New York Dead (Stone Barrington 1)

Stone hung up relieved. The thought that he might have to replace Teddy on this mission had never occurred to him, and even the possibility made his knees tremble.

In the study, he pulled the drop cloths off the crates holding his books – his and his great-aunt’s and his father’s and his mother’s. He estimated there were more than two thousand of them. He took them from their boxes and began arranging them carefully on the shelves. This was a job he would not want to do again. He arranged them by category – art books, fiction, philosophy, politics, biography – and alphabetically by author. It was slow going, and he often had to shift books to keep them in order.

At eight o’clock, he fixed himself some dinner and ate it at the kitchen table, watching the news on CNN.

When he had finished his dinner, he returned to the arranging of the books and became so absorbed in the job that it was nine forty before he realized that Teddy O’Bannion had not arrived.

Worried, he called Teddy’s number. It was busy, and it remained busy during his next ten attempts. He called the operator and had the number checked: out of order, she would report it. What was going on?

At ten thirty, he began to face the reality that he was going to have to walk into Apartment 9 – A and take videotapes of a strange woman and man in bed together. The thought made his bowels weak. He wished he had not eaten such a large dinner. Teddy’s phone number still would not ring.

At a quarter to eleven, Stone realized that he would have to shower and change, so that he would be presentable to the doorman at the apartment building. He hoped to God it would be a different doorman; he couldn’t afford to be seen twice by the same man.

In the shower he ran over what might go wrong. The couple wouldn’t be there – that was the best thing that could happen. The man would overpower him and call the police – that would end his relationship with Woodman amp; Weld, and he would end up in court, if not in jail. The man would produce a pistol from a bedside drawer and…

The doorbell rang as he stepped out of the shower. He got into a terry-cloth robe and raced down the stairs. Teddy O’Bannion stood, knee deep in snow, on the front stoop.

“Jesus, I’m sorry, Stone,” he began. “There was a fire in the subway station at the corner, and it knocked out not only the trains but every phone in the neighborhood, including mine.”

“Come on in, Teddy,” Stone said, nearly trembling with relief.

“I’m double-parked out there,” Teddy said, brushing snow from his coat. “I had to come in the wife’s Jeepster. Good thing I had something with four-wheel drive, but it still took me an hour and a half from the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Stone pointed him at the camera case. “Look that over while I change.”

When he came back down, Teddy was impatient to go. “I’m not going to get a cab in this,” he said.

“I’ll come along and wait for you in the car,” Stone replied.

Five minutes later, they were grinding slowly up Park Avenue. Stone turned into the right street and stopped the Jeepster a few doors down from the apartment building. “You’d better hurry,” he said to Teddy. “You don’t want to run into these people in the lobby and let them get a look at you.”

Teddy reached inside his coat and produced a nine-millimeter automatic pistol. “Don’t worry,” he said, grinning, “I’m ready for anything.”

Stone grabbed at the pistol. “Are you crazy, Teddy?” Then he laughed. The thing was a water pistol, albeit an extremely realistic one. “What the hell are you doing with this?”

Teddy took the water pistol back. “I’ll explain later,” he said, getting out of the car. “Keep the motor running, no matter how long it takes.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to freeze to death.” Stone handed him the key to 9-A.

Teddy pointed at the car phone. “I’ll call you, if I can, when I have some results.” He closed the door and trudged through the snow toward the building, finally disappearing into the entrance.

Stone turned the radio to a jazz station and settled down to wait. Five minutes later the car phone rang.

“Hello?”

“They were in before me, but I think they’re still awake. I can hear music and voices, if I put a water glass against the wall.”

“Take your time,” Stone said. “We’ve got all night, if necessary.”

“It won’t take that long,” Teddy said. “In my experience, people who are fucking illicitly don’t waste much time getting down to it.” He hung up.

Stone turned the heater up a notch, pushed the seat back, and made himself comfortable.

A sharp rapping against the window woke him. He was momentarily disoriented, and, by the time he figured out where he was, the rapping came again on the window. The car’s windows were blocked by a blanket of white, and, when he rolled down the driver’s side window, snow fell into the car.

“Teddy?” Stone said to the figure outside the car.

“What’s up, here, mister?” a voice said.