diplomatic. “I see,” he replied, though he didn’t.
Warren Keating reached into an inside pocket, produced a postcard and handed it to Stone. “This is Evan’s most recent communication,” he said. Stone perused the card. On one side was a photograph of a bar, labeled “Sloppy Joe’s, Key West.” Stone turned it over and read the message, which was written in block capitals.
“DEAR OLD DAD,” it read, “HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME, GLAD YOU’RE NOT HERE. GO FUCK YOURSELF.” It was signed with a fl ourish, “Evan.”
Stone returned the card, and Keating handed him a photograph.
It was black-and-white, like something from a college yearbook, and featured a slim, handsome young man in a blue blazer, with close cropped hair.
“How old was he then, and how old is he now?” Stone asked.
“He was nineteen or twenty then, and he’s twenty-six now,” Keating replied.
“And how long is it since you’ve seen him?”
“Not since his graduation, and we—his mother and I—sort of missed him then. We made our way over to where his class was sitting, and there was just his cap and gown on a chair with his name on it. He had only recently come into a nice little trust fund from his mother’s side of the family, which gave him a certain amount of freedom.”
“I see,” Stone said, seeing for the first time. “The postmark on the card was smudged; when did you receive it?”
“Five days ago,” Keating replied. “I had heard he was in Miami, and when we started negotiating the sale of the business I sent a private investigator looking for him. He was contacted but rebuffed the investigator and disappeared from his hotel there. I took the, ah, tenor of his message on the card to mean that he did not wish to be contacted by me.”
Stone nodded. “I should think this is a job for a skip tracer, Bill,” he said to Eggers.
“No,” Eggers said, pulling a thick envelope from an inside pocket and handing it to Stone. “It’s a job for an attorney. This is the form of consent to the sale; I wrote it myself. His great-great-grandfather’s will requires that it be explained to him by an attorney and that he be given an opportunity to engage a lawyer of his own to review it. If he chooses not to have it reviewed, there’s a second document to be signed, waiving that right.”
“If you can get this done for me, Stone,” Keating said, “I’m prepared to be generous.”
“What sort of time frame are we talking about?” Stone asked.
“A week, give or take,” Eggers said.
“And that postcard is the only reason to think he’s in Key West?”
Stone asked.
Keating shrugged. “He could be anywhere.”
“I’ll leave tomorrow morning,” Stone said, glancing through the restaurant’s front window. “Weather permitting.”
2
EGGERS AND KEATING had just left when Dino Bacchetti, Stone’s former partner in his days on the NYPD, walked into Elaine’s, shucking off and shaking his overcoat. Dino was still on the force, a lieutenant now running the detective squad at the 19th, the Upper East Side precinct.
“It’s coming down out there,” Dino said, hanging up his coat and taking a seat, while making drinking motions at a waiter, who was already in gear. He stopped and looked at Stone. “You look like you’ve just been dumped again.”
“Again? What’s that supposed to mean?” Stone asked.
“Well, you’re always getting dumped,” Dino said.
“I have to go to Key West tomorrow; you want to come along?”
“What about this weather?” Dino asked.
“The snowstorm is supposed to pass off the coast early in the morning, followed by clear weather.”
“Yeah,” Dino said, “I’d like to take a trip to Key West in the dead of winter, and I’ve got some time off coming.”
“You’re on,” Stone said, sipping his drink and reaching for a menu.
Elaine got up from a nearby table, walked over and sat down.
“So,” she said, “Tati dumped you?”
“I knew it,” Dino chimed in.
“We had a conversation,” Stone said.
“It looked to me like she was doing all the talking,” Elaine pointed out.
“All right, all right; she’s taking her husband back.”
“That ass?” Dino said, incredulous. “He’s a drunk, and he beat her.”
“She says he’s been sober for ninety-one days, and he’s a changed man.”
Elaine spoke up. “When they have to count the days, they haven’t changed yet. Sounds like he’s in AA, though, and that can’t be a bad thing.”
“Forgive me if I view anything that would get him back into her house as a bad thing,” Stone said.
“Don’t worry,” Dino said. “You haven’t heard the last of her.”
“What kind of job did Bill Eggers stick you with?” Elaine asked.
“Actually, it’s not so bad. Dino and I are flying to Key West tomorrow morning.”
“This is work?”
“This is work.”
“You’re a lucky son of a bitch, aren’t you?” she said.
“Sometimes.”
“Later,” Elaine said, getting up to greet some regulars who had just wandered in.
“So what is it we have to do down there?” Dino asked. “I take it we’re not going to spend all our time on the beach.”
“I hate the beach,” Stone said. “It’s hot and sandy and uncomfortable. Have you ever made love on a beach? Sand gets into everything, and I mean
“Your
“Trust me.”
“I guess I’ll have to. You know anybody in Key West?”
“I met a lawyer from there once, at a meeting in Atlanta, but I can’t remember his name. Jack something, I think; nice guy.”
“You remember Tommy Sculley, from the old days?”
“Yeah, he was a few years ahead of us on the squad.”
“He put in his thirty and retired down there a few years ago, but he couldn’t stand it, so he got a job on the local force.”
“Good. Let’s look him up.”
“You didn’t answer my question: What do we have to do down there?”
Stone handed him the photograph. “Find this kid.”
“What, he didn’t come back from spring break last year?”
“That’s an old picture, from his college days. He’s a big boy now, twenty-six.”
“So we have to throw a bag over his head and bring him home to Mommy?”
“Nope. All we have to do is get his signature on a couple of documents, notarized, and we’re done. We can FedEx them back, then take a few days off and play some golf or some tennis or something.”
Stone explained the sale of the family business.
“What’s the problem between the kid and his daddy?”
“One of them is a kid; the other one’s a daddy.” Stone told Dino about the message on the postcard.
“That seems pretty definitive,” Dino observed.
“We don’t have to get him to kiss and make up—just sign the documents and collect a big check, his share of the sale of the business. That shouldn’t be too diffi cult.”
