He flew the ILS 6 into Teterboro and taxied to Jet Aviation. As they approached the terminal, he could see Fred waiting on the ramp. Five minutes after shutdown they were in the car.
“The commissioner is at New York Hospital,” Fred said.
“Drop me there, then take Pat home.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Pat asked.
“Not a thing. I’m sorry our weekend got interrupted.”
“You go do what you have to do. I’ll go sit by the TV.”
Stone got out of the car, ran into the emergency room, and flashed his badge at the admissions clerk. “Where’s the commissioner?” he asked. She told him, and he ran for the elevator. There was a knot of uniforms gathered in the hallway, and Stone spotted Dino’s chief of detectives, Dan Harrigan, and pulled him aside.
“Dino’s in surgery,” Harrigan said without being asked. “Viv is on her way in from L.A. with the mayor. They were both at a security conference out there. They’re on Mike Freeman’s airplane and should be here soon.”
Stone flopped into a chair, closed his eyes, and waited. Soon, he was being shaken awake. Viv was sitting beside him. “He’s out of surgery,” she said. “The doctor will be out here in a minute.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Are you kidding? I’m half out of my mind!”
“Yeah, I know. I was in Key West when I got the word from Joan. We landed an hour ago.”
“Mike and the mayor will be here in a minute.” She looked around. “This is a real zoo, isn’t it? I haven’t seen this many uniforms in one place since the last . . .” She stopped.
“Inspector’s funeral,” Stone finished for her.
She laughed, then a man in green scrubs appeared and introduced himself as Dr. Gordon. “It went well,” he said. “He’s out of surgery and in the ICU. You can see him, if you want to, but I’m keeping him out for a few hours to let the swelling go down. He wouldn’t be able to talk.”
“I want to see him,” she said.
He led her away, and she came back a couple of minutes later. “I’m sorry I saw him,” she said. They were led into a VIP suite with a living room attached to a hospital room. A bed and a lot of equipment awaited Dino. The doctor came with them and sat them down. “Let me tell you what we’ve got here,” he said. “I’m no ME, but I’ve treated hundreds of gunshot wounds, and this is the oddest one I’ve seen.”
“Odd how?” Viv asked.
“This is how it went down, from what I’ve been told. Dino was coming out of the building with his detective, when a man in a motorcycle helmet and jacket appeared with a very short sawed-off shotgun. He fired both barrels from about twenty feet. The detective got the worst of it in the shoulder. He’s in surgery down the hall now and will be okay, after a lot of physical therapy. Dino was farther from the shooter than the detective by a few feet, and the shot pattern was expanding. There are nine pellets in a double-ought twelve-gauge shotgun shell. The detective caught half a dozen, Dino caught four—three in the side of his head and one that penetrated the soft tissue of his cheek and lodged in his tongue. He spat that out on the way to the hospital. That’s why his tongue is so swollen.
“Dino was very lucky. The pellets in his head stopped at the skull and didn’t penetrate or even fracture it. Those wounds are superficial and will heal quickly. He suffered a concussion but will be just fine, believe me. He’ll be walking and talking by tomorrow. I suggest you go home and get some rest, then come back first thing tomorrow morning. He won’t be awake until then.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “Stone, I’ll take the sofa, you take the reclining chair.”
Stone was awakened by something being set on his lap. He opened an eye and found a young, pretty nurse beaming at him.
“Good morning!” she chirped. “Coffee’s on the coffee table, of all places.”
Viv raised her head and contemplated the food. “Thank you so much. When . . .”
“You can see your husband in one hour. He’s being slowly wakened now, and his swelling is down considerably.” She turned and fled the room before there were more questions.
Stone tried the eggs.
“How is the breakfast?” Viv asked, shaking her hair.
“I recommend it,” Stone said. “The sausages are particularly good, and the orange juice is freshly squeezed.”
They dug in and finished everything. Stone poured them coffee from the pot and found two copies of the Times on the table.
POLICE COMMISSIONER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
the headline read, and there was nothing in the story he didn’t already know.
“I’m told there’s a shower in there,” Viv said, pointing. “I eat more slowly than you, so you go ahead.”
Stone stood under a hot stream for five minutes, dried his hair with a towel, and got back into the same clothes. “Much better,” he said to Viv as he left the bathroom. “Plenty of towels in there.”
Viv emptied her coffee mug and went for the bathroom while Stone perused the Times for further news. “No suspects, shooter dressed in black motorcycle clothes and helmet, weapon: double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun, double-ought buckshot. Police detective recovering from shoulder surgery, in good spirits, commissioner sleeping.”
Stone heard a hair dryer from the bathroom, and a moment later Viv emerged looking fresh and ten years younger.
“Amazing what a shower can do for the human spirit,” she said, picking up the Times. “Nothing here we don’t already know.”
“I’m here to tell you more,” a voice said from the door. Dr. Gordon, in civvies, stood there. “Right this way.” He led them a couple of doors down the hall and into the ICU, where Dino and his detective were the only patients. The detective was out, still. They pulled up chairs to Dino’s bed.
“How do I look?” he asked, his thick tongue mangling his speech.
“Like somebody tattooed your face on a soccer ball,” Stone replied, making Viv laugh.
“Funny, that’s exactly how I feel,” Dino said.
“The doctor said you’d be walking and talking today,” Viv said.
“I’m not ready to tap-dance, but I’ll walk to my bed this morning. What does the Times say?”
Stone told him. “Haven’t seen the tabloids yet, but they’ll be more fun, if not more enlightening.”
“It was Gene Ryan,” Dino said.
“What?”
“The ex-cop who’s been dogging you. I guess he got tired of that and decided to dog me, and he got lucky.”
“Did you see him?”
“I didn’t see a damn thing, but it was Ryan. I’ve got a feeling.”
“You’ve got a feeling.”
“It was a guy on a motorcycle—that’s how he made the attempt on your car.”
“A swimmer found a motorcycle registered to him in the East River.”
“So he bought another motorcycle.”
“Did Bobby see anything?”
“The shooter and the motorcycle, said they were both all black. He didn’t see a tag or a number, but he heard it roar off.”
“I’ll pass that on to Dan Harrigan,” Stone said.
“You do that—he could use some prodding.” “Prodding” came out mangled, but the meaning was clear.
“Dr. Gordon,” Dino said, “can you get me out of here and into my room? I want a TV.”
“Is right now good for you?” Gordon asked.
“Right now is just fine.”
Gordon corralled a couple of nurses, and in five minutes Dino was down the hall in his suite and on the bed. His IV was hung on a stand and checked, and the remote controls for the bed and the TV were put at his hand. Dino got the bed just right, then turned on the TV. “Nothing,” he said after a minute.
“I expect they’ve been holding this tight, unti
l they could make a complete statement.”
“I believe that’s happening right now,” Gordon said, looking at his watch. “I’d better get out there and lend some authority to the occasion.”
“Don’t leave it to the cops,” Stone said. “They can mangle any simple statement into unintelligibility.”
The doctor left, and the three of them sat and looked at each other.
“Okay, what now?” Dino asked.
“Now you get better,” Viv said. “Take a few days, get it right. I don’t want you to go back to work too early, then faint at your desk.”
“No police commissioner of New York City, not since Teddy Roosevelt, at least, has ever fainted at his desk.”
“Then let’s not start now,” she said.
“Listen to the woman, Dino,” Stone said.
“I always do.”
“Anything I can do for you?”
“Yeah, tell Dan Harrigan to find Gene Ryan, and I don’t care if they shoot him on sight.”
“Got it,” Stone said, getting up. “I’m going to leave you two to whatever married people say to each other when one of them has a swollen head.”
“Thanks for being here, Stone,” Viv said, standing up and kissing him.
“Yeah, sure,” Dino said, “but I’m not kissing you.”
Stone left and went downstairs. To his surprise, Fred was sitting in the car, sipping coffee from a cardboard cup. Stone had forgotten to tell him to go home. He got into the car.
“I wish I’d told you to go home to bed,” Stone said.
“Not to worry, I slept very nicely in the rear seat,” Fred said, starting the car. He picked his way through the rush-hour traffic and delivered Stone to his home.
Joan was at her desk when he entered through the street door. “How is he?”
“He’s good, and he’s going to be better in a couple of days.”
“How about you?”
“I slept amazingly well in a reclining chair, then had some breakfast with Viv. She’s fine, too, now that Dino is out of the woods.”
“Then if everybody is fine, you’d better read this. It was stuck to the front door,” she said, handing him a single sheet of paper with a scrawl on it.
ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO, it read.
On Monday morning Stone sat down at his desk and called Captain Dan Harrigan, chief of detectives. Harrigan had been on the squad at the 19th Precinct when Stone and Dino were partners; he had been a good guy and a good detective, enough of both that Dino had wanted him for chief. Dan affected an Irish brogue, even though he was three generations away from the Old Sod.
“How’s Dino?” Harrigan asked. “Sure, he won’t see anybody but you and Vivian.”
“He’ll come around, Dan. He’s a little too worried about how he looks. He’ll be more receptive to visitors when the swelling goes down.”
“Man, he’s lucky to be alive.”
“He is that, and he already has a theory of who the shooter was.”
“No kidding? I heard he didn’t see or hear anything.”
“He knows that the shooter was wearing motorcycle clothes and a helmet, and he has a strong feeling that he’s Gene Ryan.”
“The ex-cop who’s been after you? We’ve been looking everywhere for that guy.”
“Well, keep looking—Dino’s convinced that Ryan is the perp.”
“Why would Ryan want Dino dead? What’s his motive?”
“He wants me, and I was unavailable, so he went after Dino.”
“That’s his motive? That he’s pissed off at you?”
“Stranger things have happened. Ryan drove a motorcycle, you know, he used it when he fired a pistol into my car.”
“And we found the thing in the East River. My theory is that he was riding it when it went in, and his body just hasn’t turned up yet.”
“That’s a plausible theory, Dan, but Dino isn’t buying it, and I think it would be a good idea to get your thumb out of your ass and find Ryan before Dino gets out of the hospital. You and I both know that once he has an idea in his head, he’s not going to let go of it until it’s been nailed to the wall and thoroughly inspected.”
“I’ll give you that, Stone, but I don’t want to waste a lot of resources hunting a dead man. Does Dino want us to drag the East River?”
“I think you’d better work on the theory that Ryan is still walking and talking. Why don’t you roust Gino Parisi’s kid, Al? The two of them were partners when they were working for Gino.”
“Didn’t you hear? Al inherited his daddy’s part of that drinks distribution business, and his uncle, Jerry Brubeck, bought him out of it. He’s rich now—he bought a Mercedes.”
“I’m happy for him, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know where Gene Ryan is, and it ought not to be hard to find Al. You might start by finding out at what address he registered the Mercedes.”
“The kid’s from Jersey, I’ll make a call.”
“While you’re at it, why don’t you ask if Gene Ryan has registered a motorcycle in Jersey?”
“I’ll call right this minute,” Dan said. “Give my best wishes to Dino when you see him.”
“Certainly, Dan.” Stone hung up.
—
At that moment, Gene Ryan was standing in line at the New Jersey Motor Vehicles Department, with the registration documents for his motorcycle in hand, along with an application to exchange his New York driver’s license for a New Jersey one. Ryan was an orderly guy, and he liked to keep things neat. He looked at his watch and at the display of the number being called. It was 52, and his number was 72. He sighed deeply.
—
Half an hour after Stone’s call, Dan Harrigan called back. “Stone, we ran Gene Ryan’s name in Jersey and came up with zilch.”
“How about Al Parisi?”
“Him, we found. There’s two of New York’s finest on the way to brace him as I speak. I’ll get back to you.”
—
Al Parisi looked out the window of his new house and saw two guys get out of an unmarked car with New York plates and start up his front walk. He pulled his necktie snug and went to the front door.
He got there before they even rang the bell. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Alfredo Parisi?”
“That’s me.”
“Mind if we come in for a minute?” The man flashed a gold badge.
“Not at all,” Al said, unlatching the screen and holding the door open. “Come right in.”
Al’s first thought was that somebody in the poker game had called the cops, but why the NYPD? He showed the two detectives into the living room, like the upright citizen that he believed himself to be.
“Are you the Alfredo Parisi formerly employed by a New York City beverage distribution business?”
“I’m a former owner of such a business,” Al said. “I sold out to my partner.”
“Yeah, we heard that,” the detective said. “Your old man, Gino Parisi, left you his half.”
“That’s correct. If you gentlemen have any business with the company, you should contact Mr. Jerry Brubeck. I’ll be happy to give you his number.”
“Yeah, we got that. When you were with the company, you worked with a Mr. Eugene Ryan, is that correct?”
“That’s right, Gene and I were in the client services department.”
“Where can we find Mr. Ryan? We’d like to speak with him.”
Al offered them a blank stare. “Gene lives in Queens. I forget the address, but he’s in the phone book.”
“Not anymore. We’d like his current address.”
“Gee, I don’t know, I haven’t seen Gene since our last day at work. We were never close friends.”
“Do you know what kind of motorcycle he drives?”
“Yeah, he has a Honda 250—he talked about it a lot.”
“We found the Honda at the bottom of the East River.”
Al managed a look of concern. “Jesus, I hope he wasn’t riding it at the time.”
“We’re not sure about that just yet.”
“I wish I could help you, I just don’t know how.”
“We’ll keep in touch.” The cops got to their feet.
“Please let me know if I can be of any further help,” Al said, as he showed them out and closed the door behind them. He watched until they drove away, then found the throwaway cell phone and called Ryan.
“Yeah?”
“Gene, it’s Al.”
“Yeah, I thought, since you’re the only one with this number.”
“A pair of detectives from the NYPD were just at my house, looking for you.”
“Well, they didn’t find me, did they? Or did you give them my new address?”
“Of course not. I told them I hadn’t seen you since our last day at work. They asked what kind of motorcycle you were driving.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“A Honda 250. They said they found it in the East River. Are you playing dead?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea—I’m dead. You tell everybody who asks you.”
“This couldn’t be about the poker game, or they would have been New Jersey cops.”
“Right.”
“So what is this about?”
“Beats me, maybe some old beef, or something. You just keep playing it the way you did, and everything will be fine.”
“Okay, pal.”
“And let me know if you come up with another job.”
“I’ll do that. Bye.” Al hung up. What the hell was going on with Gene? he asked himself. He didn’t know, and he really didn’t want to know.
—
An hour later Ryan left the DMV with his car and motorcycle properly registered and a new driver’s license in his hand. Time to do some shopping for a new car and a better apartment.
When Stone got to the hospital and pushed his way past the reporters and cops in the hall, Dino looked a lot more like himself. Viv was already there; she had been since waking up, Stone figured, and the two of them watched as a nurse removed the bandage from his head.
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