“That’s it.”
“It sounds too simple.”
“Well, you’ll have to pay a service charge on the original deposit, say, ten percent.”
“To whom?”
“It’s better you don’t know. But you’ll still have more than five million in the bank, should you ever need it, and it would be invested in any manner you wish.”
“So, I’d be earning money?”
“I should think at least an eight percent return.”
“Nice.”
“Of course, you’ll owe taxes on what you earn, but you can invest in tax-free municipals. You can buy just about anything with a credit card these days-a car, for instance-but you’d want to stay away from buying anything that would create a legal record, like a house.”
“A car creates a legal record,” Holly said.
“Not an important one. It wouldn’t show up on your credit report, for instance, if you didn’t finance it.”
“There you are,” Stone said. “Problem solved.”
“Not exactly,” she replied. “I’ve still got to get it to Lance.”
“Put it in your car and drive it up here,” Stone said.
“Or in your airplane.”
“Forget that. I’m not getting involved. I have a law license to protect.”
“Do it while you’ve still got a badge to flash,” Lance said, “in case you’re stopped by a highway patrolman who wants to search your car.”
“I’ll think about it,” Holly said. She turned to Stone. “Can we go home now?”
“Sure.”
Dino spoke up. “I want to go with you to Vito’s place tomorrow.”
“Why?” Stone asked.
“You’ll be better off with me there.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Good with me,” Holly said.
“And don’t you go into that store until I say so.”
55
STONE AND HOLLY were having breakfast the following morning.
“I don’t like this,” Stone said.
“What don’t you like?”
“Before, when we went into that apartment with Dino, we had a SWAT team ahead of us, and there was shooting. Now we’re just supposed to walk into Vito’s grocery store and walk out with Trini? It doesn’t add up, and if it did, I still wouldn’t want to go in there like that.”
“What do you suggest?”
Stone called Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“I don’t like it, Dino.”
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Stone, dummy. You don’t recognize my voice after all these years?”
“What don’t you like?”
“I don’t like walking into that grocery store with no SWAT team and no backup.”
“Vito’s your backup.”
“The last time I saw Vito he was backing me into a freshly dug grave.”
“You don’t trust him?”
“Why should I trust him? Because he didn’t kill me?”
“That’s a start.”
“That was because he was afraid of Eduardo.”
“Because he
“Whatever. He didn’t back off because he’d suddenly taken a liking to me.”
“Maybe he liked Holly.”
“He was going to kill her, too.”
“You got a point.”
“Of course I do. The point is, what’s going to happen when we walk in there?
“You’ll be with me.”
“You’re not big enough to hide behind.”
“He respects me.”
“Why, because he saved your skinny little ass from bullies when you were ten?”
“No, because I saved his fat ass from a long time upstate, and he appreciates that.”
“Okay, that takes care of you. What about Holly and me?”
“It’s transferable.”
“What?”
“The respect.”
“Look, these goombahs are murdering people they respect all the time, you know? The respect seems to kind of vary from day to day-one day you’re a prince of a guy, the next you’re in a fifty-five-gallon drum of lime in a New Jersey swamp, waiting for Judgment Day.”
“Stone, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so nervous.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had more reason to be nervous. I’ve been threatened and shot at and dragged all over the country, and-”
Holly broke in. “I did
“That was only because I wanted to get you in the sack.”
“You had already gotten me in the sack. How soon you forget!”
Dino broke in. “You wanted to get me in the sack?”
“Oh, shut up. You know I was talking to Holly.”
“How do I know who you’re talking to? I can only hear you.”
“We’ve got to have a plan, Dino.”
“What sort of plan?”
“The kind of plan where men in black suits and body armor with automatic weapons and stun grenades go in first and let us know when they’ve got Trini handcuffed.”
“You don’t understand. Vito has a certain standing in his community, you know? He would not respond well to assault teams running up and down the aisles of his grocery store, tossing stun grenades. It would not reflect well on him in his neighborhood.”
“Well, we need
“What kind of plan do you want?”
“Suggest something.”
“I don’t know what to suggest. I’m okay with just going in there and talking to Vito.”
“How about you send a few undercover people in there to do some shopping and reconnoiter?”
“Oh, sure, and they’re not going to stick out like tourists from Alabama? The whole neighborhood would know.”
“Well, think of
“I’ll call you back,” Dino said, then hung up.
