Stone Barrington 06-11

negatives?” he asked.
    Stone handed over an envelope containing the four frames. “You think we’re out of the woods with Elena?” he asked.
    “She didn’t fire us, did she?” Eggers said cheerfully, waving down a cab and getting in. “Let’s do lunch sometime.” He drove away.

12
    Stone felt lighter than air. This was all going to work out; everything had been taken care of. All he had to do now was to get something worked out with the DA’s office about Herbie’s charges—get them to drop the manslaughter charge, plead him down to a misdemeanor, and get him probation. It was a bright, cool day, and he felt like a walk.
    He strolled down the west side of Fifth Avenue, occasionally glancing into the park, then farther downtown, turned left on East Fifty-seventh Street and walked to the Turnbull & Asser shop. He would treat himself.
    He looked at the new sea island cotton swatches and ordered a dozen shirts. He didn’t know what they cost; he didn’t want to know. Joan would pay the bill when it arrived, and he had instructed her not to enlighten him; some things were best left unknown. He picked out a few ties and waited while they were wrapped; the shirts would take eight weeks, or so. Then he left the shop and turned down Park Avenue toward home in Turtle Bay.

    In the upper Forties, as he turned to cross Park, a stretched Bentley glided to a momentary halt, then drove on, but not before Stone had seen, through the open rear window, Elena Marks, now clad in proper New York widow’s weeds by Chanel, in earnest conversation with someone Stone knew. He pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed Woodman & Weld and Bill Eggers.
    “What is it, Stone?” Eggers asked, sounding rushed. It was a technique of his when he didn’t want to talk to somebody.
    “Bill, I was crossing Park Avenue a moment ago, when I saw Elena Marks in her car with Robert Teller, of Teller and Sparks.”
    “What?” Eggers cried.
    “I kid you not.”
    “That buccaneer! That bastard! Poaching my clients!”
    “I thought you’d want to know.”
    “What were they talking about?”
    “Well, Bill, I couldn’t hear them. I just saw them in that big Bentley of hers, talking.”
    “Well, I’ve already got our tax people working on something that might save her a few hundred grand. It’s the kind of thing she likes.”
    “I’d tell her about it soon, Bill. Bye-bye.” Stone punched off. He thought about calling T&A and canceling his shirt order, but he thought better of it.

    Stone arrived home and went upstairs to leave his new ties, before returning to his office. As he approached his bedroom, he heard a snore. He pushed open the door and peered inside. Carpenter lay on her back, a breast exposed, sawing lightly away. He tiptoed across the room toward his dressing room, left the ties and tiptoed back into the bedroom. He was greeted by a wide-awake Carpenter, sitting up in bed, clutching a sheet to her bosom with one hand while using the other to point a small, semiautomatic pistol at him.
    “You caught me hanging up neckties,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked, seeming confused.
    “I live here,” Stone explained. He pointed at the bed. “I sleep there. Is that my Walther you’re pointing at me?”
    “No, it’s mine. My firm has issued them to everybody since the first James Bond novel.”
    “And why are you still pointing it at me?”
    She lowered her hand. “Sorry,” she said, dropping the sheet, to good effect, and running her fingers through her hair. “I didn’t get any sleep last night.”
    “I remember,” he said. “I was all curled up in bed, waiting anxiously for you. When I woke up, you were gone.”
    “Business,” she said.
    Stone sat down on the bed, removed the pistol from her hand, and set it on the night table. “Something to do with Herbie Fisher’s big night?” he asked.
    “Why do you ask?” she said warily.
    “Well, as soon as I told you what happened, you were on the phone in the next room, and that’s the last thing I remember.”

    “There was something I was supposed to ask you,” she said, scratching her head.
    “You don’t seem quite awake yet.”
    “It’s jet lag, I think.”
    “Why don’t you go back to sleep. I’ll wake you at dinnertime.” He pushed her gently back onto the bed, pecked her lightly on each nipple, pulled the covers up, and tucked her in.
    “Mmmmm, thank you,” she murmured, closing her eyes.