Fast and Loose

by Stuart Woods

  Macher picked up the envelope, ripped it open, and removed a letter. “Well, let’s see what they have to say,” he said, unfolding the letterhead and reading aloud. “‘Dear Mr. Macher. Further to the search of your company’s yacht on Saturday last, I wish to inform you that our laboratory has analyzed the white powder found in the owner’s suite. The powder turned out to be an over-the-counter laxative called SuperLax. I wish to apologize for any inconvenience caused by our search and to thank you for your cooperation.’”

  “Anything else?” Charley asked.

  “That doesn’t mean that you didn’t call the Coast Guard,” Herman said. He moved toward where Charley sat, reaching for the briefcase.

  Charley stood up and kicked him hard in the knee, and Herman cried out and collapsed, clutching his knee. Charley turned to Macher. “Mr. Macher,” he said, “I don’t like working here anymore, so I’m resigning as of this moment. I got paid yesterday, so you don’t owe me anything.” He picked up his briefcase and started for the door.

  “Now, Charles,” Macher said placatingly, “let’s talk about this.”

  “I’ve nothing to talk about,” Charley replied, opening the door. “Good day.” He closed the door behind him and started for the outer door, then he stopped, reached into his pocket for the resignation letter, and tossed it onto the secretary’s desk. “I forgot to give this to Mr. Macher,” he said. “Please give it to him for me.”

  “Of course, Charley,” she replied.

  A moment later, Charley was on the street, hailing a cab.

  “The Lombardy Hotel,” he said to the driver. “Fifty-sixth Street, east of Park.”

  At the hotel he got out, went upstairs to his room, packed his things, and called down for a bellman. When the man came, he said, “Put these into a cab for me, going to JFK Airport, while I check out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Charley took the elevator down and asked the woman at the desk for his final bill.

  “Leaving us, Mr. Fox?”

  “Yes, I have to head down to Georgia to tend to a family matter.”

  “Will you be returning to us soon?”

  “Probably not for several months. I’ll give you a forwarding address.” He gave her his credit card, and she handed him a form. He filled it out, giving the address of the law firm that his family had dealt with, and signed the credit card slip. “Thanks for everything,” he said.

  “Come back to see us.”

  He gave the bellman a fifty, got into a cab, and as the driver pulled away, said, “Never mind the airport, I’ve another stop to make.” He gave the man the address, then got out his cell phone.

  “Stone Barrington.”

  “Stone, it’s Charley Fox.”

  “Good morning, Charley.”

  “Things came to a head with Macher this morning, and I’m out of that place and the hotel. May I come there now?”

  “Of course. Come in through my office entrance.”

  —

  STONE BUZZED FOR FRED, then got up when Charley came in. Bob got up from near Stone’s feet and greeted him.

  “This is Bob,” Stone said. “He’s frisking you for food.”

  “Hi, Bob,” Charley said, scratching his ears.

  “Everything okay?”

  “It is now.” Charley gave him an account of his morning.

  “It’s just as well,” Stone said. “Fred will take you next door and get you settled and show you how to work the security system. I’ll call Mike Freeman and tell him you’ll need your office space this afternoon.”

  “Thanks, Stone, I appreciate that.”

  —

  JAKE HERMAN LIMPED into Macher’s office. “I called his hotel,” he said. “He’s checked out, gave a forwarding address in Georgia, and took a cab to JFK.”

  Macher waved a letter. “Turns out he was resigning anyway. He’d already written this.”

  Herman looked at it. “Good riddance.”

  “I never knew what he did here, anyway,” Macher said. “Still, I want you to keep tabs on where he is and what he’s doing.”

  “Even in Georgia?”

  “Anywhere he goes.”

  25

  The following morning Jake Herman went to the Lombardy Hotel.

  “May I help you, sir?” the desk clerk asked.

  “Yes, I’ve been trying to reach a friend of mine, Charles Fox, who lives here, but the operator said he had checked out.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Fox checked out yesterday.”

  “Do you have a forwarding address? I want to repay some money I owe him.”

  She went to a file drawer and came back with a form, and he copied the address. A law firm. He found a seat in the lobby, called the number in Delano, Georgia. He was told that they had not seen or heard of Mr. Fox for more than two years and weren’t expecting to.

  Herman found the bell captain and inquired about Fox’s departure the day before. The man called in the bellman who covered Fox’s floor. “Did you put Mr. Fox into a cab yesterday?”

  “Yep. He was going to JFK.”

  “Do you remember what cab company the car was from?” Herman asked.

  “Yeah, it was the Ace Cab Company. We get a lot of their cabs waiting outside.”

  “Did you know the driver?”

  “Name is Casey. I don’t know if that’s a first or a last name.”

  “What time did Mr. Fox leave?”

  “About nine-thirty, nine forty-five.”

  Jake gave him a twenty and thanked him. He resumed his seat in the lobby, called the Ace Cab Company and asked for the dispatcher.

  “Dispatch.”

  “This is Special Agent Jacobs with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “What can I do you for?”

  “Yesterday around nine-thirty, nine forty-five, a driver of yours named Casey picked up a fare at the Lombardy Hotel on East Fifty-sixth Street. Can you tell me his final destination?”

  “Hang on, let me pull up his trip sheet. Here we go, went to JFK—no, he changed his destination.” The man gave it to him.

  “That’s in Turtle Bay Gardens, isn’t it?”

  “If you say so. Gotta run.” The man hung up.

  Jake Herman knew who lived at that address. He went back to St. Clair and downstairs to Fox’s office, then searched it thoroughly. “As clean as a hound’s tooth,” he said aloud to himself, then he switched on Fox’s computer.

  That done, he went upstairs and knocked on Macher’s door.

  “Come!”

  Jake went in and sat down. “Charles Fox didn’t go to Georgia yesterday,” he said. “He went to Stone Barrington’s house.”

  “That little shit!”

  “His office is empty, the cleaners have already emptied his wastebasket, and his computer’s hard drive has been reformatted, so there’s nothing on it.”

  “How the hell does he know Stone Barrington?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think he’s been spying for Barrington ever since he came to work for St. Clair?”

  “It’s possible,” Jake said. “There’s no way of knowing, unless I get a chance to beat it out of him, and I’d welcome that opportunity.” His knee still hurt.

  “All right, stake out Barrington’s house and snatch Fox at the first opportunity. Take him to that place you have where you do that sort of thing, and don’t stop until you’re satisfied you have every answer to your every question.”

  “Perhaps he should disappear permanently? He’s already left the forwarding address of a law firm in Georgia.”

  “I think that might be the most convenient thing to do, but not until you know you’ve got everything.”

  “This will be my pleasure,” Herman said.

  —

  STONE BARRINGTON SAT and read both of the wills that Charley had found on St. Clair’s computer, then he buzzed Joan.

  She came in. “Yessir?”

  Stone handed her a thumb drive and gave her the two file nam
es. “I want you to find a Kinko’s or something like it, maybe on the West Side, not in this neighborhood, and print out half a dozen copies of these two wills. It’s important that we don’t print or copy it on any of our machines.”

  “Righto,” Joan said, and left.

  “Those could come in handy,” Charley said from across his desk. Charley’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said to Stone, then went and sat on the sofa. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Fox?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Hilda at the Lombardy. You checked out with me yesterday.”

  “Hi, Hilda, what’s up?”

  “I thought you should know that a man came in this morning and inquired about your forwarding address, said he owed you some money and wanted to send it to you. And then he went and talked to the bellman who brought your bags down. He also sat down in our lobby for a few minutes and made some phone calls on his cell.”

  “What did the guy look like?”

  “Maybe fifty, over six feet, heavy, looked like an ex–football player.”

  “Hilda, thank you so much for letting me know. I want to send you a bottle of something. What do you drink?”

  “Champagne,” Hilda replied.

  “It’s on its way.” He hung up and called the liquor store he dealt with in the Lombardy’s neighborhood and had a bottle of Dom Pérignon sent to her, then he went back and sat down across from Stone. “Looks like I’ve underestimated Macher,” he said.

  “How so?” Stone asked.

  “His personal thug, Jake Herman, turned up at the Lombardy this morning and got my forwarding address, a law firm in my hometown. They would have told him they hadn’t heard from me in years, and his next move would have been to find out where the cab took me, which was here. Clearly I wasn’t careful enough.”

  “What do you think he’ll do?”

  “I think I’d give you three to one that he’s got people outside right now, watching the house.”

  Stone picked up the phone and called Mike Freeman.

  “Yes, Stone?”

  “Charley Fox has been made by Macher’s henchman, Jake Herman, when he came to my house, and Charley thinks he might have people outside right now.”

  “You want me to remove them?”

  “For the moment, just photograph them and e-mail me the shots. Later, we might want them removed. You’re going to need to put a couple of men on Charley, too, for the present. We don’t want them following him to your building.”

  “Consider it done,” Mike said, and they both hung up.

  “Mike’s on it,” Stone said to Charley. “If you want to leave the house, go out of your apartment into the garden, and there’s a wrought-iron gate that opens onto Second Avenue. Come back the same way, call Joan, and she will buzz you in until we get can you a key.”

  “I’m sorry to be all this trouble,” Charley said. “I guess my tradecraft is a little rusty.”

  “Don’t worry about it, just keep safe,” Stone said.

  26

  Jake Herman went online to the New York City Department of Buildings website and searched for building permits at Stone Barrington’s house. He was astonished at what he found.

  Under the banner of the General Services Administration, a federal agency, he found detailed plans for improvements several years before, and the authorizing agency was the Central Intelligence Agency. For some reason they had seen fit to make Barrington’s house extremely secure. The brick veneer at the front and rear of the house had been removed and half-inch steel sheathing had been applied, then the bricks replaced, and the same with the roof; the windows had been replaced with replicas conforming to the New-York Historical Society’s rules with steel frames and inch-thick armored glass, and the electrical and utility wiring to the house had been reinforced and encased in stainless-steel pipes.

  The goddamned place was a fortress. Clearly the Agency had some sort of relationship with Barrington. That made him wonder if Charles Fox had a connection with the Agency, but he didn’t have the skills to crack their computers. He searched his mind for past acquaintances who had served there and came up with a woman about Fox’s age, Kaley Weiss, whom he had interviewed for a job at Macher’s security company a couple of years ago. He called the number he had for her.

  “Hello?”

  “Kaley Weiss?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “This is Jake Herman at St. Clair Enterprises. We met a couple of years ago.”

  “Oh, yes, the interview.”

  “We have an opening. Would you like to come by and talk about it?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Herman, but I’m very well situated in a new job, and I’m not interested in moving.”

  “Oh? Where are you? I’ll notate your record for the future.”

  “I’m afraid they insist on confidentiality from their employees.”

  “Of course. Oh, by way, when you were at the Agency, did you know a guy named Charles Fox?”

  “Yes, but not well. We were in a class together during training.”

  “Have you heard from him since? There’s something here that might interest him, and I don’t have a number for him.”

  “I’m afraid not,” she said. “Thanks for thinking of me.” She hung up and made a call of her own.

  —

  CHARLEY FOX’S CELL rang and he checked the number before answering. “Kaley?”

  “Yes, Charley, how are you?”

  “I’m very well, thanks, and you?”

  “I’m doing great, thanks.”

  “Are you still with our former employer?”

  “No, I left a couple of years ago. Now I’m with a security company called Strategic Services.”

  “I know them,” Charley said. “What are you doing there?”

  “Working for a woman named Vivian Bacchetti, who’s chief of operations here. Listen, when I left our previous employer I had an interview with a guy at St. Clair Enterprises named Jake Herman, ex-FBI, thoroughly unsavory character.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, and I just got a call from him asking about you.”

  “Aha. What did you tell him?”

  “He asked if I knew you at the Agency, and I said we’d had a class together.”

  That was less than a full answer, Charley thought, since they had been sleeping together most of the time they were at the Farm. “Did you tell him anything else?”

  “He wanted your number, but I got uncomfortable and didn’t give it to him, just brushed him off.”

  “That’s good,” Charley said. “I worked at St. Clair for less than a month, then Christian St. Clair bought the farm, and I just got out of there.”

  “Well, Herman doesn’t know anything he didn’t know before. Where are you living?”

  “I’m staying with a friend between residences. You want to have dinner one night soon?”

  “Love to,” she said. “This is my cell number. Call me when you like.”

  “Are you free this evening?”

  “I am.”

  “There’s a good cook where I’m staying. Why don’t you come over, and we’ll dine here?”

  “Great.”

  He gave her the address of Stone’s staff house. “I’m in apartment 1A. Seven o’clock?”

  “You’re on. See you then.” They both hung up.

  Charley, who had taken the call in the office next to Joan’s, went into Stone’s office.

  “Stone, have you got an extra piece I could borrow while I’m here?”

  “Sure. Any favorites?”

  “Something light would do.”

  Stone went to his safe and removed a Colt Government .380 and a spare magazine. “How’s this?” he asked, handing it over.

  “Perfect.”

  “Do you have a New York City concealed carry permit?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t take it out of the house.”

  “All right.”

  “I think it might be a good idea if you a
pplied for a permit,” Stone said. “You never know.”

  “All right, as soon as I can get out of the house.”

  “You can apply online, then they’ll schedule you for an interview and fingerprinting. I might be able to grease the wheels a bit.”

  “Great. Listen, Stone, I probably should have asked, but do you mind if I have a woman for dinner in my apartment tonight?”

  “Not in the least. Speak to Fred and he’ll make your wishes known to Helene in the kitchen, and he’ll find you some wine and booze, too.”

  “She’s somebody I knew at the Agency. Her name is Kaley Weiss, and she works now at Strategic Services, for somebody named Vivian Bacchetti. You have a connection to that name, don’t you?”

  “I do. Her husband, Dino, and I were partners on the NYPD.”

  “And he’s the police commissioner now?”

  “That’s right. You’ll meet him in due course.”

  “Okay.” Charley turned to go. “Oh, the way I got in touch was that Kaley got a call from Jake Herman.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “She’d had a job interview at St. Clair a couple of years ago. He asked if she knew me, and she told him we’d been in a class together at the Farm. That was it, she hung up.”

  “So Herman now knows you were at the Agency.”

  “I guess so, though I can’t think how that could matter.”

  “Probably not. Enjoy your evening.”

  Charley thanked him and went back to his borrowed office.

  27

  Charley Fox opened his door and found Kaley Weiss standing there in a cashmere dress draped over her tall, slim frame and high breasts. She looked much the same as the last time he had seen her, except there was a dent the size of a Ping-Pong ball in the right side of her forehead. She seemed to be missing a chunk of her skull.

  They embraced lightly, and he showed her in.

  “This is very nice,” she said, looking around. “You said it belongs to a friend?”

  “Yes, he lives in the house next door, but he owns this house, too, and he had an empty apartment. Let me get you a drink.”

  “Scotch,” she said.

  He poured her a Talisker and himself a Knob Creek. “Why don’t we sit out in the garden for a while, before it gets too chilly?” He led her outside, where they found a comfortable outdoor sofa.