Stone Barrington 27 - Doing Hard Time

do nothing—just call me. And, Harry, don’t turn up dead.”
    “Gotcha,” Harry said, then left.

Stone and Emma, Dino and his wife, Viv, and Mike Freeman were having dinner at Patroon, a new favorite restaurant of Stone’s. When the ladies went to the restroom, Mike spoke up.
    “I sort of had lunch with Billy Barnett before we left L.A.,” he said.
    Stone was surprised. “Why?”
    “It was accidental, really. Peter and I bumped into him at the Centurion commissary, then Peter left and Billy and I had a chat.”
    “About what?”
    “I offered him a job.”
    “Doing what?”
    “I haven’t figured that out yet, but I’m sure he’d be a useful employee.”
    “Did he have any idea that we suspected him of being Teddy Fay?”
    “He does now,” Mike said. “I told him so.”
    “Mike, that’s crazy,” Stone said. “That makes him dangerous.”
    “I told him my story as a way of warming him to me.”
    “Did it work?”
    “He admitted nothing—the man is icy cool. I’ll bet he could beat a good polygraph.”
    “Did he take the job offer?”
    “No, but he has my card. Stone, I don’t think you have anything to worry about, as far as Peter is concerned. He seems very protective of the boy.”
    “Well, I’m relieved to hear that,” Stone said.
    The women returned, and the subject changed.
    •   •   •
    Harry Katz ran the usual background check on Billy Burnett, just to see what turned up. Pete Genaro had been right: it was unrevealing, as far as the man’s whereabouts were concerned. He was going to have to go to L.A., he guessed. He told his secretary he was going away for a few days, and as an afterthought, he asked her to book him into Shutters, where the two dead men had been found.
    But Harry had another stop to make before he left town. He found James Sayer in the valet parkers’ break room at the Sands and introduced himself.
    “Yeah, I remember you from the Desert Inn,” Sayer said. “What can I do for you?”
    It wasn’t a warm greeting, Harry thought. “The Desert Inn people are concerned about your ex-wife,” he said. “She quit her job and apparently left with somebody who could be dangerous.”
    “I didn’t know Pete Genaro was concerned about anything but his bottom line,” Sayer said.
    “It’s true he’s not concerned about people who steal from his casino,” Harry said, “but Charmaine was a valued employee, and he doesn’t want her to get into trouble.”
    “Well, she called me yesterday,” Sayer said. “She said she had gotten married and left town, and she wouldn’t be seeing me again.”
    “Did she say who she married?”
    “No name. She said he was a former client at the Desert Inn.”
    “Did she say that she got married, then left town?”
    Sayer thought about that. “No, she just said she got married. I didn’t get the impression she got married in Vegas. In fact, she had a low opinion of the marriage chapel business here. I don’t think she would have gotten married at one of those.”
    “Did she say anything else that might have indicated where she was?”
    “Nope, not a thing.”
    Harry thanked him, got into his car, and headed for L.A.
    His first stop was at the West Los Angeles police station, and it took him only a minute or two to find out which detectives were assigned to the homicides in the Shutters garage. Turned out, he had been a mentor to one of them, Sanders, when they had both been assigned to the Ramparts division. Sanders seemed glad to see him.
    “I hear you guys are working the homicides at Shutters,” Harry said.
    “‘Working’ isn’t the right word,” Sanders said. “We’re mostly sitting on our asses, trying to figure out what to do next. These are the cleanest killings I’ve ever seen.”
    “Tell me about the ballistics,” Harry said.
    “Same gun, a .380 semiautomatic. There was a shell casing in each trunk, too.”
    “No prints on the shell casings?”
    “Clean as a whistle. This guy is a pro, no doubt about it. Both victims worked for the same company in Phoenix, an international conglomerate. The second victim came in here and talked to us, told us nothing, then claimed the first victim’s body and had it cremated. We think he must have been hunting for the killer on his own and found him.”
    “You think there was a crime other than homicide connected to these two killings?”
    “Maybe, but we can’t prove it.”
    “Do you have a list of the other guests in the hotel at the