Dirt

by Stuart Woods

  “What do you want me to do? Send a SWAT team into a theater crowded with a black-tie audience of celebrities and people who can afford to pay a thousand bucks a seat? The mayor’s probably there; my chief is probably there.”

  “Then have him picked up on the way out.”

  “Stone, maybe you don’t read the papers anymore, but there are four cops in the city under indictment right now for arresting and, in some cases, leaning on people with no evidence, and two of them are uniforms at the Nineteenth. You think I’m going to wade into that crowd and create yet another incident at a time when we’ve got a full-blown commission investigating the department?”

  “You can’t ever find a cop when you need one,” Mary Ann said. “Especially when he’s stuffing his face with linguine.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart,” Dino said. “That’s all I need, is you weighing in.”

  “Any time,” she said sweetly.

  “I got an idea,” Dino said. “Why don’t you call your daddy and have him send a couple guys over to the Shubert and blow the guy away? Then we won’t even have to think about this anymore.”

  “I’ve heard worse ideas,” Arrington said.

  “Eat your dinner, Arrington,” Dino said. “Please, everybody just eat the white-bread pasta and forget about it just for tonight. We’re celebrating getting this apartment, which, believe me, may not be worth celebrating.”

  “It’s worth it,” Mary Ann said.

  “You’re trying to turn us into Wasps, aren’t you?” Dino demanded. “I can’t even wear my own clothes to meet these people; neither can you, come to think of it.”

  “Dino,” Mary Ann said, “don’t look a gift horse, you know? We’re taking the apartment; we’re getting out of Brooklyn. Try and be happy about it.”

  “I’m trying, I’m trying,” Dino said.

  “Try harder.”

  “Tell you what,” Stone said. “Dryer is going to be in that theater for at least another hour. Let’s finish our pasta, eat our dessert, drink our coffee, and then wander over to the Shubert and tail this guy home. I’d really like to know where he lives, wouldn’t you, Dino?”

  “Fuggeddaboudit!” Dino screamed.

  Chapter 46

  By the time they got out of the cab it had started raining, and the two women ran into the theater lobby. Dino turned up his collar. “This is just great,” he said. “I might as well be back on the beat.”

  “A little beat work will do you good,” Stone said. The four of them huddled in the lobby until Stone could find an usher.

  “Should be over any minute now,” the man said.

  “You planning to do this on foot?” Dino asked Stone.

  “Ah, maybe not. You want to get us a cab?”

  “We just gave up a cab, and it’s raining. It’s a known fact that all New York City cabs go off duty the minute it starts to rain, and on top of that, a couple of thousand people are going to come pouring out of this theater in a minute, and they’re all going to be trying to hail the same cab.”

  Arrington spoke up. “There are two entrances to this theater,” she said. “This one and one in Shubert Alley. We’d better cover both, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t want Dryer to see you,” Stone said. “Do you think you could try hailing a cab for us and just wait in it until we come out?”

  “You’re sweet.”

  “Here, take my hat.” He placed his fedora on her head; it came down over her ears. “Best get one going east on Forty-fourth.”

  Arrington took a deep breath and ran into the street, waving her arms. Mary Ann stood her ground. “This guy doesn’t know me; I’m staying right here.”

  “Could you keep an eye on Arrington, so we’ll know where she is if we have to move in a hurry?”

  “That I can do.”

  “I’ll take the alley,” Stone said. “Holler if you see him.”

  “Right,” Dino said. “I hope he looks like his picture.”

  “Me, too.” Stone left the lobby and walked up Shubert Alley, which ran between 44th and 45th Streets. The alley offered no shelter, and he stood there, getting wet. Shortly, a door opened and a trickle of people began leaving the theater, followed by a flood. Stone tried to search the faces without turning head on to them. After all, Dryer knew what he looked like. The theater was half empty when he heard Dino’s voice.

  “Stone!”

  He looked toward the corner of 45th and saw Dino waving for him. He hurried toward him.

  “He just got into a limo with some other people,” Dino said, pointing at a line of limousines lining the curb.

  “Where’s Arrington? Did she find a cab?”

  “I don’t know; she went off toward Eighth Avenue.”

  The line of limos started to move.

  “Shit,” Dino said. “Where is she?”

  “I’m getting wet,” Mary Ann said.

  “Don’t melt,” Dino replied.

  “There!” Stone pointed. Arrington was waving at them from the window of a cab. They all ran for it, and as they did, the limos began picking up speed. “Which car is he in?”

  “That one,” Dino said nodding.

  Stone tried to see inside, but the windows were tinted too darkly. Then he wondered if Dryer could be looking back at him through the opaque windows.

  They piled into the cab with Arrington; Stone took the front seat. “Follow the third limo ahead,” he said to the driver.

  “Oh, great,” the driver muttered. “How far we going? Queens? Montauk?”

  “Shut up and drive,” Dino said, shoving his badge under the driver’s nose.

  “Awright, awright,” the driver moaned.

  “He’s crossing Seventh Avenue,” Dino said. “Keep up, and don’t let any more traffic get between him and us.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the driver said.

  They moved slowly toward 6th Avenue; then, as they approached the comer, the light turned red, trapping them while Dryer’s limo turned left.

  “Shit,” Stone said.

  “Look, what can I do?” the driver whined. “There’s two cars in front of me. You want me to drive over them?”

  “He’s stopped at the next corner; we can still catch up.”

  A raft of traffic moved past them on 6th Avenue. Now they were ten or twelve cars back. Finally the light changed and they were able to turn left, but the light at the next corner changed and they were stopped again.

  “Have you got him in sight?” Dino asked.

  “I think so.”

  They struggled up 6th Avenue in heavy traffic, getting no closer to the limo, then they were stopped again.

  “Uh-oh,” Dino said, pointing. A hundred yards ahead of them, Dryer was getting out of the limo.

  “He’s heading for the subway,” Dino said.

  Stone turned to Dino. “I’m going after him; you pull up at the subway entrance. If I’m not back in five minutes, will you take Arrington to my house?”

  “Sure; you better get going.”

  Stone got out of the cab and ran toward the subway entrance. The rain was pounding down now, and the steps were slippery as he clambered down them. As he descended into the station he saw Dryer going through the turnstiles, and at the same moment, he remembered that he had no tokens; he rarely took the subway. He hurried down the stairs, and he could hear a train coming into the station.

  “The hell with the token,” he said to himself. He ran at the turnstile, planted a hand on it, and vaulted over. As he did, his raincoat caught on something, and he was jerked to a halt.

  “Hold it right there!” somebody yelled, and before he could get his coat untangled a cop had him by the elbow.

  “I’m on the job,” Stone lied.

  “Yeah? Let’s see some ID, pal.”

  Stone groped for his wallet, flashed the badge, and tried to go after Dryer, who was getting onto the subway train three cars from where he stood.

  “Let’s see that,” the cop said, grabbing the wallet. “Retired, huh?
What’s going on, fella?”

  “I’ve got to catch up with a guy,” Stone said.

  “Okay, but start buying tokens, okay?” He let go of Stone’s arm.

  Stone sprinted up the platform toward an open car door and hurled himself at it. The doors closed on him. He struggled, pushed on the doors, and fell into the car, banging a knee. He got to his feet in time to look out the window and see Dryer standing on the platform, looking at him as the train pulled out. Dryer gave him a little smile.

  Stone watched him for as long as he could; then the train was in the tunnel. He sat down, hoping to God that Dryer would go back up to 6th Avenue and be spotted by Dino. His raincoat, a new one, was torn from his leap over the turnstile, and there was a hole in his trousers’ knee where he had fallen. It was one hell of an expensive subway ride, he thought.

  He got off the train at the next stop; then, unable to find a cab, he limped home.

  Chapter 47

  Amanda dialed Stone’s number and waited, tapping her perfect nails on the desktop while the secretary put her through. She had been standing at Martha’s graveside the day before when her thoughts about the DIRT business had begun to fall into place, and she had begun to fully realize how dangerous her position was. Amanda had always made a habit of turning danger into opportunity, but first she had to know exactly where she stood, which meant knowing exactly where Stone stood.

  “Hello, Amanda; I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

  “Not to worry, darling. Look, I’d like to know exactly where you are in this investigation. Can you bring me up to date, and as concisely as possible?”

  “Of course. Most of this you already know, of course, but I think we’ve identified the person or, perhaps, persons who are publishing the newsletter. One of them calls himself Jonathan Dryer and the other, Geoffrey Power or G. Gable. They appear to be working together. Dryer has abandoned his apartment, and we haven’t been able to locate him yet. Last night we got a look at him at a benefit at the Shubert Theatre, but he managed to elude us.”

  “Who’s us?”

  “Dino Bacchetti, my old detective partner.”

  “Are the police involved in this?” she asked, alarmed.

  “No, this was completely unofficial. We think Dryer has been pulling off burglaries to support himself, and a gun that was stolen from one of the apartments may have been used to kill a retired cop, but we can’t prove anything yet.”

  “I see,” she said, relieved. “And where do you intend to go from here?”

  “I intend to find Dryer,” Stone replied. “He’s the key to this whole thing.”

  “And that’s it? That’s everything?”

  “That’s everything.”

  “Thank you, darling; see you soon.” She hung up and dialed Richard Hickock’s private office number.

  “Hello?”

  “Dick, it’s Amanda. Break your lunch date today; we have to meet.”

  “Is this really important?”

  “I think you could call it vital. Twelve-thirty at Twenty-One?”

  “See you then.”

  When they had settled into a banquette in the inner horseshoe of the bar at “ 21,” and after Hickock had ordered his steak and baked potato and Amanda her grilled salmon, no butter, and after Hickock had been served a double vodka martini and Amanda her San Pellegrino, she got down to business.

  “Dick, darling,” Amanda said, “I’m afraid that, through no fault of your own, you have been placed in a very dangerous position.” She did not mention the danger to herself.

  “Oh?” he said, not particularly alarmed, “How so?”

  She gave him a brief rundown on what Stone Barrington had learned about the DIRT business.

  “Well, at least he’s making progress,” Hickock said, taking a sip of his huge martini.

  “Dick, my dearest, he may be making too much progress.”

  Hickock frowned. “Too much progress?”

  “Yes. You see, while Stone has been conducting his investigation, I have been conducting one of my own, and, as is my wont, I have been looking into more than who is doing this; I have been learning why.”

  “And just why have this Dryer and Power, or whatever their names are, been doing this?”

  “It seems, my darling, that they harbor some grudge against you.”

  “Me? You mean only me?”

  Amanda nodded gravely. “Apparently they’ve gone after me only because of my connection with you.”

  “What did I ever do to these guys? I don’t even know who they are.”

  “Who knows? What’s important is, they seem to know a very great deal about you and your business affairs.”

  Hickock put down his martini. “Just what the hell is that supposed to mean, Amanda?”

  “It means, Dick, that they seem to have unearthed information about your connection with an entity called Window Seat.”

  All expression left Hickock’s face. “That’s impossible,” he said. “I mean, I never heard of anything like that.”

  “Dick, my dear, you don’t have to worry about me; I’m on your side.”

  “Amanda, how did you find out about this?”

  “About what, darling?”

  “About Window Seat, goddamnit!”

  “Dick, keep your voice down,” she said, looking around them. “You know that I have a great many sources for all sorts of information.”

  “Yeah, well, how the hell did you hear about Window Seat? And don’t you think for a moment you can plead the confidentiality of a journalist’s sources. I want to know now.”

  “Well, your Glynnis is in possession of this knowledge, and she’s a pretty unhappy woman at the moment, isn’t she?”

  “Don’t try that with me, Amanda; Glynnis and I have reconciled our differences, and she would never mention this to anybody.”

  Amanda had misjudged Hickock; she was not going to be able to play him quite as she had imagined. Inwardly, she shrugged; well, that little vermin Peebles would just have to be sacrificed. “From Allan Peebles,” she said.

  “He told you about Window Seat?” Hickock asked, unbelieving.

  “Everything. About the Infiltrator and the porno magazines. The gay porno magazines.”

  Hickock blanched. “I’ll have his balls by close of business,” he said.

  “Well, now, Dick, that might not be the wisest move; not just yet, anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, these two little creeps Dryer and Power are still out there. If you do something so public as sacking Peebles, it’s bound to cause a new round of faxing, reporting the whole business, and I don’t think you want that to happen, do you?”

  “I see your point,” Hickock said, returning to his martini. “I’ll have to be more subtle.”

  “Oh, Dick, I’m sure you can deal with Allan Peebles at any moment you wish, after this DIRT thing has blown over.”

  “Yes, I can certainly do that, but when is this going to blow over?”

  “Well, clearly it won’t blow over if we leave Stone Barrington to his devices. Eventually he’ll unearth the whole thing.”

  “Yes, I suppose he will,” Hickock agreed.

  “I think it might be best if we terminated his investigation and turned to, shall we say, other means.”

  Hickock turned and looked her in the eye. “Just what means did you have in mind, Amanda?”

  “Consider this, Dick: More than the DIRT business is involved. Dryer, or perhaps Power, or both, may have caused the death of a police officer-a retired one, but nevertheless…”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “So far the police are not officially involved in the investigation of these two men, but if Stone – or anyone else, for that matter – should come up with evidence linking the two to the murder, then the whole can of worms – DIRT, Window Seat, everything – will be opened up.”

  “Yes, I see that. So Dryer and Power are the immediate problem.”

  “Yes. Surely you have con
nections with people who make a business of solving troublesome problems by more direct means.”

  “Such as who?”

  “Well, you did have some help in solving your labor problems last year, didn’t you? A consultant, so to speak?”

  Hickock looked around him. “I think we’ve talked enough about this, Amanda.”

  “Probably.”

  “I understand the parameters of the problem now. Will you call off Stone Barrington?”

  “Of course, darling, if you think that’s best.”

  “I do.”

  Amanda looked up. “Oh, here comes your steak, darling.” She watched as the perfectly grilled slab of meat was set down before him. “Why ever haven’t you already had a coronary?” She tested her salmon with a fork.

  “I give other people coronaries,” Hickock replied, sawing off a hunk of beef and stuffing it into his mouth.

  Amanda tucked into her salmon, secure in the knowledge that, while she had probably solved the DIRT problem, she had also ingratiated herself with Richard Hickock, at the same time letting him know that she knew. That knowledge would certainly be useful at some later date. The salmon was delicious.

  Chapter 48

  Richard Hickock got out of his car and tapped on the driver’s window. “I’m going to take a little walk,” he said. “You wait here.”

  “Around here, Mr. Hickock?” the driver asked, surprised. They were in a desolate area of the Long Island City section of Queens, amid empty, rundown industrial buildings.

  “I’ll be back soon,” Hickock said. He trudged off into a misty rain, down an empty street. Following the directions that had been faxed to him that afternoon, he turned left and crossed the street. The number “ 19” had been spray-painted on the door of a building, but it looked locked. He tried it, and it wasn’t. Inside, he went to a huge freight elevator, pulled a cord that closed the doors from the top and bottom, and pressed the number for the fourth floor. The thing actually worked.

  When it stopped he pushed open the door and walked out of the elevator into a large, empty factory area. Daylight was waning, and the low light threw into relief holes in the floor where machinery had once been bolted down. There was no place to sit, so he walked slowly around the floor, wondering at what he was about to do. Suddenly he heard an electric motor running, and a moment later another freight elevator at the opposite end of the floor stopped, and Enrico Bianchi stepped out.