Stone - 25 - Collateral Damage

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
    Publishers Since 1838
    Published by the Penguin Group
    Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa), Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa • Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China
    Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
    Copyright © 2013 by Stuart Woods
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Woods, Stuart.
    Collateral damage : a Stone Barrington novel / Stuart Woods.
    p. cm.
    ISBN 978-1-101-60913-2
    1. Barrington, Stone (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 4. Mystery fiction. I. Title.
    PS3573.O642C67 2012 2012037742
    813’.54—dc23
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Elaine’s, late.
    Stone Barrington opened the taxi door. “Wait for me,” he said. “I won’t be long.” He got out of the cab and looked around. The yellow awning was gone, but “Elaine’s” was still painted on the darkened windows. A film of soap obscured the interior, but Stone found a bare spot and put his hands up to shield from the glare. What he saw was, in short, nothing.
    The book jackets, photographs, and posters that had adorned the walls for forty-seven years were gone. The bar and mirrors behind it were still there, but there were no stools. The dining room contained no tables or chairs and no blue-checkered tablecloths. The two old pay phones still hung on the wall near the cashier’s stand at the bar; they had always been the only phones in the place.
    For a tiny moment Stone could hear the babble of a crowded room, chairs scraping, people calling the length of the room to say hello to a friend. Then a passing bus obliterated the sounds and returned Stone to the present. He got back into the cab and gave the driver his home address.
    His cell phone buzzed at his belt. “Hello?”
    “It’s Dino. Where are you?”
    “At Elaine’s.”
    A brief silence, then: “You shouldn’t do that.”
    “You’re right,” Stone said. “The memory is better than the reality. Have you had dinner?”
    “I was just thinking about it.”
    “Where’s Viv?”
    “She’s working.”
    “Come over and I’ll make you some pasta.”
    “You, yourself?”
    “Me, myself. I can cook, you know.”
    “There was a rumor, but I never believed it.”
    “Fifteen minutes.”
    “Okay. Oh, how are we dressing?”
    “Unarmed,” Stone said.
    “I’m always armed.”
    “Then you can check your gun at the door.”
    “Whatever you say.”
    “How late is Viv working?”
    “Until ten.”
    “Tell her to come over after, and I’ll save her something.”
    “I’ll see if she’s brave enough.”
    “See ya.” Stone hung up.
    —
    At home, he shucked off his jacket in the kitchen and checked the fridge. It was stuffed, as usual. Helene was an overshopper, and she liked to be ready for anything.
    Stone found some Italian sausages, some mushrooms, some broccoli rabe, and some garlic. He sliced the sausages and tossed them into a skillet with a little olive oil, and they began to sizzle. He ran some water into a pot and put it on to