Dirt

Restaurants?”
    “We always went to restaurants, and do you know, I don’t think we ever went to the same one twice. He liked to order elaborate meals, liked expensive wines.”
    “Any bar hangouts?”
    “Not when he was with me, but he gave you the impression of knowing every place in town. He liked to stay up very late, later than I did, anyway. I had the feeling that when he left me he usually went someplace else, but I never knew where.” “When you were at his place did he ever get phone calls?”
    “Often.”
    “Did you ever know from who?”
    “No, but most of them were probably women. He never called anybody by name on the phone. I only ever saw him make one phone call — it was long distance, but I don’t know to whom. Is this helping at all?” “You’ve told me a lot, but nothing that would help me find him.”
    “Now that he’s gone, why would you want to find him?”
    “It’s possible that he might be involved in this
DIRT
business. Would that surprise you?”
    “Nothing about Jonathan would surprise me. If you told me he was a Russian spy I wouldn’t be bowled over.”
    “Anything else you can remember about him?”
    “He wasn’t the kind to be very forthcoming; if anything, he always seemed to have something to hide.”
    The phone rang, and Stone picked it up.
    “Hi, it’s Cantor.”
    “Hi.”
    “I checked out things at the Spirit cologne office. Turns out Dryer wasn’t hired through a modeling agency. A girl who works there met him at a party and thought he looked right; she got her boss to hire him as a one-shot thing.” “Can you find out how they paid him? I’d love to have a Social Security number.”
    “He insisted on cash. The phone number she had for him was the East Ninety-first apartment.”
    “Does she know anybody else who knows him”
    “Not a soul; it’s a dead end.”
    “What’s happening on your tape stakeout?”
    “What’s happening is, she comes home at night, fixes dinner, and cries. He hasn’t called again.”
    “Sounds like she’s been dumped; you can pull the plug on that one.”
    “Will do. What else can I do for you?”
    “Why don’t you drop by here in, say, an hour; we’ll see where we are.”
    “See you then.”
    Stone hung up.
    “We’ve only got an hour?” she asked with mock sadness.
    “Let’s use it well,” he replied, rolling toward her. Then the phone rang again.
    “Hello?”
    “It’s Dino. I want you to come over here and go over some stuff with me.”
    “When?”
    “This morning.”
    “Around eleven?”
    “That’s good; you can buy me lunch.”
    “Can I bring Cantor?”
    “Why not? Maybe he’ll have some sort of a take on this.”
    “On what?”
    “I’ll tell you when you get here.” Dino hung up.
    Stone hung up and rolled toward Arrington again. “Sorry about that,” he said.
    “Don’t let it happen again,” she said.
    He reached over and took the phone off the hook.
    “Good boy,” she said, reaching for him.
     
Chapter 40
     
    Stone and Bob Cantor arrived at the 19th Precinct on time and were sent to Dino’s office right away. Both men still knew detectives working there, and they said a few hellos along the way. Stone hadn’t often been back to the 19th since he’d taken retirement, and he’d never been really close to anybody there but Dino, so his reception was on the cool side. Once they were in Dino’s office, the reception got hostile.
    “You remember Ernie Martinez, Stone,” Dino said.
    “Sure. Hi, Ernie.”
    Martinez nodded. He was a portly detective of Puerto Rican extraction who didn’t like anybody who wasn’t Puerto Rican. He didn’t like Dino much, and he certainly didn’t like Stone.
    “Ernie’s the lead detective on the burglaries.”
    Stone and Cantor took chairs, and Dino moved a stack of files to the middle of his desk, not a high stack, because each of them was thin, containing only a sheet or two of paper.
    “Stone,” Dino said, “three of the eight burglary victims made the Dryer guy. Turns out they all met him at the same party, which took place in one of the burgled residences.”
    Stone nodded; he wasn’t surprised.
    Dino continued. “He was with Arrington Carter on that occasion; she introduced him around.”
    “Were any of the other victims at the same party?”
    “No. But we’re going to have to talk to Arrington. You want to bring her in?”
    “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Stone said.
    Martinez sat up, bristling. “
You
don’t