Two-Dollar Bill (Stone Barrington 11)

“I still think well of him,” Billy Bob said, tossing back another Wild Turkey. “Well, I think I’m about ready to hit the bunkhouse. You ready, Stone?”

“Yes, I guess I am,” Stone said, rising. “You get the bill,” he said to Eggers.

“Sure thing, Stone.”

“C’mon, boy, I’ll give you a ride in my limousine,” Billy Bob said.

Stone followed him toward the door, stopping at a table to give Elaine a peck on the cheek. “Good night, Elaine.”

“Good riddance,” she said.

3

STONE STEPPED OUT into the bitterly cold night and turned up his overcoat collar. Billy Bob joined him, overcoatless, and pointed at an absurdly long white limousine at the curb.

“Just hop in there, boy,” he said.

As he climbed into the enormous car, Stone tried to remember the last time someone had called him “boy.” Probably when he was a boy, he concluded.

Billy Bob climbed into the car and settled in beside him, then, simultaneously with the slamming of the door, the window beside Stone suddenly crazed over, apparently because of a bullet hole in its center. This was followed quickly by two more bullets, and this time, Stone could hear the gun. He had not even had time to duck. He looked out the now-absent window in time to see a black Lincoln Town Car turn left onto Eighty-eighth Street, against the light, and disappear down the block.

He turned to speak to Billy Bob and found him no longer there. Stone hipped his way across the seat and got out of the curbside door, looking for Billy Bob. The Texan stood in the street, holding an old-fashioned Colt Single-Action Army six-shooter with a pearl handle, looking for a target.

“Are you nuts?” Stone yelled at him.

“Huh?” Billy Bob asked, noticing Stone for the first time.

Stone snatched the pistol out of his hand. “Give me that!”

“Hey, what are you doin’?” Billy Bob demanded.

Stone stuck the weapon into his inside overcoat pocket. “You can get three years at Riker’s Island just for holding that thing in this town.”

“You mean New York won’t support a man’s Second Amendment right to bear arms?”

“Let’s just say that the New York Police Department has a different interpretation of the Second Amendment than you do.”

Stone walked back toward Elaine’s.

“Where are you going?”

“To get the police,” Stone called over his shoulder. “Somebody has just tried to kill you, and if I were you, I’d get out of the street before they come back.” He went back into the restaurant and walked back to the table he had just left. “You’d better get some people over here,” he said to Dino. “Somebody just took a few shots at Woodman & Weld’s newest client.”

“What!!!” Bill Eggers shouted.

“Yeah, you can really pick ’em, Bill.”

Dino got on his cell phone and called the cavalry.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Dino’s detectives were conducting their preliminary investigation of the incident, and a criminalist was searching the car for bullet fragments.

One of the detectives walked over to Billy Bob, notebook in hand. “You’re Mr. Barnstormer, is that right?” the detective asked.

“That sure is right,” Billy Bob said.

“You got any identification, sir?”

Billy Bob produced a Texas driver’s license.