Swimming to Catalina (Stone Barrington 4)

“Sure, I will.”

“By the way, Dino is on his way out here; you want to have lunch tomorrow and catch up?”

“Love to.”

“Meet us in the outdoor cafe at the Bel-Air at twelve-thirty.”

“See you then.”

Stone hung up and drove back to the hotel, whistling a merry tune all the way. Things were looking up: he was unsettling his enemies, his best friend was coming to help him, and he had a wonderful evening planned in his suite.

48

Stone and Dino had breakfast on the terrace of Stone’s suite and caught up. “You staying busy?” Stone asked.

“If I was busy, could I come out here and screw around with you? The crime rate in New York is dropping like a stone, you should excuse the expression—murders down, robberies down, even burglaries down. It’s terrible!”

Stone laughed.

“It’s not funny; pretty soon they’ll be laying off cops. Already we’re getting ‘nice’ lessons from the mayor’s office, so we don’t annoy the tourists.”

“It’s a better city for us all, Dino.”

“I liked it the way it was before—people getting popped at all hours of the day and night, hookers on 42nd Street, three locks on every door—it was a cop’s city, you know?” He waved a hand. “Not like this miserable excuse for a metropolis. You call this a hotel? There’s not a fire escape in the place, there are no hookers in the lobby, and it’s located in a jungle!”

“A garden.”

“A garden is, like, in the back yard of a brown-stone; this is a fucking jungle! There are plants here that only belong in the rain forest; there are swans in a creek, for Christ’s sake! In New York I wouldn’t give ‘em twenty-four hours before somebody’d be barbecuing ‘em!”

“I like it here—the hotel, I mean.”

“You would. How the fuck can you afford it?”

“I told you about my part in the movie. I made twenty-five grand in a couple of days. I’m spending it.”

“All of it?”

“Maybe, we’ll see.”

“How’s Rick Grant?”

“He made lieutenant, and he’s got a big job at headquarters; he’s really being a big help, too. We’re having lunch with him today.”

“What’s this about somebody trying to off you?”

“They made a first-class stab at it, let me tell you.”

“Tell me.”

“I’ll try to bring you up to date.” Stone started with the phone call at Elaine’s and told Dino some of the things that had happened to him since arriving in Los Angeles.

Dino listened, rapt, his chin in his hand, his omelet getting cold; he didn’t speak until Stone had finished. “That’s fucking outrageous,” he said, “them tossing you in the ocean like that.”

“You bet it is.”

“And what have you done about it? Have you killed the fuckers?”

“I didn’t have to; Ippolito did it for me, the same way they did it to me.”