Stone was having breakfast the next morning when the phone rang. “Hello?”
“It’s Dino.”
“Where’d they take it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“My guys watched them load the secretary into a dark green furniture van with the name Van Hooten on the side, then they followed the van. It got onto the West Side Highway and headed north. They followed it up the Sawmill River Parkway as far as Yonkers, then they called me, and I told them to come back to the precinct.”
“You couldn’t let them follow it all the way?”
“All the way to where? Montreal? You don’t know where the fuck they’re taking the thing.”
Stone thanked Dino and hung up. “Maybe I do,” he said aloud to himself. He picked up the phone and called Barton Cabot.
“Hello?”
“It’s Stone, Barton. I’m sorry about last night. I thought we had found your secretary.”
“No harm done,” Barton replied.
“I hope you had a good dinner with Carla.”
“I had a good everything with Carla. She’s quite a girl. I’m taking her back to the city this morning.”
“Dino put a couple of detectives on the warehouse, and a van with the name Van Hooten picked it up and drove north. They followed it as far as Yonkers, then broke off the tail.”
“Van Hooten is a respected dealer in furniture,” Barton said.
“I wonder if you’d do something for me before you leave for New York?”
“What?”
“Could you drive up to the clearing that overlooks Ab Kramer’s house and see if the van turns up there? It’s dark green, and it should be arriving in about an hour, if it’s coming.”
“All right, I guess I could do that. You think maybe Ab bought the piece from Charlie Crow?”
“Let me ask you this: If Ab saw the piece we had last night, could he distinguish it from the real thing?”
“He could, if he read the brass plate on the back.”
“What if Charlie was smart enough to remove the plate?”
“Ab has a good eye, but he doesn’t have any real depth of knowledge about that period. It’s a handsome piece; it might fool him. You think Charlie is ripping off Ab?”
“It’s a possibility,” Stone said. “It’s not hard to fool somebody who already believes he’s getting the real thing.”
“How very interesting,” Barton said. “I’ll call you when I know more.”
40
Stone was about to go to lunch when Joan buzzed him. “Barton Cabot on line one for you.”
Stone punched the button. “Barton?”
“Yes. Carla and I are on the way to Manhattan.”