Naked Greed (8 page)

“’Scuse me,” Frank said to the man working on the airplane, “how far is it to town?”

“Town?” the man asked. “You mean Dark Harbor?”

“Right.”

“A couple of miles, I guess.”

“Can we rent a car?”

“Sure, in Camden.”

“Where’s that?”

“On the mainland. You take the ferry.”

“Is there a taxi?”

“Sort of.” The man gave him a number. “Ernie will come, if he has nothing else to do.”

Frank called the number, and the man who answered agreed to come to the airport. Forty minutes later he arrived, in an elderly Plymouth, and they got in.

“Where you want to go?” Ernie asked.

“Uh, to Mr. Stone Barrington’s house.”

Ernie gave the two men another look. They were dressed in suits, one of them double-breasted. In Ernie’s experience only tax collectors and private detectives came to the island dressed like that. “Don’t know anybody by that name,” he replied.

“Then just take us to Dark Harbor,” Frank said.

Ernie nodded and put the car in gear, which was an occasion for a grinding noise, then drove away. Ten minutes later he drew to a halt in front of a general store. “Here y’go,” he said. “That’ll be ten dollars.”

“There’s no meter on this thing,” Charlie pointed out.

“That’s okay,” Ernie said, “I know how much the fare is. It’s ten dollars, unless you want to go somewhere else.”

“How much for you to wait while we ask directions?” Frank asked.

“Ten dollars.”

Frank sighed, and he and Charlie got out of the Plymouth and climbed the stairs into the store.

“Hey, they got ice cream,” Charlie said, and ordered a cone. “You want one, too?”

“Strawberry,” Frank said. “Excuse me, miss,” he said to the girl who was scooping the ice cream. “Do you know where we can find a Mr. Stone Barrington?”

The scooper, whose name was Gladys, checked out the two men. They were wearing suits, and worse, hats. They had to be either cops or bill collectors. “Nope,” she said, handing them the two cones. “That’ll be ten dollars.”

Frank paid for the cones. “Do you have a phone book?” he asked.

“Right over there by the phone,” Gladys replied, pointing helpfully.

Frank went over to the phone, licking the cone to keep if from dripping, and flipped through the thin volume with his free hand. “No listing,” he said. “C’mon, Charlie.” They went back to the car and got in. “The girl inside doesn’t know Mr. Stone Barrington,” he said.

“Well,” Ernie replied, “if she don’t know him and I don’t know him, he ain’t worth knowin’.”

Frank looked at Charlie questioningly.

“I’m stumped,” Charlie said.

“Let’s just drive around for a while,” Frank said to Ernie. “Maybe we’ll see him.”

“You know what he looks like?” Ernie asked.

“Yeah.”

“How long you want to drive around?”

“I don’t know, let’s cover the island.”

“The whole island?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fifty dollars,” Ernie said, “and don’t get that ice cream on my seats, or I’ll have to charge you for cleaning.” He put the car in gear again and gave them a tour of the island, carefully avoiding the Stone house, which was what the locals called the Barrington house. They ended back at the store. “Did you see him?” Ernie asked.

“I didn’t see anybody but a man with a dog,” Frank said.

“Was that him?”

“No.”

“You want to go back to the airport?”

“What’s the alternative?”

“The ferry to Lincolnsville.”

“The airport,” Frank said.

Ernie drove them to the airport. “That’ll be, let’s see, ten dollars for the drive to Dark Harbor, ten dollars for the wait, fifty dollars for the tour, and ten dollars back to the airport. That’s eighty dollars, as I make it. No checks or credit cards.”

“Do you take American dollars?” Frank asked, handing him a hundred.

“Yep, but I don’t got change for this.”

Frank sighed. “Keep it,” he said, and got out of the car, followed by Charlie. They walked back to the airplane.

“Where to?” the pilot asked.

“Back to the airport.”

“Which one?”

“The one we left from.”

“You got it,” the pilot said, then started the engine and taxied onto the runway.

“Will this airplane take off on this little bitty runway?” Charlie asked from the rear seat.

“Let’s find out,” the pilot replied, then shoved the throttle forward.

Stone lay on the bed, with Caroline on top, doing very nice things with her hips, while he moved under her. His cell rang.

“Go ahead and get it,” Caroline said. “I’ll amuse myself.”

Stone grabbed the iPhone from the bedside table. “Hello?”

“You sound a little out of breath,” Dino said. “Am I disturbing you?”

“Nope.”

“Am I disturbing Caroline?”

“Not in the least.”

“I thought you’d like to know that Gino Parisi has put a couple of guys on you.”

“So what else is new?”

“No, a couple of new guys: experts, you might say.”

“Experts at what?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“How are you getting this information?”

“These guys are known to us, as are a few of their victims.”

“No, I mean how did you know Parisi had hired them?”

“The same way I knew about his earlier conversations.”

“Oh. What were Parisi’s instructions to these two guys?”

“He was a little cagey about that, but I gathered that, based on previous experience working for Gino, they knew what he meant.”

“What did he mean?”

“Let’s put that in the category of ‘undesirable.’”

“You’re being pretty cagey yourself.”

“No, I’m just being delicate.”

“I hate it when you’re delicate. You never used to do that.”

“My new job requires a lot of delicacy. I’m practicing on you.”

Caroline did something that caused Stone to make a small, animal-like noise.

“Is there a prairie dog in bed with you?” Dino asked.

“No comment.”

“Are you on that island in Maine?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because these two guys, whose names are Frank and Charlie, chartered an airplane earlier today at the Essex County Airport in New Jersey.”

“Sweetie,” Caroline said, “you stopped moving.”

“Sorry,” Stone said, and began to move again.

“Sorry for what?” Dino asked.

“Not you.”

“Not sorry for me?”

“Do you have any further information about the two guys, like if they filed a flight plan?”

“All we know is that the airplane landed at an airport called five seven bravo.”

“That’s the airport here.”

“I kind of thought it might be. And, after being on the ground for about an hour and a half, the airplane returned to Essex County, where Frank and Charlie had left their car, which now has a tracking device planted on it.”

“Is that legal?”

“It is if we think they are about to commit a crime.”

“And you do?”

“Let’s just say they could do time for what they do to you, if they do to you what they usually do to people who annoy their employer.”

“Were they in the airplane when it returned to New Jersey?”

“Apparently so, because their car is now parked in the garage next door to Gino Parisi’s office.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Not the relief you’re apparently seeking at the moment, but it will have to do, until the real thing comes along. I’m quoting from a popular song of the 1940s.”

“Thank you for the attribution.”

“I wouldn’t want to run afoul of the copyright laws.”

“It sounds as if I’m all right, for the moment,” Stone said, then he let out a gasp.

“I don’t know about ‘all right,’” Dino said. “You sound as if you should be on oxygen.” He hung up.

“Who was that?” Caroline asked, without breaking stride.

“That was Dino.”

“Who is Dino?”

“The police commissioner of New York City.”

Caroline suddenly climaxed, with the attendant noises, and he quickly caught up.

After another minute or so she rolled off him and snuggled up. “Do you only deal with people at the top?”

“Whenever possible.”

“Why did you call the police commissioner?”

“He called me.”

“All right, same question.”

“He called to say that we were followed to Maine by two men in another airplane.”

She sat up in bed. “Are these the two men we’re trying to avoid?”

“Yes.”

“And they’re here?”

“No, they stayed about an hour and a half, then they flew back to New Jersey.”

“What did they do while they were here?”

“I don’t have any hard evidence, but I imagine they were looking for us.”

“Did they find us?”

“Apparently not, or we would now be duct-taped naked to chairs while they burned us with cigarettes.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, that was an unfortunate metaphor.”

“A metaphor for what?”

“For whatever they intended to do to us—sorry, to me.”

“Should we get out of here?”

“No, they have already done so.”

She fell back onto the bed. “Thank heavens!”

“May I go back to sleep for a little while?”

“Of course,” Caroline said. “I can wait.”

Gino Parisi’s face had turned puce. “You chartered
what
?”

Frank gave a dismissive little wave. “An airplane.”

Gino was sucking in air fast now. “What
kind
of an airplane?”

“A small, cheap one,” Frank replied.

“
How
cheap?” Gino demanded.

“Six hundred bucks, cash,” Frank replied, handing him the receipt. “It’s deductible as a business expense.”

Gino’s jaw was working, but no words were coming out.

“Gino,” Frank said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “should I call the paramedics?”

Gino still couldn’t speak, but he shook his head slowly. “I’m all right,” he said finally.

“I’m glad to hear it. You shouldn’t get all worked up about a necessary business expense, Gino. It’s not good for your health.”

Gino’s color was nearly normal by now. “Tell me what’s necessary about chartering an airplane.”

“The person you asked us to . . . ah, meet with, shall we say, got into an airplane and flew to a little airport on an island in Maine. I know this, because I tracked his flight on my iPad.”

Gino’s face screwed up into a knot. “An I
what
? What are you talking about?”

“It’s an electronic device in common usage these days. It does lots of things—ask your grandchildren.”

“And how much did
that
cost?”

“A few hundred. Don’t worry, it’s included in our fee.”

“Well,
un-include
it! I’m not paying for any electronic crap.”

“I paid for it myself, Gino, and for the electronic tag I put on Barrington’s car.”

“Let’s get back to the airplane: You flew it to Maine?”

“That’s right. We landed where Barrington landed—his airplane was on the ramp there.”

“And what did you do to him?”

“Well, things didn’t go exactly as planned. We were unable to find him.”

“On an island? How many people on this island?”

“I don’t know, not many. None of them knew Barrington, though, and he wasn’t in the phone book. We searched the whole island and couldn’t find him. These things happen, Gino. We could be in Manhattan and not be able to find him on a given day.”

“I’m not paying for things that didn’t happen,” Gino said firmly.

“We’re not charging you by the minute, Gino. Our deal was our fee, plus expenses. This was an expense. It’s the cost of doing business.”

“But why Maine? Why didn’t you just wait for him to come back?”

“Think about it, Gino. Maine is better—it’s farther removed from you. And us, for that matter. Cops are going to get involved, eventually. Would you rather they be hick cops on a little island in Maine, or real cops in New York City?”

Gino’s features softened. “You got a point there.”

“In my judgment Maine was worth a shot,” Frank said. “One of the things you’re paying me for is my judgment.”

“Okay, how long is he gonna be in Maine? Maybe you could go back.”

“There’s no way of knowing that, but I’m working on finding out where he is on the island. If we find out where he is, we can go back and, ah, meet with him there.”