by Stuart Woods
“What do you mean?”
“He has a somewhat unsavory background. He hinted at working for some government agency at one time, something secret. That may have been bragging, of course, but I don’t really doubt it. He seems to have all sorts of, well, skills that ordinary people never come by. And he has a violent streak.” Peebles blinked rapidly. “I’m terribly afraid of violence. Also, I can’t be seen by anyone to have had an interest in him. I’ve compromised myself too much already; my whole world is hanging by a slender thread.”
“I understand your position,” Amanda said. “Why did you come to me?”
“You already have an investigation under way that is not seen as being connected with me. Stone Barrington has a reputation as very bright and discreet; if he can track this thing down and put it out of business – quietly – then we’re all safe: Hickock, you, and me.”
“I see,” Amanda said.
“Tell your investigator as much of what I’ve told you as you feel is necessary, but for God’s sake, keep my name out of it, if you possibly can. I don’t know any more than I’ve told you, so there’s no point in my speaking directly to Barrington. Will you do that?”
“I’ll have to think about this,” Amanda said. “About the best way to approach it. Of course, I’ll keep your name out of it… if I can.”
Peebles’s face fell; he obviously knew that his fate was in her hands. “I would be very, very grateful,” he said.
Amanda lowered her window and waved at Paul. In a moment they were rolling back toward the East Side.
“Where can I drop you?” Amanda asked.
“Anywhere,” Peebles said disconsolately. “It really doesn’t matter.”
Chapter 35
On the morning following his return from the hospital, Stone felt well for the first time since his encounter with the intruder. He was sitting at his desk, trying to make some sense of the work that had accumulated, when his secretary buzzed.
“Yes, Alma?”
“Bob Cantor is here to see you,” she said.
“Send him in.”
Cantor was, uncharacteristically, wearing a business suit. “How you doing, Stone? Recovered?”
“Much better, thanks.”
“This guy is some piece of work, huh?”
“Apparently so. Have you got something for me on the maid and the driver?”
“Right.” He got out his notebook. “The maid, Gloria, lives in Queens; she rides in every morning with the driver, Paul, and takes the subway home. She’s divorced, lives alone, sees a lot of her sister. The neighborhood storekeepers like her. Most of them give her credit, and she pays on time. She’s Hungarian, a devout Catholic, teaches catechism to kids at her church. Hard to imagine a straighter arrow. I got a look at her phone bills; she makes very few calls, none of them long distance. Nine out of ten are to her sister, her priest, and Amanda Dart. I tapped her for three days, she got four calls, all of them from her sister. I honestly think that to do more on her is a dead end.”
“I agree. What about the driver?”
“Paul is something of a character in his neighborhood. He’s gregarious, plays the ponies in a small way and, on his day off, takes the train into the city and sits in a brokerage office, watching the ticker. He’s got a couple of hundred thousand in investments, not bad for a chauffeur, and he deals in used cars, one at a time – buys them, fixes them up, and sells them for a profit. He’s good on his bills and maintains a healthy bank balance, in the low five figures, in an interest-bearing checking account. I guess he keeps that much on hand in case he finds a car he wants to buy. He’s pretty honest about selling the cars, doesn’t lie about their condition, and he gets repeat customers. One little niggling thing, for whatever it tells you: He cheats Amanda when he sells her cars.”
“How?”
“She gives him ten percent to sell them, but he takes fifteen to twenty in the end. This was easy to figure out from his recent bank statements. Still, he always gives her book wholesale. I don’t want to make too much of this.”
Stone laughed. “I can’t say that I blame him. Amanda is the kind of woman who has to be annoying to work for a lot of the time, even if he is well-paid. Anything else that troubles you about either of these people?”
“Nope. All in all, I’d say that Amanda Dart has herself first-rate help in every department. Except maybe Martha, who could have a weakness.”
“What has the bug turned up?”
“The guy who calls never uses his name; she recognizes his voice. He’s giving her a pretty hard time, I think; he could be at the point of dumping her, but he hasn’t yet. She hasn’t seen him since I’ve been on this. I get the feeling that he thinks he might still need her for something, so he’s keeping his hand in, so to speak. I’ve got the tapes if you want to hear them, but they’re all brief; the guy doesn’t like to talk on the phone. Tell you the truth, I think that if there’s a leak in Amanda’s office, it’s got to be Martha.”
“I’ve been resisting that idea myself, because Amanda seems so certain that it’s not Martha, but after what you’ve told me about the others, and about these phone calls, I agree that she has to be our girl. I’m not entirely certain about Barry yet, because he screws so many people, we could never keep track. But it’s looking an awful lot like Martha.”
“Are you going to tell Amanda that?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to ruin their relationship without some hard evidence, and we’re not doing very well on coming up with that. Did Amanda talk with you about some guard work?”
“Yeah; a guy I know is going to handle it. He’ll come into the office when she closes and sit on it until her people arrive in the morning. I swept the place again, and she’s still clean. Maybe I ought to have another look around here, too.”
“Okay, go ahead; check back with me when you’re finished. There’s something else I want to talk with you about.”
“See you in half an hour,” Cantor said, and left the office.
Stone started dictating correspondence and signing checks; he had just finished when Cantor returned.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” the ex-cop said, flopping down in a chair, “this guy is some piece of work. He’s done the phones again.”
“Jesus.”
“I guess while you were napping the other evening, he calmly went about his business. It’s just the phones, though; I didn’t find anything else.”
“Did you screw up his work?”
Cantor held up a handful of wires and devices. “I yanked it. No need to be subtle anymore.”
“You had any luck with this guy in the bar who has the signature with the wires?”
“I almost forgot; I talked to him for half an hour last night; the signature is something he was trained to do.”
“Who taught him?”
“A federal agency, is all I could get out of him; he denied that it was the CIA. Maybe the National Security Agency.”
Stone shook his head. “Aren’t they more into the wireless sort of surveillance?”
“Yeah. It could be some group we don’t know about – maybe even something illegal.”
“Do you really think that sort of stuff still goes on?”
Cantor shrugged. “Who knows? There are a lot of guys on the street who used to work for somebody in D.C. Maybe he’s that type.”
“Maybe. Listen, Bob, there’s something else.”
“Shoot.”
“How good are you on your feet?”
“I’m okay; I used to study karate pretty seriously, and I box once or twice a week at my gym. What is it you need, Stone?”
“There’s a guy needs talking to, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’m up to it just yet. He’s been harassing a friend of mine, a woman, and I want a stop put to it.”
“So is this guy muscle, or something?”
“She says he gets into fights; I have no idea how good he is at it.”
“What exactly is it that you want done?”<
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“I want the fear of God put into him. I’m not talking about leaning hard on him, but if he reacts badly, I don’t want him to come out of it with the upper hand.”
“You think this guy might be the one wiring all these places?”
Stone shook his head and pushed a copy of Vanity Fair across his desk. “This is the guy; he’s a male model, at least some of the time. The connection’s with this girl, whose name is Arrington; not with the DIRT thing.”
Cantor looked at the picture. “I can handle it.”
“There’s something else, something I only just found out.”
“Yeah?”
Stone handed him a slip of paper. “His name is Jonathan Dryer; that’s where he lives. Arnie Millman got clipped in the alley next to the building.”
“You think the two things are connected?”
“I can’t see how, but I don’t like coincidences. I thought you ought to know about Arnie, though.”
“Yeah, I’m glad you told me.”
“If your talk with him turns up anything that makes you think he might be connected with Arnie by more than just geography, then we’ll bring Dino into it.”
Cantor nodded. “When you want this done?”
“The sooner the better.”
“You think he might be at home now?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Cantor stood up. “I’ll check him out.”
“If he’s not there, maybe you could take a look around his place, see what he’s about.”
“Sure thing.”
“Give your bill for the other work to Alma, and she’ll cut you a check. What do you want for the Dryer business?”
“Let’s see how it goes,” Cantor said. “He might be a pushover.”
“As long as you’re ready for him, if he isn’t.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Cantor left and closed the door behind him.
Chapter 36
Amanda had thought long and hard overnight about what to do, and her first decision, characteristically, was to protect herself. She called her lawyer, Bill Eggers, at home.
“Morning, Amanda.”
“Bill, I want to ask you a hypothetical – very hypothetical – question.”
“Shoot.”
“In the unlikely event that I felt I really had to, could I get out of my contract with Dick Hickock?”
“What?”
“Now, Bill, I told you this was hypothetical; don’t get upset.”
“Amanda, you’ve only just signed the contracts; it’s a terrific deal!”
“Bill, you haven’t answered my question.”
“The answer is no, not unless Hickock were willing to release you.”
“Nothing I could do, if I wanted out?”
“It’s more about what he could do. He could prevent any other newspaper or magazine from publishing you. All you could do would be to beg him to let you go. What’s this about, Amanda?”
“Bill, this isn’t going to happen; I just like to know where I stand, that’s all.”
“The only way you could get out would be nonperformance on Dick’s part. As long as he pays, you’re stuck with him.”
“Thank you, Bill; just forget I asked, all right?”
“Asked what?”
“Bye, Bill.” She hung up. Well, that was bad news; if Dickie started downhill, he could drag her with him, and all the way to the bottom. She was going to have to nail whoever was publishing DIRT. She had nailed lots of people in her time, but Amanda was not accustomed to going after faceless people with no fixed address.
She picked up the phone to call Stone, then hung up again. She didn’t want to tell him about Hickock’s sub rosa business activities; after all, he was also representing Dick in this matter; she had given him permission to do so. Oh, well, she didn’t have to tell him everything. She picked up the phone again and got connected.
“Stone, darling, I have some information that might be of help,” she said.
“I’m all ears,” Stone replied.
“You remember the issue of DIRT that featured Peebles, the editor of the Infiltrator?”
“Yes.”
“Peebles and I had a chat yesterday; he thinks that an old boyfriend of his might have something to do with this, might even be the one behind it.”
“What’s the old boyfriend’s name?”
“Geoffrey, spelled the English way, Power. At any rate, that’s what he called himself. Peebles thinks he might use more than one name. He’s a failed actor, in L.A. anyway – actually, he failed out there because Peebles screwed him with the studios. He could be in New York.”
“You have anything else on him that might help me locate him?”
“A description.”
“Shoot.”
She read from her notes. “Early to mid-thirties, tall, slender, but strong, sandy hair. Peebles says he’s quite beautiful.”
“Anything else? An address, a phone number?”
“Afraid not, but Peebles thinks he might be in New York; he pulled out of L.A.”
“I’ll see what I can come up with.”
“Bye.”
Stone’s immediate thought was that the description fit the man who had been following Tiffany Potts, who looked like the man in the magazine, who had turned out to be Jonathan Dryer. He tried to remember his visit to Dryer’s apartment, but there wasn’t much there. The man had been backlit, standing behind a partially open door, and he had never gotten a good look at him. All he had was the magazine photo. He turned his attention to Geoffrey Power, starting with his computer telephone directory. That contained a hundred million names, but not a single Geoffrey Power. He called Dino.
“Yeah?” Dino said.
“Will you run a name for me?”
“Sure.”
“Last name Power, first name Geoffrey.” Stone spelled it for him.
“Hang on.”
Stone could hear the computer keys clicking.
“He’s never been arrested,” Dino said.
“Try the alias database.”
More key clicking. “Zip,” Dino said.
“Thanks. How’s it going with the apartment?”
“We’re meeting the board this afternoon; I took your advice and bought a suit. When the meeting’s over I’ll give it to you.”
“You’re sweet. See you.” He hung up and tried New York telephone information, new listings. If Power had just moved to town, he might be there. Nothing. He called Amanda.
“Yes?”
“He doesn’t have a telephone in the United States, or one in New York; he’s never been arrested. That’s all I can do with a name, especially one that might be an alias. You’ll have to get me some more information.”
“I don’t think I can,” she replied.
“Then it’s a dead end.”
Stone had an idea. “Have you got a copy of the new Vanity Fair handy?”
“Of course.”
“Call Peebles and tell him to look at the ad for Spirit men’s cologne.” He gave her the page number. “See if the guy in the ad looks familiar. I’d like to hear his response.”
“I’ll get back to you.” She hung up.
Half an hour later, she called back.
“The resemblance is close, but it’s not Power, Peebles says. How did you come up with that picture?”
“It arose in connection with something else. The description seemed to fit.”
“Oh, good. Keep on this Power person, will you?”
“Amanda, there’s nothing more I can do until we get more information on the guy. As it stands, he’s nothing more than a wisp of smoke.”
She hung up without another word.
Chapter 37
Bob Cantor got out of the cab on Second Avenue and walked down the block until he found the building. “Basement apartment,” he mumbled to himself, consulting the address Stone had given him. He walked down the steps to the apartment door and found it ajar; the smell of paint reached him.
He pushed the door open. The living room was empty and freshly painted. He heard the rattle of a bucket from a rear room and walked that way.
A middle-aged man in paint-stained jeans and sweatshirt was rapidly rolling paint onto a bedroom wall. He looked at Cantor. “Sorry, I’m not showing the apartment until tomorrow, when the ad runs in the Times,” he said.
Cantor showed him his badge briefly. “I’m looking for Jonathan Dryer,” he said.
“So am I,” the man replied. “He owes me four months’ rent.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Last Friday, when I was going away. When I came back on Wednesday, he was gone, and the place was empty. Four months he owes me; that’s how long his lease had to run.”
“Mind if I look around?”
“Help yourself.” He went back to painting.
Cantor walked slowly around the apartment, looking in closets and drawers. It was a nice place, he thought. Good kitchen, nicely done bathroom. Cantor was living in Chelsea, and he thought he wouldn’t mind living uptown. All the closets, drawers, and cabinets were empty. He went back to the bedroom and walked out the rear door, which opened onto a small terrace and a garden area behind. There was nothing in the way of planting, but there was soil; soil was a valuable real estate asset in New York. He went back inside.
“Nice place,” he said. “Who’s the agent?”
“No agent; I own the building. I live on the top two floors.”
“How much you asking?”
The man told him.
“How much less would you take to have a guy with a badge living here?”
The man looked at him narrowly. “You married?”
“Divorced.”
“Any kids?”
“None.”
“You play any musical instruments?”
“The stereo, softly.”
“I’d need a police reference.”
“Call Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti, at the Nineteenth, around the corner.”
“I’ll do that. If you check out, it would be worth a couple hundred off for a cop.”
“Retired cop, actually, but that’s even better for you. I’d be spending more time in the building than somebody who has to pull duty.”