?Yes!”
“Will you tell everything about Barone’s and Ippolito’s financial dealings to the FBI?”
“Yes!” Vance was into his scene, now.
“Will you help me pull Ippolito’s and Sturmack’s little empire down around their ears?”
“Goddammit, yes!”
“Will you testify against them in court?”
Vance’s handsome face dissolved into consternation. “Absolutely not!” he said, outraged.
Stone sighed deeply. “Vance,” he said.
“Yes, Stone?”
“There’s a chance—just a sliver of a chance—that I can get you out of this without it becoming public.”
Vance beamed, revealing startling dental work. “I knew you could do it, Stone.”
“I haven’t said I could do it. I’ve said there’s a tiny chance I could do it. And it means you’re going to have to tell the IRS and the FBI everything.”
“All right, as long as it doesn’t get into the papers.”
“And it means that you’re never going to see any of your million and a half dollars again.”
“Really?” Vance asked plaintively.
“Really. And there’s always the possibility that the feds will simply subpoena you, and you’d have to testify.”
“I’d take the Fifth!” Vance said indignantly.
“Vance, that would completely destroy your reputation.”
“Oh,” Vance said.
Stone had hoped to bring Vance to the full realization of what faced him, but he was not sure he had succeeded. After all, the man was a movie star.
57
While Vance took a nap in his suite, Stone tried to assess his position. He had a witness, an accuser, now, one who knew some of what was going on in Ippolito’s empire, but one who, in the end, would not testify in court. What was more, now that he had declared himself Vance’s attorney, he had lost some of his powers of persuasion, such as threatening to go to the tabloids with what he knew of the movie star’s dealings. He was going to have to sell part of Vance to the feds, and it was time to see what they would give Vance for what he knew. He called Hank Cable at the FBI.
“Hello, Hank, it’s Stone Barrington.”
“Hi, Stone.”
“Anything new?”
“I’ve got some codebusters working on what we’re hearing from the taps on Barone Financial, but our warrant is about to expire, and we’re not there yet, and I on’t know if we have enough to get an extension.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“I hope so. We’re pretty much at a dead end, unless the code boys come up with something startling.”
“Do you know the chief investigator for the IRS in L.A.?”
“Sure; we talk from time to time.”