Stone spent the morning working and had a sandwich at his desk. He’d just finished a cup of coffee when Joan buzzed him.
“Dierdre Monahan from the D.A.’s office is on line one.”
Stone started to pick up the phone, but he gave himself a moment to review his history with Dierdre Monahan: They had met a couple of years ago at a Christmas party in the D.A.’s office. He had been trying a case downtown, and the opposing counsel had invited him to the party. After a couple of hours of eggnog and flirtation, he and Dierdre, who was an up-and-coming assistant D.A., had found themselves in a conference room, on the long table, wearing few clothes and exploring each other’s nether regions—this at a moment when the chief deputy D.A. had walked into the room with another woman, apparently with the same activity in mind.
Dierdre had taken a lot of guff from her coworkers about the incident, to the point where she had threatened to file a sexual harassment complaint, which had resulted in a promotion and a better office. Last year she had been assigned to prosecute Herbie Fisher for a DUI and attacking a police officer, who happened to be one of her four brothers on the force.
Stone took a deep breath, picked up the phone and punched the button. “Dierdre!” he nearly shouted. “How the hell are you?”
“Oh, I’m just dandy, Stone,” she replied, “and I’m sure you are, too. I just called to make your day a little worse.”
A trickle of anxiety ran down through Stone’s bowels. “Oh, I’m sure you wouldn’t do a thing like that,” he replied. “What’s up?”
“Well, the Brooklyn D.A.’s office is a little backed up, so I took the murder one charge against Herbert Fisher off their hands.”
“Murder one? Are you nuts, Dierdre? That was a clear case of self-defense!”
“That’s not how I read it, buddy. If it was self-defense, why is Mr. Fisher on the run?”
“He’s been hiding from Carmine Dattila’s goons for a couple of weeks. He owes money to a bookie, and they’ve already beaten him up and tried to kill him.”
“I haven’t been able to locate the criminal charges on that,” she said.
“We’re treating it as a civil matter for the moment, but I’ve no doubt that criminal charges will result.”
“Oh, yeah, the detective told me you were suing Carmine. We all got a great laugh out of that.”
“Well, Dattila isn’t laughing; he sent those guys to Herbie’s apartment to kill him, and Herbie got lucky. That’s all this is.”
“Tell you what, why don’t you bring Mr. Fisher down here tomorrow morning, and we’ll talk about it.”
“I think that’s a good idea, but I don’t know where the hell he is. He contacts me from time to time, so when he does, I’ll give you a call, and we’ll get together.”
“You’re aware that there’s an APB out for him, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but that’s purely for his protection, isn’t it?”
“Sure. I’m positive he’d be safe in a cell at Rikers.”
“Dierdre, he wouldn’t last a day at Rikers; Dattila has a long reach, and Herbie’s a little guy.”
“He’s big enough to take out a big chunk of Dattila’s muscle guy with a butcher knife.”
“A cornered rat will fight a pit bull,” Stone said, “as a friend of mine likes to say.”
“Well, ‘rat’ certainly describes the little shit,” she said.
“Now, Dierdre, if you’re referring to the unfortunate incident with your brother the cop…”
“Oh, he’s got more than that on his sheet,” she said. “There’s another DUI and that business when he crashed through the skylight while taking dirty pictures and fell on some poor guy who died as a result.”
“Dierdre, you know as well as I that it has been positively determined that the guy was already dead when Herbie fell on him. He was just trying to make a buck.”
“Stone, why do you keep getting involved with this little creep? He’s nothing but trouble, and one of these days he’s going to get you in trouble.”
“Circumstances beyond my control,” Stone said, “but everything I’ve told you is true.”
“Well, maybe so, but I hope you can find your client in time to get him in my office at ten tomorrow morning, because at that time, I’m going to start getting a lot harder to convince. Bye-bye, sweetie. Oh, by the way, bring that tape of Dattila committing a crime, or I’ll have your balls.” She hung up.
Stone called Bob Cantor.
“Cantor.”
“Bob, have you heard anything at all from Herbie?”
“Yeah, he called just a minute ago. He wants me to bring him some money.”
“Where?”
“He said he’d call me when he finds a safe place.”
“Bob, when you see him you’ve got to collar him and take him home with you. I’ve got to have him in the D.A.’s office tomorrow at ten a.m. to keep him from getting a murder charge slapped on him.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. Somehow, the case got assigned to Manhattan, and the A.D.A. in charge is the one whose brother Herbie kicked in the balls last year.”
“Oh, shit.”
“My sentiments exactly. Hang on to him, Bob. Have him at the D.A.’s office at ten tomorrow, or everything is going to get a lot worse.”
“I read you, Stone. I’ll bring him over here and handcuff him to a radiator.” Cantor hung up.
As Stone hung up, Joan buzzed him again. “A Dr. Larkin on two.”
Stone punched the button. “Eliza, how are you?”
“I’m very well, Stone. Do you like Italian food?”
“My favorite.”
“I’m cooking this evening. Would you like to join me?”
“What’s an Irish girl doing cooking Italian?”
“Would you rather I cooked Irish?”
“Italian will be just great. What time?”
“Seven thirty.”
“Can I bring the wine?”
“You’d better.” She gave him the address.
“See you then.” Stone hung up and walked through the ground floor of his house to a room he kept cooled as a wine cellar. He found two bottles of the Masi ’91 Amarone and set them on the kitchen counter to settle. “Yum,” he said aloud to himself as he wiped the dust from the bottles. He had been saving them for a special occasion, and this was a special occasion.
He went cheerfully back to work.
Shortly before five, Joan came into his office with a large package.
“This just arrived by messenger,” she said, setting it on his desk.
Stone stood up and looked at the package. “Any return address?”
“Some gallery downtown,” she said, picking up the scissors to cut the string holding it together.
“No!” Stone said, holding up a hand. “Come with me.” He took her by the arm and led her upstairs.
“What, are you expecting a bomb or something?”
“No, I am not, but that package is from Devlin Daltry’s gallery, and nobody is opening it but the bomb squad.” He picked up a phone and called Dino.