“I want you to tap Charlie Crow’s phone. See what we can come up with.”
“Okay, but it’ll cost you a grand up front plus five hundred a day for as long as the tap runs. My guy puts his pension at risk.”
“All right, I’ll buy that for three or four days. How about his cell phone?”
“I’ve got a scanner that will pick that up, but I’d have to follow him around; the range is short.”
“Let’s keep that in reserve.”
“Okay. Can we order lunch, now?”
Stone ordered the soup; it was all he felt like eating.
37
As Stone was leaving Clarke’s his cell phone vibrated, and he flipped it open. “Yes?”
“It’s Eggers. Where are you?”
“Just leaving P. J. Clarke’s.”
“Come see me.” Eggers hung up.
Stone walked over to the Seagram Building and took the elevator upstairs. The receptionist was on the phone, apparently with a girlfriend. She thumbed him toward the corner office.
Stone walked through Bill Eggers’s open door and tossed his coat on a chair. “What?” he demanded.
“You’re in a shitty mood,” Eggers said.
“Somebody is fucking with me, probably Harlan Deal.”
Eggers looked over Stone’s shoulder. “Hello, Harlan,” he said. “Come in.”
Harlan Deal walked around Stone and sat down. Eggers waved Stone to a chair.
“Now,” Eggers said, “what’s going on with you two?”
“He stole my girl,” Deal said.
“He had my house, ah, houses broken into.”
“You stole his girl?”
“Certainly not. If he lost her, that was her decision, not mine.”
Eggers turned to Deal. “You had his houses broken into?”
“I’ve nothing to say on that subject,” Deal said.
Stone opened his mouth, but Eggers held up a hand. “Stone, did you have anything to do with Harlan’s girl leaving him?”
“I did not,” Stone said. “I saw her when I was in Connecticut, though.”
“Aha!” Deal shouted, pointing a finger at Stone.
“She was at the home of a friend of mine, Barton Cabot.”
“The antiques dealer?” Eggers asked.