Unnatural Acts (12 page)

“Cheer up, maybe the show will close after the first performance.”

“I wouldn’t wish that on her. How much have you seen of Marla?”

“Only the once. Fortunately, unlike Rita, she’ll be available in the evenings once the show has opened.”

“Good for you. If I can’t see Rita, then I’m going to start thinking about Shelley again.”

“Have you heard from her since you booted her out of your bed?”

“I had a postcard with a picture of the Port Authority bus terminal on it. No signature.”

“What did she have to say?”

“‘See you around.’”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I hope you burned the postcard. You don’t want that lying around the house.”

“I’ve been a cop all these years, and you think I don’t know how to destroy incriminating evidence?”

Stone laughed. “I was getting worried about you.”

“I was getting worried about me, too. You know, there’s this female detective in my squad named Vivian DeCarlo, nice Ital-ian girl.”

“Dino, the next worse thing to fucking Shelley Bach is fucking somebody in your squad.”

“Unless we can get away with it,” Dino replied.

“Oh, shit,” Stone said. “You’re determined to destroy your career, one way or the other.”

“So what if I do? I’ve got the money from my divorce settlement, and a pension waiting for me.”

“Retirement would be an unnatural act for you. What would you do with yourself?”

“I don’t know. What do other retirees do?”

“Play shuffleboard and wait to die.”

“I could travel.”

“You hate travel, unless I’m there to fly you.”

“I could buy a place in Italy and go live there.”

“You’re a New Yorker, not an Italian.”

“With a name like Bacchetti, I’m not Italian?”

“You live and breathe New York. What would you do in Italy? You speak about as much Italian as I do.”

“I used to speak Italian, with my grandmother, when I was a kid. It would come back to me.”

“You’d end up sitting in some bar in Rome, trying to pick up American tourists, so you could talk to somebody.”

“That’s pretty much what I do here, except they’re not tourists.”

“What you do here is be a cop. I hope you’re not stupid enough to give that up before they boot you out.”

Dino sighed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to quit.”

“If you start seeing this DeCarlo girl, you’ll end up getting one or both of you transferred, probably to the Bronx or the outer reaches of Brooklyn.”

Stone looked toward the door and saw Herbie Fisher standing there.

“There’s Herbie,” Dino said. “At last, a familiar face.”

Stone waved him over. “He wants to be called Herb now—he’s growing up.”

Herbie sat down and ordered a drink. “What a day!” he said. “What a week!”

“Is that good?” Dino asked.

“You bet your ass it is,” Herbie said. “I got promoted to senior associate and pulled in two pieces of new business, maybe three.”

“What’s the third?” Stone asked.

Herbie told them about his dinner with Robert Bentley II.

“Sounds promising,” Stone said.

“Eggers is champing at the bit for me to get that.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“But I’m not going to rush it. I’m going to let him come to me.”

“That’s wise, if he comes.”

“He’ll come—his son is my associate.”

“How’d you swing that?” Dino asked.

“I didn’t swing it. The kid is the newest associate, and I’m the newest senior associate.”

“A marriage made in heaven,” Dino said.

“Don’t laugh, it could turn out that way. If we handle a major litigation for Bentley, it could bring millions into the firm.”

“Eggers would like that,” Stone said.

“I’m redoing my apartment,” Herbie said, apropos of nothing.

“Okay,” Stone replied.

“My secretary is doing it. Turns out she has a real gift. You should come and see my office—even Eggers liked it. He picked up the tab for it, too.”

“My word,” Stone said, “you did have a good week, didn’t you?”

“I’m going to make more rain,” Herbie said. “My goal is to bring in more business than a senior associate ever has.”

“The boy has ambition,” Dino said. “Who knew? Herbie—”

“Herb, please.”

“Ah, Herb, how’d you go from being a gold-plated fuckup to being a senior associate at Woodman and Weld?”

“Hard work and good luck,” Herbie said. “And good friends.”

“That’s an unbeatable combination,” Stone said, clapping him on the back.

Stone looked toward the door and saw Mike Freeman standing there. “Over here!” he yelled.

Mike came over and sat down. “You know, I went to Elaine’s automatically, looking for you.”

“I have to stop myself from doing the same thing,” Stone said.

“Stone, you up for a trip to L.A.?”

“What’s up in L.A.?”

“I think it’s time we had a look at our hotel’s progress.”

“Well, the hotel is a Woodman and Weld client, so I guess I can justify the trip.”

“We’ll take the Strategic Services G-550,” Mike said.

“That will take the sting out of air travel.”

“Can I come?” Herbie asked.

Stone shook his head. “No junkets for you. You have new business to take care of.”

“How about me?” Dino asked. “I can take the time.”

“You’re welcome, Dino,” Mike said. He looked around. “Do they serve food here?”

THE BIG GULFSTREAM
lined up for takeoff on Runway 1 at Teterboro, and the pilot pushed the throttles forward.

“What happened to the beautiful pilot Suzanne Alley?” Stone asked. “We had dinner in London once.”

“She got a better offer,” Mike replied.

The pilot rotated and the jet rose and climbed quickly.

“I’ll be interested to see if we get cleared all the way to cruising altitude,” Stone said.

“Not until we get away from Newark Liberty,” Mike said, “but that won’t take long.”

The airplane leveled off at Flight Level 440. The stewardess unbuckled her seat belt and came aft with a tray of breakfast pastries and a pot of coffee.

Dino accepted a pastry and a cup of coffee. “This is better than flying in your airplane,” he said to Stone.

“We have pastries and coffee on my airplane,” Stone replied. “If you bring them.”

“I believe my point is made,” Dino said. “I’d also have to bring my own stewardess.”

LATER THAT DAY
they set down at Burbank and got into a waiting rented Mercedes. Mike drove.

“I’ve booked us into the Bel-Air,” he said. “Might as well check out our competition.”

“I hope they don’t know who we are,” Stone said. “We might get mugged.”

“They’ll know,” Mike said. “They knew well before we broke ground. Shall we visit the site now?”

“Sure,” Stone said.

Mike drove them to Bel-Air and up to Vance Calder’s old property. Cars and pickup trucks were lined up along the road for a quarter of a mile. “I guess they don’t have any parking areas finished yet,” he said. They turned into the driveway and stopped to identify themselves to the security guard, then they continued up the winding driveway. “There’ll be cottages on both sides of the road all the way up,” Mike said.

They parked just short of the front door to the old house and got out of the car. A portico wide enough for half a dozen cars was being constructed, and the old garage was being turned into interior space. They looked down the hill to where an enormous pit had been dug. Mike pointed. “Underground parking,” he said.

“It looks like a giant anthill,” Stone said. “I’ve never seen so many workmen on a site.”

“We’ve got three construction companies working two shifts,”
Mike said. “Nobody is going to believe how quickly this hotel is going to open.”

“Where is Arrington’s house going to be?” Stone asked.

“Follow me,” Mike said, and led the way into the house, which was being enlarged to serve as the reception area and main restaurant. They walked down the central hallway and into the back garden, then around the swimming pool, to where a building was being framed.

“Here we are,” Mike said.

They walked through the rooms on plywood subflooring. The sound of electric hammers and saws was everywhere.

“This is good,” Stone said. In the original deal he had negotiated for Arrington to have her own house on the property. “It’s not as big as the old house, but it’s plenty big.”

“It’s your house now,” Mike said. “And Peter’s.”

“And yours, Mike, and yours, too, Dino, whenever you’re out here.”

“Free?” Dino asked, amazed.

“You can pay your own room service bill,” Stone said.

“That’s a pretty good deal,” Dino said, laughing. “How many bedrooms?”

“Four bedrooms, six baths, and two powder rooms, plus two staff rooms. Also, living room, dining room, kitchen, and a very nice study/library.”

“Are you going to let them rent it when you’re not here?” Mike asked.

“Maybe. It’s arranged so that the master suite can be locked off from paying guests.”

“That will help with the cash flow,” Mike pointed out. He found
the architect and the construction foreman, and they began answering questions.

LATER
, they checked into a three-bedroom cottage at the Bel-Air Hotel.

“What did you think about how things are going?” Stone asked Mike.

“I was impressed,” Mike said. “Everything is on schedule. Frankly, I hadn’t expected that.”

There was a large bowl of fruit on the entrance hall table, and a note addressed to Stone, from the manager. He read it aloud to Mike and Dino. “The Bel-Air welcomes the competition,” it said. “We’ll do our best to show you how it’s done.”

Everybody had a good laugh.

On the living room coffee table was a large flower arrangement, with an envelope. Stone picked it up and handed it to Dino. “It’s addressed to you.”

“It can’t be,” Dino said. “Nobody knows I’m here.”

“Nevertheless, it has your name on it,” Stone replied.

Dino took the envelope and opened it. His face fell.

“What?” Stone asked.

Dino handed him the note inside.

Stone read it: “I hope you had a good trip,” it said. “See you when you return.” It was signed, simply, “S.”

“Uh-oh,” Stone said.

“Yeah,” Dino agreed.

“What is it?” Mike asked.

“Nothing much,” Stone replied, “just a note from a serial killer of Dino’s acquaintance.”

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
they visited the building site again and talked more with the architect and construction foremen, then they drove back to Burbank Airport and boarded the G-550. They were back at Teterboro in time for Stone and Dino to make the opening of Marla’s new show.

AT THE
final curtain Stone and Dino stood and beat their hands together and cheered, along with the rest of the audience. Marla and Rita took their bows, and finally, the curtain fell again.

They strolled through Shubert Alley over to Sardi’s and were seated at a large round table, which gradually began to fill up. Marla and Rita arrived looking freshly scrubbed and excited.

“It was wonderful,” Stone said.

“Do you really think so?”

“Everybody in the house thought so, and the critics will, too. You’re looking at a long run.”

Dino turned to Rita. “Am I ever going to see you again?”

“I get one night off every week,” she said.

THE PARTY
continued past midnight, then somebody arrived with a stack of newspapers, and the producer stood on his chair and read the reviews aloud, to appreciative applause from the crowd.

Stone looked around the room and saw someone familiar. He turned to Dino. “Hey, remember our final dinner at Elaine’s, when a tall redhead clocked some not-so-innocent bystander?”

Dino looked tense. “Yeah. Why?”

“Because I just caught a glimpse of her over there somewhere,” Stone replied, pointing.

“Oh, shit,” Dino said.

“What’s wrong?”

“That’s Shelley.”

“Who’s Shelley?” Rita asked.

“Somebody Dino doesn’t want to meet,” Stone said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“There was some unpleasantness a while back.”

“What kind of unpleasantness?”

“Rita,” Dino said, “let it go. Please.”

“Well, I guess I know what you’ll be doing when it’s not my night off,” she said, digging him in the ribs.

“I will be bereft,” Dino said. “I promise.”

“Well, if it’s a promise, I guess ‘bereft’ is appropriate.”

Stone turned to Marla. “I hope you have more than one night a week off.”

“I’ll see the next couple of performances and give some notes,
but then I’ll have to let go and just let it run. Then I’ll have plenty of nights off.”

“I’ll start thinking of ways to use them,” Stone said.

Dino excused himself and started across the room in the direction Stone had pointed.

“Uh-oh,” Rita said. “Is there going to be trouble?”

“I doubt it,” Stone replied. “Don’t worry, Dino can handle it.”

“He can always call in a SWAT team,” Rita said.

DINO MADE
his way through the crowd while the reviews continued to be read. She was tall, so he kept his eyes riveted on the tops of heads. Then he spotted the red hair moving away from him. He pursued, but unless he used his elbows, the crowd kept him from gaining. The redhead pushed through a pair of swinging doors. Dino finally got there and found himself in the kitchen.

“Can I help you, sir?” a waiter asked in an unhelpful way.

“I’ll be out of your way in a minute,” Dino said. He walked slowly through the busy kitchen, dodging waiters and men with knives, but he didn’t see her. Finally he came to the rear door and stepped out into an alley, which contained only garbage cans, lit by the lights from West Forty-fourth Street. He walked all the way down to the street and looked both ways. He thought he saw red hair in the back of a taxi, but then it was gone.