Naked Greed (Stone Barrington)

by Woods, Stuart

  “At least they didn’t shave the whole side of your head,” Stone said. “That would have given an Italian barber more than he could handle.”

  The nurse spoke up. “Dr. Gordon only took as much hair as absolutely necessary to get at the wounds, the commissioner being a public figure and all and on TV all the time. When he washes and combs his hair, you won’t even see them.” She finished with the head bandage, then cleaned the cheek wound and pressed a circular, flesh-colored adhesive bandage over it. “There,” she said, “almost as good as new.”

  “Viv,” Dino said, “when are they going to let me out of here? I’m starting to get antsy.”

  “You’ve been antsy since you woke up after surgery,” Viv replied. “Just relax and enjoy the rest.”

  “I don’t need any rest.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said a voice from the doorway. Dr. Gordon strode in and took Dino’s chart from the end of the bed and pored over it for a moment. “How do you feel, Commissioner?”

  “Just great, Doc,” Dino said. “Rarin’ to go.”

  “Then get out of here,” Gordon said. “What’s a well man doing taking up a badly needed hospital bed?” He held out his hand, and Dino shook it. “Nice stitching you up,” he said.

  “Thank you, Doctor! Viv, find me my pants, will you?”

  Viv took the doctor by a lapel. “You’re really discharging him? This isn’t a joke?”

  “Do you think you can keep him caged at home for the rest of the week without working the phones? If you can, and he doesn’t have a temperature Monday morning, then he can go back to work.”

  “Whatever you say, Doctor,” Viv said.

  “But he has to keep taking the antibiotics until they’re all gone, you hear?” He took a bottle from a pocket and handed it to her. “After each meal.”

  “I’ll see that he does, I promise.”

  He handed her another bottle. “He won’t admit it, but he’s got a headache and will have for a few days. Have him take these as needed, but no more than one every four hours.”

  “I certainly will.”

  “Then I’ll try and scatter the people outside, so you can make your escape.” He signed the chart with a flourish, hung it back on the end of the bed, gave a little wave, and walked out of the room.

  —

  Outside in the hallway, Gordon signaled for quiet, then addressed the crowd. “Here’s an official bulletin,” he said. “The commissioner is doing so well that we’ll likely be able to discharge him this time tomorrow. I’ve nothing further to say right now, and neither does he, so all of you, get the hell out of my hospital.” He walked toward them, his arms outstretched as if he were a farmer herding geese. “The elevators are thataway, ladies and gentlemen, just keep moving, now.”

  Stone cracked the door and saw them go, while Dino was putting on a fresh shirt Viv had brought and tying his tie. “The coast is clear,” he said. “My car is downstairs. I’ll tell Fred to move it around to the side entrance.” He got out his phone and did that.

  The three of them left the room and headed for the rear elevators. Dino shouted over his shoulder to the surprised cop sitting outside his door, “Anybody asks, tell ’em I’m sleeping and don’t want to be disturbed.”

  Five minutes later they were in the Bentley and headed for East Sixty-third Street.

  “Okay, what do you hear from Dan Harrigan?” Dino asked.

  “I was on the phone with him a couple of hours ago,” Stone said. “He wants to believe Ryan went down with his Honda, but I threw as much cold water as I could on that theory. He had the vehicle registrations checked to see if Ryan had a new motorcycle, but there was nothing in the record, not even in Jersey. I got him to send some people out there to talk to Gino Parisi’s kid, but he played dumb, and they went home.”

  “Gimme your phone, I want to call Dan.”

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Viv said. “You heard the doctor—you’re not to work the phones, and I’m going to see that you rest.” The car pulled up outside Dino’s building. “Stone, you come upstairs with me and help me wrestle him into bed.”

  Dino shook the doormen’s hands and waited until he was in the elevator before starting to complain. “The doctor did not say I had to stay in bed,” he said. The elevator stopped, and Viv let them into the apartment. “I’ll be in my study with Stone. Tell Eva when she has our lunch ready to bring it to us in there, and you can even join us, if you promise not to try to do anything to me.” Dino pushed her toward the kitchen, then led Stone into his study. He closed the door behind them and sat down in his favorite chair. “Now,” he said, “let’s think of ways we can make Dan Harrigan’s life hell, until he finds Gene Ryan.”

  —

  Ryan was, at that point, handing a man in a used-car lot twenty thousand dollars, cash, in a paper bag and the title and registration for his old car, in exchange for a three-year-old BMW 328 with only twenty-nine thousand miles on it that he had just test-driven. “Count it,” Ryan said.

  “Sign here, here, and here,” the salesman said, handing him a clipboard and a pen and starting to count. “My girl is getting the title now.”

  Ten minutes later, Ryan was tooling up the avenue and turning into the parking lot in front of a new apartment building with a huge banner draped across it, advertising its contents. Ryan found the agent, dozing in a chair outside the front door, and demanded to be shown the two models, a one- and a two-bedroom. He liked them both. “Let me see your lease,” he said to the man.

  The agent handed it to him, along with another printed sheet. “You need to fill out the application,” he said, waving a pen.

  Ryan finished reading the lease, filled out the application, signed it, and handed it back.

  “I’ll have to get this approved by my boss,” the agent said.

  “Just tell him I’m a retired cop,” Ryan said, flashing his badge, “and he’ll approve it quick. There’s nothing a landlord likes better than a tenant with a badge. Now I’m going to go out to my car and get you cash for the security deposit and two months’ rent—make sure you tell him cash. And there’s five hundred in it for you if you get me the one-bedroom with the furniture left in it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” the man said, and walked into the kitchen to use his phone while Ryan went to the car, opened the trunk, and counted out the money. When he came back, the man counted it, handed him a lease to sign, and put two sets of keys on the kitchen counter. “Your parking space number in the garage is one-oh-one,” he said, “since you’re our first tenant.”

  Ryan raked the keys off the counter. “I’m going to get my stuff, and I’ll be back in an hour. I assume there’s no problem with parking a motorcycle in some dead space near my car.”

  “I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Then you come with me and drive my car back. I’ll ride the bike. It’s only ten minutes away.”

  “Sure thing.”

  —

  An hour later, Ryan sat back in his new, reclining chair and switched on the TV, but it didn’t come on. He got up and inspected it, found it to be a display dummy.

  “Well, shit,” he said aloud. “Now I have to go TV shopping.” He went into the bedroom and pulled back the cover. “Sheets, too.”

  —

  While Ryan was at a mall, buying sheets and towels and a TV, two New Jersey state patrolmen were being let into his old apartment by the manager, their guns drawn, only to find it empty, except for a note to the manager telling him to go fuck himself.

  Stone, Dino, and Viv sat in Dino’s study, finishing their sandwiches. Viv parked Dino out of reach of the phone, in case he was tempted to use it. Finally, she gave up the vigil and took their plates to the kitchen.

  “What do you think Ryan is doing right now?” Dino asked.

  “Well, if recent events are any indication, he’s probably thin
king about killing you or me, or perhaps both of us.”

  “That’s what I think he’s doing, too.”

  Stone’s phone rang, and he answered it, twisting his body so Dino couldn’t snatch it out of his hand. He listened for a couple of minutes, asking a question or two, then hung up.

  “That was Dan Harrigan, wasn’t it?” Dino asked.

  “Gee, I don’t know how you guessed,” Stone replied.

  “All right, tell me what he said.”

  “First answer a question.”

  “What?”

  “Do you have a headache?”

  Dino shrugged. “Sort of.”

  Stone went to the door and yelled, “Viv, painkillers, please.”

  “Now, why’d you have to do that? She was all settled down, and now you’ve got her going again.”

  Viv came in with a pill and a glass of water. “Open,” she said, then waited. “I said, open!”

  Dino opened and she popped the pill into his mouth and made him drink half a glass of water. “Let me see,” she said.

  Dino opened his mouth.

  “Lift your tongue.”

  He lifted his tongue.

  “All right,” she said. She left the glass of water and the pills on the table at his elbow and looked at her watch. “No more until six o’clock.” Then she left the room.

  “All right, what did Harrigan say?”

  “He said he got a call from somebody at the New Jersey DMV, saying that an E. P. Ryan registered a car and a motorcycle half an hour after they had told him they had nothing on the guy. He swapped his New York license for a Jersey one, too.”

  “Did they get his address?”

  “The New Jersey state cops did—they’re the ones who got the call first. They went there and found him moved out, except for a rude note to the building manager.”

  “Out where?”

  “They’ve no idea.”

  “What the fuck are those guys doing out there?”

  “Dino, they’re doing their jobs. After all, there are no charges against Ryan, he’s just wanted for questioning, and on no better evidence than your hunch.”

  “What do you think Ryan is doing over there?”

  “The evidence seems to tell us he’s moving to New Jersey.”

  “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “Maybe he’s tired of New York traffic, maybe he has a girlfriend there, maybe he wants to be near Chris Christie, who knows? People move to Jersey every day.”

  “There’s something sinister about this.”

  “I think he must know that people are looking for him, and he’s just doing normal stuff.”

  “But why would he give that address to the DMV and move out of his apartment the same day?”

  “To make it harder for us to find him, maybe? Oh, Harrigan said one of his people checked, and Ryan had filed a police report saying his motorcycle had been stolen.”

  “When?”

  “The day he took a shot at our Brit friend.”

  “What’s he doing over in Jersey?”

  “Probably apartment hunting.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he no longer has a place to live. He’s probably out shopping for curtains as we speak.”

  “Did Harrigan check to find out where Ryan’s pension checks are being sent?”

  “Ryan doesn’t have a pension, he was fired, remember?”

  “Then how’s he making a living?”

  “He was working up until recently—maybe he saved his money. Maybe he’s found another job.”

  “This is very weird.”

  “Everything he’s doing is perfectly normal. When Harrigan finally finds him and hauls him in, he’ll point out during his questioning that he hasn’t behaved like a man on the run. He’s registered his car and bike, he’s gotten a new license. Next, he’ll be joining a church or a golf club.”

  Ryan, at that moment, was looking at a Cuisinart. He cooked a bit, and he’d heard about the miraculous machine. Finally, he decided to postpone the purchase. Instead, he went back to the TV department and bought another set for his bedroom. All he had to do was plug them in; the sat system was already installed for the whole building.

  —

  Stone stayed for supper. He and Viv talked animatedly and tried to include Dino, to keep him off the subject of Ryan. It didn’t work.

  “Stone,” he said, “you tell Harrigan to look for that shotgun when they find Ryan. If his guys can find that, then we have a case.”

  “Dino, there are no ballistic marks on shotgun pellets, and he didn’t leave any shell casings. If they can find it, then all they can charge him with is possession of an illegal weapon, i.e., a shotgun with a barrel shorter than eighteen inches.”

  “Well, that oughta get him, what, five to seven?”

  “He’s an ex-cop with no criminal record, not even a DUI. If he’s dumb enough to hang on to the weapon, he’d get a suspended sentence, but the shotgun is probably at the bottom of a Jersey river.”

  “Why are you such a pessimist?”

  “I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist, and you’re not an optimist, you’re an obsessive.”

  “I think that’s an exaggeration, don’t you, Viv?”

  “Nope. I think it’s an astute judgment.”

  “Now you’ve got her ganging up on me, Stone.”

  “I’m just one person,” Viv pointed out, “I can’t gang up on you.”

  “You can, with a little help from Stone.”

  “I’m not ganging up on you,” Stone said, “I’m drinking soup, and very good soup it is. My compliments to Eva.”

  “I’ll pass that on,” Viv said. “She’ll love it.”

  “Now you’re changing the subject to soup,” Dino said.

  “We’re trying,” Viv replied. “And we’re not getting much help from you.”

  “Why does everybody blame everything on me?”

  Viv looked at her watch, then shook a pill into her hand. “Time for another painkiller,” she said.

  “I don’t want another one,” Dino said. “They make me drowsy.”

  “I know.” She popped the pill into his mouth and forced a glass of water on him.

  —

  Gene Ryan slept like a child in his new bed.

  Al Parisi walked around Gene Ryan’s new apartment, checking it out. “I specially like the crown moldings,” he said. “That’s an elegant touch. Two TVs, too—you don’t have to get out of bed.”

  “Thanks, Al.”

  “It’s all in very good taste.”

  “Well, I didn’t really have much to do with it, except the TVs. Some decorator did it up, along with the two-bedroom across the hall, as model apartments. I made ’em an offer for the place, furnished.”

  “Smart move, Gene.”

  “You said on the phone you got another job?”

  “I have,” Al said. “It came to me when I got a phone call from Sean Finn. He’s one of the guys in the poker game, and he said some of the fellows wanted to talk to me. They want to have lunch tomorrow. Sean’s the one who brought the ringer dealer into the game.”

  “And you accepted?”

  “Sure, I got nothing to hide.”

  “And why did the invitation make you think of a new job?”

  “Because the job is Sean Finn’s liquor store, on 17 North.”

  “I don’t know, Al, liquor stores can be tough: these days they got cameras and silent alarms, and you never know when some guy’s going to pull a shotgun from under the counter and let fly.”

  “This one’s not like that,” Al said confidently.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I overheard Sean tell another guy right before the next-to-last poker game that he’s considering putting cameras
and all the other security stuff in the store, but not until the first of the year, which means it ain’t there now. Something else I know: when I bought a couple of cases of wine there for my housewarming, it was a Friday, like tomorrow, about noon, and while I was there two guys came in carrying bank bags with the week’s receipts from the other two liquor stores Sean owns, and I heard one of ’em say that Sean comes in every Friday at two, to pick up the bags and take the receipts from all three stores to the bank.”

  “So the take from all three stores is there between noon and two?”

  “Every Friday,” Al confirmed.

  “So I’d have to deal with guys from all three stores, plus whoever works the counter in the 17 North store?”

  “Nope, you sit outside somewhere, and you’ll see the two guys come in with the bags. When they leave the store, then you hit it. You’ve only got the two countermen to deal with.”

  “Oh, I see. Sounds good.”

  “Vinny’s up for it, too, but we’re going to have to give him twenty-five percent of this take. I talked him down from a third.”

  “Seems reasonable. He didn’t fuck up last time.”

  “I told you, Vinny’s a cool kid.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “I want the two of you to get together and talk about what you’re going to wear.”

  “What is this, a fashion show?”

  “Nah, I just don’t want you to look like the two guys who hit the poker game. And don’t bring that little shotgun of yours—that would be a tip-off, and this time, the police will get called. Drive down to Virginia—there’s gun shops, first exit off I-95—and get yourself a couple of riot guns, like the cops use, with eighteen-inch barrels. Buy ’em at different stores and use a false ID. You’ve got that, haven’t you? I know Vinny does.”

  “Yeah, and don’t worry about my shotgun, it’s at the bottom of the river, sinking in the mud. Why not just use handguns?”

  “Because shotguns will scare the living shit out of the counter guys. You want to get one of you behind the counter, so you can see if they’ve got any weapons stashed back there.”