'How?'
Stone told him.
Lance looked amused. 'Let me get this straight: You took a bad check from this fellow, then refunded his money by cashier's check?'
'Don't rub it in; that's Dino's job.'
'How is dear old Dino?'
'What's the matter, aren't you following him, too? Dino's just fine.'
A man in a business suit appeared, handed Lance a file folder and left.
Lance opened the folder and handed Stone a photograph.
It was of a gray-haired man in a business suit taken in what looked like the lobby of an expensive hotel.
'That's Billy Bob Barnstormer,' Stone said. 'And Rodney Peeples. By the way, the Attorney General has an abiding interest in arresting Rodney Peeples.'
'Why?'
'I don't know.'
'Then how do you know the AG wants him?'
'Because the U.S. Attorney for New York hauled me in and asked me about him. I denied all knowledge, until I put one and one together, and now that adds up to three.'
'This is all very queer.'
'No queerer than your following one of your own people on a shopping trip. By the way, what are your people doing in an SUV with government plates? Aren't you supposed to be spies? And if so, doesn't that imply a certain stealth?'
'It was all the motor pool had,' Lance said, looking annoyed. 'Do you know how to find this Billy Bob character?'
'He called me in the middle of last night, said he was in Maui, about to go on a cruise aboard a yacht. But I wouldn't believe that any more than anything else he might tell me.'
'Did he mention the name of the yacht?'
'He said it was big, and that was it.'
'Did you check your caller ID?'
'Yes. It said, 'not available.' It could have been a cell phone; the connection sounded a little funny.'
'This is all very annoying.'
'What?'
'This triple-identity thing with Stanford.'
'Yes, well, criminals can sometimes be irritatingly difficult to catch.'
'I don't want to catch him; I want to track the sale of these grenades, then catch the buyers.'
'Then it would annoy you, if the NYPD or the AG arrested him?'
'It most certainly would. I'm going to have to take steps to see that that doesn't happen.'
'Good God, Lance, you're going to try to prevent the arrest of a murderer and illegal arms dealer?'
'Stone, it's not as though he is an imminent danger to anyone. You have to stack up the benefits of preventing very powerful grenades being used against American soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq against the significantly smaller benefit of jailing Mr. Whoeverheis.'
'Well, I guess I still have a policeman's mentality; I tend to want to get perpetrators off the street as quickly as possible. And, of course, I'd like my fifty grand back.'
'Well, I'm sure Dino will take a different view, when I've explained things to him.'
'And the AG? I'm told he has a very keen interest in capturing this guy.'
'That may take a little longer,' Lance replied. 'Now, Stone, I'm going to have to insist that, if you hear from this fellow again, you contact me instead of the police or the feds.'
'The police I can handle, but I'm not going to put myself in the position of lying to federal investigators. Oh, did I mention that Billy Bob has been distributing two-dollar bills stolen in a robbery at Fort Dix fifty years ago, during which two army officers were killed?'
'You did not.
'I kid you not. The waiters at Elaine's are calling him 'Two-Dollar Bill.''
'And how is dear Elaine?'
'As ever. Drop in and see her sometime.'
'Why don't you and I have dinner there this evening?'
'I have a previous engagement with someone even more beautiful than you.'
'Tomorrow, then? Nine o'clock? Perhaps I'll have more to tell you then.'
'Okay, if you promise to pull your dogs off me.'
'I'll make them disappear like
'By the way, have you spoken to Holly Barker lately?' Holly was a friend of Stone's who was a police chief in a small Florida town.
'Oh, yes; she's coming to work for me as soon as she can disentangle herself from her current life in Florida.'
'I rather thought she might,' Stone said. 'She seemed bored with the work.'
'She won't be bored much longer,' Lance said, standing up. He handed Stone a card with only a phone number on it. 'See you tomorrow evening.' He tucked the file folder under his arm and walked out of the restaurant.
Stone was feeling better, now. He thought he might look at some shoes.
19
STONE ARRIVED HOME to find the two detectives, Morton and Weiss, walking up his front steps.
'Good afternoon, gentlemen,' Stone said. 'What can I do for you?'
Morton held up a document. 'We have a warrant to search your house.'
'Well, it's deja vu all over again, isn't it?' He glanced through the document and saw particular mention of safes. 'All right, come on in.'
He hung his coat in the front hall closet.
'Let's start with that big safe in your dressing room,' Weiss said. 'Might save us some time.'
Mystified, Stone led them up to his bedroom and into his dressing room. His safe was a big Fort Knox, with an electronic keypad. He entered the code, turned the spokes on the door and stood back to give them access. The light in the safe came on, revealing his electric watch winder, some files, cash and a gun rack. Suddenly, he had a bad feeling.
Morton pulled on a latex glove and reached into the safe. He came out with Billy Bob's six-shooter, then he looked closely at it and turned to Weiss. 'It's a forty-four,' he said, and the two exchanged a little smile.
'That doesn't belong to me,' Stone said quickly.
'Oh?' Weiss asked. 'It just made its way into your safe?'
'It belongs to a former client. I took it from him and stored it so that he wouldn't be in violation of New York City law.'
'And who would the client be?' Morton asked.
'You've met him,' Stone said. 'That's all I can say.'
'Thanks, Mr. Barrington, we're done,' Morton said. He dropped the gun into a plastic bag, and the two detectives left.
'Shit!!!' Stone screamed at himself. Why hadn't he just shipped that gun to Billy Bob's Dallas address?
'Did you say something, Mr. Barrington?' Morton called from the stairs.
'No, nothing. Goodbye.'
'Goodbye.'
Stone called Dino.
'Bacchetti.'
'Morton and Weiss were just here.'
