Stone Barrington 06-11

replied. “It’s not like I have to work for a living.”
    The car sat in the middle of the shop, surrounded by half a dozen Mercedes-Benz mechanics in blue coveralls.
    “This is my first one of these,” the service manager said. “We’ve sold a few of these cars, but it’s the first time one of them ever came back with bullet holes in it.”
    “How about the bumper?” Stone said.
    “We’ll have one here tomorrow, but it’s got to be painted. The armored glass is going to take longer, maybe two or three weeks. It has to come from Germany, and there’s customs and all of that.”
    “Put regular glass in it,” Stone said. “I’ll bring it back when the armored stuff comes in.”
    “In that case, we’ll have it together by the end of the week,” the service manager said.
    “Can we go now?” Dino asked.
    Stone signed the service order and followed Dino back to his car.
    “You thought about how you’re going to explain this to your insurance company?” Dino asked as they drove away.
    “I don’t think I’ll mention it to them,” Stone said, “because I didn’t mention to them in the first place that the car was armored. I thought it might upset them.”
    “Stone, maybe you ought to take Holly and get out of town for a while,” Dino said.
    “That’s an attractive idea,” Stone replied, “and I’ll talk to Holly about it, but I don’t think she’s going to want to go. She’s mad now, and she’s going to get madder when I tell her what’s happened.”
    “Better mad than dead,” Dino said. “Whoever’s doing this has wasted three men trying, and you may have pissed him off by now.”
    “You think it’s Trini?” Stone asked.
    “You got somebody else in mind?”
    “Maybe,” Stone replied.

31
    D INO SLOWED DOWN as he turned into Stone’s block, pointing ahead at a cluster of people outside Stone’s house. “You must be dead, because you’re attracting flies.”
    Stone groaned. “Stop here.” Dino pulled over. Stone got out his cell phone and called his secretary.
    “The Barrington Practice,” Joan Robertson said.
    “Joan, it’s me.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “Yes, I’m right outside. I want you to go to the garage, count to five, and open the garage door. As soon as we’re inside, close it.”
    “Okay. Bye.”
    “Slowly,” Stone said. Dino edged his unmarked car up the block and, when he saw the garage door start to move, accelerated. He turned into the drive, crossed the sidewalk, and braked before he could run into the rear wall. The door closed behind them.

    Stone had seen at least two television cameras in the mob. “Come on in, I’ll buy you a drink.”
    “I can’t get out anyway, without running down a few members of the fourth estate.”
    “What happened on the Brooklyn Bridge?” Joan asked. “It’s all over the TV.”
    “Come on upstairs, so I won’t have to explain it more than once,” Stone said.
    Holly and Ham met them at the top of the stairs. “You okay?” she asked.
    “I’m fine, except I just killed two men.”
    “That ain’t good,” Ham said.
    Stone led them into his study and poured everyone but himself a drink, then he explained what had happened. “Holly, I think we’ve got to get out of town.” He held up a hand. “I know you don’t want to get any farther from Trini than you already have, but that crowd outside makes staying here impossible. We won’t be able to move without them tagging along.”
    “Why don’t you go up to Connecticut?” Dino asked.
    “Can’t do that. Some of the people who’ve been following us know about the house.”
    “Yeah,” Holly said, “but they’re FBI. You think they’re trying to kill us?”
    “I doubt it, but somebody on their team may be talking to somebody on Trini’s team, or we may be dealing with another team entirely.”
    “And what team would that be?” Dino asked.

    “I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out the hard way.”
    “Then let’s go to Florida,” Holly said. “I have a perfectly good house, and if we get rumbled there, we can go to Ham’s place.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Ham said. “You two can sleep in the hammock on the porch. Hasn’t been anybody there to feed the mosquitoes.”
    “You make it sound irresistible, Ham,” Stone said. “How quickly can you two get packed?”
    “Ten minutes,” Holly said.
    “Dino, can you give us a ride to Teterboro?”
    “Sure.”
    Stone picked up a phone and called Atlantic Aviation.