Stone Barrington 06-11

away.”
    Carpenter looked very interested. “Who was the dead man?”
    “You don’t need to know that.”
    “It’ll be in the papers tomorrow, Stone.”
    “Oh, all right. It was a compatriot of yours, one Lawrence Fortescue, married to a sometime client of mine.”
    Her face became expressionless. “How dead is he?”
    “All the way,” Stone replied. “Herbie couldn’t understand it, because he fell on the guy’s legs. No reason for him to be dead. Something else funny, a bunch of apparent cops in plain clothes showed up in no time at all, and at least one of them had a British accent, according to Herbie, who learned everything he knows about British accents watching Brit cop shows on TV.”
    “What happened to the woman involved?”
    “Funny, I don’t know,” Stone said. “Herbie was out for a short time. She must have departed the premises, which, given the circumstances, was a wise move.”
    “I need to use the phone in the next room,” Carpenter said. “And don’t you dare listen in.”
    “Aren’t you coming to bed?”
    “In a minute,” she replied, opening the door. “Don’t fall asleep on me.”
    Stone watched the light on the phone come on and resisted the temptation to listen in. He was still watching the light ten minutes later, when he fell asleep.

8
    A full bladder woke Stone early in the morning, and he had relieved himself and crawled back into bed before he realized he was alone. He raised his head from the pillow. “Carpenter?” he called. No answer.
    Stone struggled from the bed and looked in the bathroom, then in his study. She was gone, but her bags were still there. He stumbled back to bed, but as he lay there, his unconscious began to reveal what it had come up with during the night. After a few minutes of communing with his psyche, Stone sat up in bed and looked at the clock. Ten past nine, and he had slept like—excuse the expression—a stone.
    He picked up the phone and called Dino at his office.
    “Bacchetti,” Dino snapped into the phone.
    “It’s Stone.”
    “Don’t say another word. Meet me at Clarke’s for lunch.” He hung up.
    “What the hell?” Stone said aloud. He was wide awake now, and he got into a shower and shaved, dressed, and went down to his lower-level office. He could hear Joan Robertson’s computer keyboard clicking away as he came into his office from the rear door. The clicking stopped.
    “I’m in,” Stone called out.
    Joan appeared in the doorway. “Herbie Fisher has called three times in the past twenty minutes,” she said, placing a call slip on his desk.
    Stone groaned. “Get him for me. And I’m having lunch with Dino, so don’t book me for anything before three.”
    Joan left, the light on Stone’s phone went on, and she buzzed him.
    Stone picked up the phone. “Shut up, Herbie,” he said, before the kid could say anything.
    “What have you gotten me into?” Herbie yelled.
    “I told you to shut up, and if you don’t do it right now, I’ll hang up, and you can handle your own legal difficulties.”
    Herbie shut up.
    “Now listen to me very carefully, because this is the last time you and I are going to speak, on the phone or in person. Do you understand?”
    “Yeah,” Herbie replied, sounding contrite.
    “I’m going to work on getting the charges against you reduced—”
    “ Reduced? I’ll still have to go to jail.”
    “Shut up, Herbie.”
    “Sorry.”
    “I’m going to work on getting the charges against you reduced to something that will get you probation instead of time.”
    “But I’ll still have a record,” Herbie protested.

    “Shut up, Herbie.”
    “Sorry.”
    “You don’t have any prior arrests or convictions, and you’re gainfully employed, so we can probably get you unsupervised probation, so you won’t have to report in every week.”
    “That would be nice.”
    “It would be very fucking nice, seeing that the alternative is probably five to seven for the manslaughter charge.”
    “When do I get paid?” Herbie asked.
    “PAID!!!!????” Stone screamed down the phone. “Paid for what?”
    “Well, I did the job, sort of,” Herbie said.
    “Yeah? Then where are the photographs of two people doing disgusting things to each other?”
    “Well, my camera is still in the apartment,” Herbie pointed out. “I could go back and—”
    “Don’t you go anywhere near that apartment!” Stone shouted.
    “Could you stop yelling at me, please?” Herbie said, sounding wounded.