Swimming to Catalina

gift.”
    “It was a scam, pure and simple, Vance.”
    Now anger flicked across the gorgeous suntanned face. “The sons of bitches,” he said quietly.
    “Makes you want to get back at them, doesn’t it? They’ve kidnapped your wife, robbed you, humiliated you, and tried to extort your investment in Centurion right out of your hands. And that would be only the beginning, if they’re allowed to get away with it.Eventually you would end up as their creature, a puppet controlled by Ippolito, with Sturmack on the sidelines stroking you and telling you everything was really all right. Centurion would be gone, all those talented people would be out of work, and some of them would never work again. Lou Regenstein would be ruined, your career would be fatally damaged. In the end you’d be lucky to get a TV movie of the week. And Ippolito would own you—lock, stock, and the barrel you’d end up wearing.”
    “Jesus fucking Christ,” Vance said wonderingly.
    “Exactly.” Vance, Stone thought, is beginning to get the big picture. “Now, what are you going to do about it?”
    Vance shone the full force of his persona at Stone.“Whatever it takes! ” he said slowly.
    “Will you bare your soul to the IRS?”
    “Yes!”
    “Will you tell everything about Barone’s and Ippolito’s financial dealings to the FBI?”
    “Yes!” Vance was into his scene, now.
    “Will you help me pull Ippolito’s and Sturmack’s little empire down around their ears?”
    “Goddammit, yes!”
    “Will you testify against them in court?”
    Vance’s handsome face dissolved into consternation. “Absolutely not!” he said, outraged.
    Stone sighed deeply. “Vance,” he said.
    “Yes, Stone?”
    “There’s a chance—just a sliver of a chance—that I can get you out of this without it becoming public.”
    Vance beamed, revealing startling dental work. “I knew you could do it, Stone.”
    “I haven’t said Icould do it. I’ve said there’s atinychance I could do it. And it means you’re going to have to tell the IRS and the FBI everything.”
    “All right, as long as it doesn’t get into the papers.”
    “And it means that you’re never going to seeany of your million and a half dollars again.”
    “Really?” Vance asked plaintively.
    “Really. And there’s always the possibility that the feds will simply subpoena you, and you’dhave to testify.”
    “I’d take the Fifth!” Vance said indignantly.
    “Vance, that would completely destroy your reputation.”
    “Oh,” Vance said.
    Stone had hoped to bring Vance to the full realization of what faced him, but he was not sure he had succeeded. After all, the manwas a movie star.

57
    While Vance took a nap in his suite, Stone tried to assess his position. He had a witness, an accuser, now, one who knew some of what was going on in Ippolito’s empire, but one who, in the end, would not testify in court. What was more, now that he had declared himself Vance’s attorney, he had lost some of his powers of persuasion, such as threatening to go to the tabloids with what he knew of the movie star’s dealings. He was going to have to sell part of Vance to the feds, and it was time to see what they would give Vance for what he knew. He called Hank Cable at the FBI.
    “Hello, Hank, it’s Stone Barrington.”
    “Hi, Stone.”
    “Anything new?”
    “I’ve got some codebusters working on what we’re hearing from the taps on Barone Financial, but our warrant is about to expire, and we’re not there yet, and I on’t know if we have enough to get an extension.”

    “Maybe I can help.”
    “I hope so. We’re pretty much at a dead end, unless the code boys come up with something startling.”
    “Do you know the chief investigator for the IRS in L.A.?”
    “Sure; we talk from time to time.”
    “I’d like to meet with both of you, today, at the earliest possible moment.”
    “If you’ll hang on a minute, Stone, I’ll see if I can get him on another line.”
    “Sure.” Stone waited for a couple of minutes.
    “You still there?”
    “Yep.”
    “How about lunch? You’re buying.”
    Stone gave him his suite number at the Bel-Air. “In an hour?”
    “See you then.”
    Stone hung up and called Rick Grant. “Rick, I’m having lunch with Hank Cable and the IRS; will you join us in my suite?”
    “Sure. What’s up?”
    “I think there may be something good for you in all this, but I warn you, the feds are going to take the biggest helpings.”
    “So what