcoat, a white silk scarf, a black hat and some warm gloves. New York was in the midst of its coldest winter in years. They went outside and got into a black Lincoln that was idling at the curb, apparently driven by another agent.

“We have to go all the way downtown?” Stone asked. “It's rush hour; it'll take at least an hour, and I have to be somewhere.”

“Relax, we're not going far,” an agent said.

Ten minutes later they stopped at the Waldorf-Astoria, at the Towers entrance. The agents led him to an elevator, and they went up many floors, stopping near the top of the building. The elevator opened into a large vestibule, and Stone could hear the sound of
many voices beyond a set of large double doors. An agent opened a side door and showed him into a small study.

“Be right with you,” the agent said, closing the door behind him.

Stone shucked off his overcoat and tossed it onto a sofa, next to somebody's mink coat. He looked around the room: It didn't appear to have been done by a hotel decorator but seemed actually to be used as a study. Behind him, a door opened and closed, and Stone turned around. A tall, blond woman in a tight black cocktail dress walked toward him, her hand extended.

“Good evening, Mr. Barrington. I'm Tiffany Baldwin, the U.S. Attorney for New York.”

Stone shook her hand. “The last time I saw you,” he said, “you had a different name and were six feet six and wearing a double-breasted suit.”

“I believe you're referring to my predecessor,” she said.

The change was news to Stone. “When did he predecess?”

“He handed over the reins an hour ago. He's the new Deputy Attorney General; I'm replacing him tomorrow morning at nine. Those voices you hear through there are a welcome-aboard party for me.” She waved him toward a chair and took one, herself.

“U.S. Attorneys are not named Tiffany,” Stone said, “and they don't look in the least like you.”

“Thank you, I think,” she replied. “Sorry about the name, but by the time I graduated from Harvard Law, it was too late to change it. I'll never forgive my parents, of course, but what are you going to do?”

“Well, now we know why
you're
here,” Stone said. “But what am
I
doing here? Are you going to offer me a job as your deputy?”

She smiled sardonically. “Hardly.”

“What do you mean, ‘hardly'?” Stone said, sounding wounded. “I went to law school, too, you know, though not at Harvard.”

“Well, that immediately disqualifies you, doesn't it?”

“Watch it. I'll spread the word, and you'lll spend all your time in New York being given a hard time by old NYU Law grads.”

“I'll look forward to it. Now to business. I want to talk with you about a client of yours.”

Not Billy Bob Barnstormer, Stone thought. Not already. “What client is that?”

“Rodney Peeples.”

“Rodney who?”

“Peeples.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Come now, Stone; confirming that you represent him is not a breach of attorney-client confidentiality.”

“I'm not being confidential, I'm being baffled,” Stone replied.

Tiffany Baldwin sighed. “It's going to be like that, is it?”

“Like what, baffled? I am genuinely baffled. I have never heard of Rodney Peeples, and I suspect neither has anyone else, name like that.”

“It does seem improbable, doesn't it?”

“My whole evening, so far, seems improbable,” Stone said. “Whose apartment is this?”

“It belongs to the Ambassador to the United Nations; the Attorney General borrowed it for the event.”

“The Attorney General is in there?” Stone asked, pointing at a door.

“He is.”

“I'd like to leave now; I don't want to catch anything.”

“What?”

“I'm afraid that if I breathe the air I might leave here as a tight-assed, right-wing, fundamentalist, anti–civil libertarian with a propensity for singing gospel music. And I don't think that's treatable.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Come on,” she said, rising. “Let's get out of here.”

Stone stood up. “You're afraid of catching it, too, aren't you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, helping her into the mink coat from the sofa.

“To the same party,” she said.

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. I may as well give you a lift.”

“You're just a party animal, aren't you. Do you have another one after Woodman and Weld's?”

“My last party of the evening.”

Stone grabbed his coat and followed her into the vestibule, where an FBI agent had the elevator door held open. They rode down in the elevator in silence, then got back into a waiting Lincoln, which was longer than the other one, while the two agents accompanying them got into a black SUV behind them.

“I don't think I've ever had this many chaperones on a date,” Stone said. “And armed, too.”

“This isn't a date,” she said. “It's a coincidence.”