Standup Guy

Stone made a loud groaning noise. “Then you’re going to have to help me count it.”

“Fat chance,” Dino said.

59

Stone and Dino got the two suitcases out of the SUV and rolled them into Stone’s office.

“There you go,” Dino said. “Have a good time.” He left.

“Shirker!” Stone called after him, but the only reply was the slamming of the office door.

His office smelled faintly of vomit, and his desk was a mess of papers and currency bands. He swept everything off and emptied a suitcase on the top. As he did, Joan came into the room.

“I saw Dino outside the window, and I got curious.”

“That’s your misfortune,” Stone said. “Now you have to help me count the money.”

Joan picked up a stack of bills and examined them. “All hundreds? What did you do? Wave a magic wand?”

“Don’t ask, just count.” He found a legal pad and a calculator. “Each bundle is a hundred hundred-dollar bills, or ten thousand dollars. It’ll be easy.”

“You always say that when it’s hard,” she replied, taking the legal pad and calculator from him. “Did you sleep in those clothes?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“What happened with Hank?”

“Hank is dead.”

“What? You killed her?”

“Of course not. She and her boyfriend had a little tiff, and she brought a knife to a gunfight.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Buono’s buddy Marty Parese, who, incidentally, killed Buono and cut off his head. Hank managed to knife Parese before he shot her. Neither survived.”

He filled in the rest of the details for her.

“So you were in this office, trussed up like a turkey, when I was watching Tiger Woods play golf on TV? I should have been helping you.”

“That crossed my mind, but don’t worry about it. If you had happened upon us, you would have been trussed up, too.”

“Well, at least you’d have had some company.”

Stone finished counting the bundles, stacking them back in the suitcase as he did so. He closed and zipped it, then he set it on the floor, picked up the second case, unzipped it, and started again.

“Neither of us would have been much company, since our mouths would have been taped.”

“Why didn’t Parese shoot you?”

“He was about to, but he was interrupted by Kate Lee leaving a message on the voice mail. That stopped him in his tracks and helped Hank talk him out of it.”

“Poor Hank,” Joan said.

Stone continued his count, and Joan continued to mark down the results and do the arithmetic. “I warned her before she left the house that he’d kill her if she didn’t kill him first. She just didn’t do it soon enough. If she had, she’d have been on a chartered jet bound for God-knows-where, with five million in cash.”

“No,” Joan said, adding her final column and noting the balance on her legal pad.

“What?”

“She’d have had four and a half million—that’s the total.”

“Oh, so Parese paid somebody five hundred thousand to bring him all hundreds. I guess ten percent wasn’t a bad deal.”

“It was for you,” Joan said.

“Call my insurance agent tomorrow and explain things to him. I don’t have the heart. If he wants to see the money, tell him to get over here pronto, because I’m sending it back to the bank before lunch.”

“I think the deductible on your household policy is fifty thousand,” she said. “So you won’t get hurt too badly. Are you going to leave the money in the office again?”

“No, yesterday when I was rummaging with my chin in my desk drawers, I found the key to the wine cellar.” He opened a drawer and held it up. “So at least it will be out of sight and under lock and key.”

The phone rang, and Joan picked it up. “Woodman & Weld, Stone Barrington’s office.” She listened for a moment. “Please hold. It’s somebody named Jack Coulter,” she said. “He wants to come with his wife to see you tomorrow about legal representation. He says Eduardo sent them.”

Stone laughed. “Eduardo again?”

Joan laughed, too. “No, this time it’s Eduardo Bianci.”

“Make the appointment for late morning.”

Joan pressed the button. “Mr. Barrington can meet with you at eleven AM, if that’s convenient. Fine, let me give you the address. Then we’ll see you and Mrs. Coulter at eleven.” She hung up.

“Who are Mr. and Mrs. Jack Coulter?” Stone asked.

“I don’t know, but his voice sounded oddly familiar. I don’t know of anyone by that name, though.”

Stone rolled first one suitcase, then the other into the wine cellar and locked the door.

“It smells not so hot in here,” Joan said.

“Yes. Please get Helene and Fred in here first thing in the morning to clean the carpet around the sofa. There was a little accident yesterday.”

Joan pressed the VOICE MAIL button on the phone. “Stone, it’s Kate Lee. I haven’t heard from you, but we’re changing our di

“Was that the first lady?”

“Yes. I didn’t have the opportunity to call her back.” He did so and got her voice mail. “Kate, I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner, but I was . . . tied up. I’d love to see you this evening at seven.” He hung up.

“You look tired,” Joan said.

“Yes, that’s why I’m going to go upstairs to bed. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, and counting bags of money is tiring.”

“See you tomorrow, then. Don’t oversleep and forget your di

Stone took the elevator; he was too tired to walk up the stairs.

60

Stone slept through the afternoon. He woke around six PM and reflected on the past few days and weeks. Three people were dead, one of them someone he had grown fond of, before she had betrayed him for money. Still, she had saved his life, after endangering it, so he couldn’t feel too badly toward her.

He struggled out of bed and got into the shower and shaved, then got a cab to the Carlyle.

Special Agent Griggs of the Secret Service met him at the elevator when he reached the Lees’ floor.

“Welcome back, Agent Griggs,” Stone said.

“Thank you, Mr. Barrington,” Griggs said. “I was reassigned last week, this time for the duration. By the way, while I was serving in Florida, we came across some more of those old hundred-dollar-bills my partner and I visited you about.”

“Any resolution of the case?” Stone asked.

“I’m afraid not. I did some looking around, but I just told my boss that it was a waste of our time, and he agreed.”

“I’m glad it’s off your mind,” Stone said.

“The president and Mrs. Lee are expecting you,” Griggs said, then walked him down the hallway to the door, motioning for another agent to step aside. Griggs rang the bell. “Good to see you, Mr. Barrington.”

“And you, Agent Griggs.”

Kate opened the door and pulled him inside. She gave him a big hug. “Exciting news,” she said. “We’d like to tell you together.” She took his hand and pulled him into the living room, where Will Lee already had a glass in his hand. He stood up to greet Stone with a warm handshake.

“The usual?” Kate asked.

“Please.”

She handed him the drink, and they all sat down. “The others will be here in a little while,” Will said, “but we wanted to see you first.”

“Oh?”

“First, there’s this.” He picked up a white envelope and handed it to Stone.

“What’s this?”

“Read it, then forget about it. I have.”

Stone opened the envelope and extracted a heavy sheet of paper. Across the top were emblazoned the words PRESIDENTIAL PARDON. And under that was printed the name THEODORE THOMAS FAY.

“The pardon is sealed, as you suggested,” Will said. “It will not be released to the press. And I have seen that his name has been removed from every law enforcement and intelligence database.”