Stone Barrington 06-11

street as far he could see, then stepped outside. Dino was nowhere in sight, and neither was the red Cadillac.
    Stone stood in the bright sunlight, feeling helpless, not knowing which way to turn. He waited for five long minutes, then made a decision: He turned right and walked rapidly along the street, checking shopwindows for Dolce and looking up and down the street for the red Cadillac.
    Suddenly, Dino stepped out of a doorway and ran head-on into Stone. “Didn’t I tell you to stay where you were?” he demanded.
    “I did, for a very long time,” Stone said. “Did you lose her?”
    “Yeah, and I don’t understand it.”
    Then, from not too great a distance, they heard three rapid reports.
    “Gun!” Dino said, and started running toward the noise.
    Stone followed, and the two of them turned a corner and ran toward a parking lot behind Worth Avenue. Stone could see the trunk of the red Cadillac protruding into the street.
    Dino got there first. Women were screaming, and people in cars were trying desperately to get out of the parking lot. The Cadillac sat, blocking the entrance, three of its four doors open, with three bullet holes in the windshield. It was empty.
    Dino flashed his badge at a parking attendant, who was crouching in a booth at the entrance. “What happened?” he asked the trembling man.
    “I don’t know, exactly,” he said. “I was about to give the man in the Cadillac his parking check when the windshield seemed to explode.”
    “Anybody hit?”
    “I don’t know. I dove in here in about half a second.”
    “Call nine-one-one,” Dino said, then he turned to Stone. “Let’s get out of here.”
    As they walked quickly away, Stone looked around the lot and the street for a familiar face, but Dolce was gone, and so were Guido and his two goombahs.

54
    T HEY GOT BACK TO THE YACHT WITHOUT SIGHTING Dolce, and Stone was in his cabin, putting away his wedding gift, when Juanito knocked on the door.
    “Yes?” Stone called.
    “Mr. Barrington, there’s somebody to see you on the afterdeck.”
    “Be right there,” Stone said. He retrieved the 9mm automatic from under his pillow and tucked it into his waistband in the small of his back. He wasn’t expecting visitors.
    His visitor turned out to be Dan Griggs, and Stone was relieved until Griggs started to talk. He looked very serious. “Stone, there was an attempted shooting in a parking lot downtown, and one of my people saw you leaving the scene. You want to tell me about that?”
    “Don’t worry, Dan. They weren’t shooting at me.”
    Griggs didn’t smile. “I thought maybe it was you doing the shooting.”
    Stone shook his head. “No, Dino and I were shopping on Worth Avenue, when we heard gunfire. Dino was armed, and we ran around the corner and saw the car with the bullet holes in it. That’s all we saw. We told the parking lot attendant to dial nine-one-one, then left.”
    “Did you see the occupants of the car?”
    “No.”
    “Did you see the shooter?”
    “No.”
    “Witnesses said there were three men in the car, out-of-towners, by the look of them, and the shooter was a good-looking woman.”
    Stone said nothing.
    “Why did you leave the scene?” Griggs asked.
    “We didn’t see anything. It’s not like we were witnesses. There was nothing there for us to do.” Stone was relieved that he could tell the truth about this, even if he was withholding information.
    Griggs sighed.
    Stone was about to say something, when he looked over Griggs’s shoulder and saw Dolce standing in the garden, maybe two hundred feet away. Griggs was about to turn and follow his gaze, but Stone took him by the shoulder and led him toward the afterdeck banquette. “How about a drink, Dan?” he said.
    Griggs pulled away from his grasp, but did not look toward Dolce. “Are you nuts? I’m on duty. I thought that was obvious.”
    “How’s Lundquist?” Stone asked, desperate to keep Griggs looking in his direction instead of Dolce’s. He couldn’t allow himself to look that way, either.
    “I put him on a medivac plane for Minneapolis this morning. He’s recovering, and his department sent the aircraft.”
    “He’s going to be all right, then?”
    “Didn’t I just say that?” Griggs asked, irritated.
    “Sorry, Dan. I just wanted to be sure.”
    “Something else: You still looking for that Manning fellow?”
    “Not really,” Stone said. “I pretty much straightened that out in a favorable manner.”
    “Favorable? Did