Strategic Moves (28 page)

“This sounds like a story on
60 Minutes
,” Stone said.

“It probably will be soon. Why do you want to know about this?”

“It’s my turn to give you this answer,” Stone said. “I am not at liberty to say.”

“Gee, thanks. I spill my guts, and you tell me nothing?”

“Soon perhaps; be patient.”

“Go away.” Holly hung up.

Joan buzzed Stone. “Willa Crane on one.”

“Hey, Willa.”

“I can’t talk,” she said. “Dinner tonight at Elaine’s, eight-thirty?”

“Sure.”

She hung up without another word, and Stone was left staring at a dead phone.

 

 

At the end of the day Stone decided not to let Aaron Beck stew any longer. He called the Israeli Mission and asked for Beck.

“This is Aaron Beck,” a voice said.

“Good afternoon, Moishe,” Stone said. “It’s Stone Barrington.”

“Ah, Stone.”

“I have heard briefly from Pablo Estancia, and he has asked me to relay the following message to you. I quote: ‘Please tell Mr. Aarons that I have not, at any time, knowingly sold arms or ammunition to anyone representing any Palestinian organization, legal or otherwise, nor do I intend to do so. Any other questions Mr. Aarons has should be directed to Mr. Lance Cabot, of the Central Intelligence Agency, who has all the answers.’ ”

“And where is Pablo?” Aarons asked.

“He did not mention his location to me before he hung up. Good day, Moishe, and thank you again for an excellent lunch.”

Stone hung up feeling satisfied.

Stone walked into Elaine’s to find Dino not yet at their usual table. He sat down and a drink was brought to him.

“Dino called,” the waiter said. “He said not to wait dinner for him. He said you’d understand.”

“I don’t understand,” Stone replied. “Dino never misses dinner.”

“He said something about a double homicide.”

“Well, that might cause him to be late.” Stone took a sip of his bourbon and waited for Willa to show. That done, he reviewed his day, and considered that everything was pretty well wrapped up. He had gotten Herbie his money back; he had brushed off Moishe Aarons, and Pablo was still safe. Now he had only to pass on to Willa Herbie’s suspicions about Stephanie, and then he could relax, knowing he had done his duty in full.

Willa walked in, shucked off her coat, asked for a martini, and sat down. “Whew!” she said. “What a day!”

“You sounded a little fraught when you called,” Stone said. “I’ve never received a phone call from anyone whose first words were ‘I can’t talk.’ What kept you so busy?”

“Work, work, work. After being mercifully quiet for a few days, the criminal classes seem to have come to life again. I spent a long day before a grand jury.”

“Which indicted everybody, I’ll bet.”

“How’d you guess?”

“If you wrote a book about cases in which a grand jury declined to indict, it would be a very short book.”

“You’re a cynic.”

“Let’s have the grand jury argument another day,” Stone said, clinking her glass against his. “Salud.”

They drank.

“I have some information for you,” Stone said.

“Oh, good.”

“My client Herbert Fisher has given me permission to speak about this.”

“Is it something I can take to a grand jury?”

“Not yet; not unless you want to add a paragraph to that book about cases they didn’t indict.”

“So this isn’t exactly hard information.”

“It is information that is hard to come by.”

“Now, wait: you said Herbie Fisher told you something, and that was hard to come by?”

“It is information that would be hard for
you
to come by, without knowing me.”

“Oh, that kind of hard to come by.”

“Yes. Are you ready for the information?”

“Just a minute,” she said, producing a notebook and pen from her handbag.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” she said, pen poised.

“Have you ever heard of an island nation called Attola?”

Willa put down her pen. “I thought you were giving me information, not asking me for it.”

“My question is but prelude to my information.”

“All right, yes, I’ve heard of Attola.”

“You know all about it, then, about the billionaires buying it?”

“I know all about it.”

“Well, I think, from what Herbie told me, that Stephanie, possibly in league with her brother, David, is going to loot the family firm and run off to Attola.”

Willa did not write anything down. “Do you have actual evidence to support that?”

“Not exactly.”

Willa closed her notebook and returned it and the pen to her handbag. “I hate stuff with no supporting evidence.”

“That’s because you’re a prosecutor and not a cop, or even an investigator. If you were an investigator you would be intrigued that Herbie heard fragments of phone conversations in which Stephanie discussed Attola and made travel arrangements.”

“Fragments of conversation? You call that evidence?”

“Stop with the evidence thing. Don’t you ever get a hunch?”

“Despite your opinion of grand juries, I can’t get an indictment based on a hunch, not even if it were
my
hunch.”

Stone handed her a menu. “Okay, what would you like for dinner?” He perused his own menu, and the waiter appeared on cue.

She regarded the menu. “Green bean salad and penne with mushrooms and Italian sausage. Do you have any other shred of information that might approach the level of actual evidence?”

“Osso buco with polenta, and a bottle of the Saint Francis Cabernet,” Stone said, and the waiter went away. “This afternoon, Herbie withdrew his entire investment of seven million dollars from the Gunn company.”

“On your recommendation?”

“Well, yes; he is my client, after all.”

“You know, what I would really like to investigate is where Herbie Fisher got seven million dollars. Now,
that
is intriguing, because he couldn’t have gotten it legally.”

“Actually, he got fourteen million—after taxes and further deductions to settle with his bookie and his loan shark and to keep his dead mistress in really sexy underwear, and to retain me. Now he’s left with about ten million, seven of which he invested with his father-in-law’s company.”

“Stone, would it be a violation of attorney-client confidentiality if you told me the source of Herbie’s millions?”

Stone thought about that. “No.”

“Then please cough it up.”

“The source of Herbie’s millions is the New York State Lottery,” Stone said.

Willa took a big pull at her martini. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t know why not; people win the lottery every week.”

“Not Herbie Fisher.”

“I confess I thought that at first, too, but let me ask you this: where do you think Herbie got the money to buy the Park Avenue penthouse off of which his former mistress, Sheila, fell? I mean, he didn’t pull a fourteen-million-dollar bank robbery or win it on a horse. I’m sure if a high public official like yourself rang up the nice folks over at the lottery, they would confirm that one Herbert Fisher got very, very lucky.”

Willa took out her notepad and made a note. “I’m going to do exactly that, first thing tomorrow.”

“But you’re not going to look into Stephanie and David Gunn flying off to the South Pacific with a billion dollars of other people’s money?”

Willa downed the remainder of her martini and waved at the waiter for another. “Call the FBI,” she said. “They’re pretty hunchy over there.”

Stone lay in bed, the
Times
on his lap and the television murmuring. It was nine-thirty, and he had not stirred himself. Instead, he had allowed guilt to make him slothful. Willa had gone to work, and it was time he did, too, he thought, so he showered, shaved, and went down to his office, still feeling guilty. Finally, he decided to take Willa’s advice. He picked up the telephone and called an old flame, Tiffany Baldwin, who happened to be the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was put through immediately.

“Why, hello, Stone,” Tiffany said, transmitting both surprise and interest. “Long time.”

“Yes, it has been, hasn’t it?” Stone replied. “I have a tip for you.”

“Stone, you know I don’t play the ponies.”

“Not that kind of tip.”

“What kind of tip?”

“A tip about the possible occurrence of a crime.”

“What crime?”

“You remember the business with Jack Gunn’s investment firm losing a billion dollars temporarily?”

“Yes, I was all over it. It was resolved.”

“Well, it may be about to happen again, and if it does, it won’t be resolved.”

“Stone, I’m busy. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Jack Gunn’s son and daughter, David and Stephanie, may be about to decamp to the island of Attola in the Pacific with a great deal of the firm’s money.”

“What evidence do you have to support this?”

“My client is married to Stephanie. He has overheard fragments of telephone conversations in which she is discussing Attola and making travel arrangements.”

“Go on.”

“That’s it.”

“That’s
it
?”

“Yes.”

“Stone, why are you wasting my time?”

“I thought you might want to instruct the FBI to investigate this.”

“Investigate what? No crime has been committed.”

“Well, not yet. Don’t you investigate crimes that may be about to be committed?”

“No, we don’t, and we don’t ask the FBI to do that, either, not without some sort of solid evidence on which to proceed. I’m surprised at you, Stone; you know better than this.”

“Okay, Tiff,” Stone said, “I’ve done my civic duty. Now I’m going to attack the work on my desk and forget all about this.”

“What a good idea!” she said, laughing. “Dinner?”

“I’m seeing somebody.”

“Who?”

“Oh, no, we’re not going there. Bye-bye, Tiff.” Stone hung up. He felt that a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Now he could attack the work on his desk.

Except that there was no work on his desk.

Joan buzzed him. “Lance Cabot on one.”

Stone picked up. “Good morning, Lance.”

“I’m afraid not,” Lance said. “Pablo has disappeared.”

“Lance, there are eight men from Strategic Services guarding him; he can’t disappear.”

“Nevertheless,” Lance said.

“How did this happen?”

“His wife wanted to go to the market in Washington, and Pablo went with her. They went into the market, followed by two of Mike Freeman’s men, and then straight out the back door, and they disappeared.”

“You’d better check the airport at Newburgh,” Stone said. “It sounds like Pablo has decided to run.”

“Holly is all over that and every other airport in the area,” Lance said. “Run from what?”

“Well, Lance, your very good friend and colleague Moishe Aarons has been trying to find Pablo—God knows why—but Pablo found that disturbing. Somehow—and I’m not making any accusations—Mr. Aarons found out about your meetings with Pablo. How could that have happened?”

Lance was silent.

“Hello, hello? Can you think of any way that Aarons could have found out about those meetings?”

“I’m thinking,” Lance said.

“I’ll just wait while you think,” Stone said, then sat there silently.

“All right,” Lance said finally, “he may have inferred that from something I said to him.”

“Lance, we had a firm and very clear agreement that the existence of those meetings would be kept within a very tight circle of your people.”

“Yes, we did.”

“Did you intend that very tight circle to include the Mossad?”

“Of course not, Stone. It was just a slip of the tongue over lunch.”

“It must have been a very big slip of the tongue, since Aarons knew that the meetings took place at my house and that I was in touch with Pablo.”

“I have to go now,” Lance said. “There are people waiting to see me.”

“Lance—” But Lance had hung up.

Stone looked up to see a man he didn’t recognize standing in his doorway. He was tall, with a dark, heavy beard and black horn-rimmed glasses.

“Good morning, Stone.”

“Yes? Have we met?”

The man came across the room and sat down in the chair opposite Stone. “My disguise is better than I thought.”

“Pablo?” Stone said with astonishment.

“Don’t make me take the beard off; it took me too long to get it right. You were talking with Lance?”

“Yes, just now.”

“I heard you mention his name.”

“He called to tell me you had disappeared.”

“He’s quite right, I have,” Pablo said.

“Why?”

“Moishe Aarons wants me either in a Mossad interrogation facility or dead, and I don’t think he cares very much which.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because early this morning I walked down to the lake—I take a walk every morning—and I saw a boat being driven by Moishe himself. I don’t think he saw me, since I was partly behind a tree.”

“Oh, shit,” Stone said.

“Exactly,” Pablo replied.

Stone tried to think of what to do. “Pablo, how did you get away from the Washington market?”

“One of my security people met us out back with a rental car and drove us here. He’s gone, now, to return the car.”

“Then Lance will soon find out about the rental car. What happened to the other one?”

“My other security guard returned it to Newburgh.”

“Where do you want to go, Pablo?”

“To Switzerland.”