Stone was reaching for his badge when an alarm bell went off in his mind. There were two men on the motorcycle, and cops didn’t ride tandem. They were no more than three feet from his window. They wore black leather and white helmets with goggles, and one of them had something in his hand.
Simultaneously, there was a loud noise, and two splatters appeared in the window’s glass. Stone braked sharply, and the motorcycle shot past him, then slowed, as the man on the passenger seat twisted around for another shot. Two more splatters appeared, this time in the windshield, but the bullets did not penetrate the armored glass.
Stone, unarmed, fought back with the only weapon he had at his disposal: his car. He slammed the accelerator to the floor, and the tachometer needle shot up as he aimed at the rear of the motorcycle. The driver hadn’t been expecting that, and he failed to react quickly enough. Stone’s car struck the motorcycle hard, propelling the bike across the central divider of the bridge, directly into the path of an oncoming cement truck. The cycle and its two riders ricocheted off the grille of the truck, and Stone lost sight of them. Behind him he could hear the screech of brakes and the blowing of horns.
He braked to a halt and got out of the car, looking back. The driver of the car behind him had done the same thing, and traffic had come to a halt on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Stone watched the detective as he laboriously wrote the last of his notes. He had been in the police station for more than four hours.
“Anything else you can remember?” the man asked.
“No. Did somebody call Lieutenant Bacchetti?”
“Who knows? You think you need the help?”
“That depends on your attitude,” Stone said. His badge and ID card lay on the table between them.
“Not my call,” the detective said, standing up and stretching. “That’s my watch commander’s, but just between you and me, I think you did the world a favor by what you did. There’s a few greasy spots on the Brooklyn Bridge, but what the hell?”
The door opened, and Dino walked in. “First, Central Park, now Brooklyn,” he said. “Is there a precinct left where you aren’t up to your dick in homicides?”
“Dino, it was a hit. They tried to kill me. Twice.”
“Yeah, I saw your car outside. Nice to know that armored glass helps.”
The detective spoke up. “I forgot to ask: How come you drive an armored car?”
“It’s not an armored car,” Stone said. “It’s
“Well,” the detective said, “it was a good idea, because if that had been regular glass between you and the shooter, it would be
“You get an ID on them yet?” Dino asked.
“Nah. They weren’t carrying anything. Maybe their prints will ring the bell.”
“Don’t count on it,” Stone said to Dino. “The guy that Holly shot in the park still doesn’t have a name, does he?”
Dino shook his head. “He ain’t going to, either. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
“I don’t have to talk to anybody else?”
“Nah, I had a chat with the watch commander. They’ll call you if there’s anything else they want to know.”
The two walked out of the precinct together, and Stone took another look at his car. “Follow me to the Mercedes garage?” he asked.
“Why not?” Dino replied. “It’s not like I have to work for a living.”
The car sat in the middle of the shop, surrounded by half a dozen Mercedes-Benz mechanics in blue coveralls.
“This is my first one of these,” the service manager said. “We’ve sold a few of these cars, but it’s the first time one of them ever came back with bullet holes in it.”
“How about the bumper?” Stone said.
“We’ll have one here tomorrow, but it’s got to be painted. The armored glass is going to take longer, maybe two or three weeks. It has to come from Germany, and there’s customs and all of that.”
“Put regular glass in it,” Stone said. “I’ll bring it back when the armored stuff comes in.”
“In that case, we’ll have it together by the end of the week,” the service manager said.
“Can we go now?” Dino asked.
Stone signed the service order and followed Dino back to his car.
“You thought about how you’re going to explain this to your insurance company?” Dino asked as they drove away.
“I don’t think I’ll mention it to them,” Stone said, “because I didn’t mention to them in the first place that the car was armored. I thought it might upset them.”
“Stone, maybe you ought to take Holly and get out of town for a while,” Dino said.
“That’s an attractive idea,” Stone replied, “and I’ll talk to Holly about it, but I don’t think she’s going to want to go. She’s mad now, and she’s going to get madder when I tell her what’s happened.”
“Better mad than dead,” Dino said. “Whoever’s doing this has wasted three men trying, and you may have pissed him off by now.”
“You think it’s Trini?” Stone asked.
“You got somebody else in mind?”
“Maybe,” Stone replied.
31
DINO SLOWED DOWN as he turned into Stone’s block, pointing ahead at a cluster of people outside Stone’s house. “You must be dead, because you’re attracting flies.”
Stone groaned. “Stop here.” Dino pulled over. Stone got out his cell phone and called his secretary.
“The Barrington Practice,” Joan Robertson said.
“Joan, it’s me.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m right outside. I want you to go to the garage, count to five, and open the garage door. As soon as we’re inside, close it.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Slowly,” Stone said. Dino edged his unmarked car up the block and, when he saw the garage door start to move, accelerated. He turned into the drive, crossed the sidewalk, and braked before he could run into the rear wall. The door closed behind them.
Stone had seen at least two television cameras in the mob. “Come on in, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I can’t get out anyway, without running down a few members of the fourth estate.”
“What happened on the Brooklyn Bridge?” Joan asked. “It’s all over the TV.”
“Come on upstairs, so I won’t have to explain it more than once,” Stone said.
Holly and Ham met them at the top of the stairs. “You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine, except I just killed two men.”
“That ain’t good,” Ham said.
Stone led them into his study and poured everyone but himself a drink, then he explained what had happened. “Holly, I think we’ve got to get out of town.” He held up a hand. “I know you don’t want to get any farther from Trini than you already have, but that crowd outside makes staying here impossible. We won’t be able to move without them tagging along.”
“Why don’t you go up to Connecticut?” Dino asked.
“Can’t do that. Some of the people who’ve been following us know about the house.”
