Stone Barrington 06-11

antenna. I’ll sell you a receiver with a dedicated, off-the-books frequency, and you’ll be able to hear and, if you want to, record everything that’s said in the house. You can even make it voice activated.”
    “Wow,” Sandy said, pretending to be impressed. “How much?”
    “The circuit breaker is eight grand, the crimpers are two hundred each and the retransmitter is two grand. Your receiver is a grand.”
    “Well, it’s not like I’m the one paying for it,” Sandy said. “The client will pick up the tab.”

    “How many crimpers you want?”
    Sandy counted on his fingers. “Eighteen.”
    Marty turned to a calculator on his desk and began tapping in numbers. “That comes to fourteen thousand six hundred bucks,” he said. “Call it fourteen thousand even, and with cash, no tax.”
    “Done,” Sandy said. “I’ll need to make a run to get the cash; that’s more than I walk around with.”
    “Sure; I’ll have everything packed up and ready for you in half an hour; you can pick it up anytime today.”
    Sandy stood up to go. “You must have a great workshop here,” he said.
    “I do. You want a gander?”
    “God, yes, please!”
    Marty walked him through another door and into a large, beautifully equipped workshop where four men were hunched over worktables, wiring and soldering. “There you go. I can build you just about anything you want in here.”
    “This is really something,” Sandy said. “I mean, I’m working out of my basement, you know?”
    “Listen, I used to work out of my basement,” Marty said.
    “You’ve got a lot of building here,” Sandy said. “What do you do with the rest of it?”
    Marty walked him through another door into a storeroom filled with components and wiring, then into a large garage. Sandy counted four unmarked vans and half a dozen cars. “I keep larger equipment and my vans in here, and my employees park here, too. That’s about as big a draw as health insurance. You got any idea what it costs to park in this city these days?”
    “Tell me about it,” Sandy said. He turned and saw a staircase going up to a windowed office in the high-ceilinged garage. “More work space?” He noted that blinds were pulled down over the windows.

    “Nah, just storage,” Marty said, steering him back toward the retail shop.
    “I’ll be back in a little later with your fourteen grand,” Sandy said.
    “You do that,” Marty said, turning back toward his office. “Bye-bye. Nice doing business with you.”
    Sandy picked up his wire in the shop, then walked back to his car. He got out his cell phone and called Lance.
    “Yes?”
    “It’s Sandy. Martin Block gave me the ten-cent tour. He’s got four vans that the lady could be moved in, and there’s a room I didn’t get to see, up a flight of stairs in the garage. If Block has her, that’s where she’ll be. By the way, there are two cops in a Crown Vic sitting near the building, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts.”
    “Good work, Sandy.”
    “Oh, one more thing, Lance.”
    “What?”
    “I’m going to need fourteen thousand dollars.”
    “What?”

47
    STONE’S CELL PHONE RANG, and he picked it up. “Yes?”
    “It’s Lance. My man is back; he’s cased the building, and there’s one room where Arrington is probably being held. Part of the building is a garage, and the room is up a flight of stairs. It’s the only logical place they would keep her.”
    “Then let’s get in there.”
    “No, I don’t think so. Billy Bob is supposed to call you midafternoon, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Billy Bob will give you some complicated routing to meet him at some place or other. They’ll track your movement, then, at some stage, either exchange you for Arrington or keep you both.”
    “That had occurred to me.”
    “They’ll move her in one of Block’s vans—he’s got four. We’ll raid the place as they’re leaving—they won’t be ready for us then.”
    “And what if Arrington isn’t there?”
    “Then we’ll sequester everybody on the premises, so they can’t call Billy Bob, and you’ll have to go through with the meet. If Arrington isn’t at Block’s business now, it seems likely that they’ll take you or both of you back there, and we’ll be ready for them.”

    “And if Billy Bob doesn’t have Arrington there now, and if he doesn’t take her back there, what?”
    “We’ll be on your tail. We’ll plant a transmitter on you, and we’ll have a chopper on the job. When he