“Okay,” he replied, stealing a kiss.
“Go buy a car,” she said.
Stone got out of the police car on Park Avenue in front of the Mercedes-Benz dealership, but not before looking up and down the street once more. “I’ll be a while,” he said to the two cops up front.
“Yessir,” one of them replied, saluting smartly. “We’re at your disposal.”
“Krakauer,” Stone said, “I’ll dispose of you at the earliest possible moment.” He turned and walked into the showroom. Half a dozen cars were on display: a new SLK, the little sports car with the retractable hard top—cute, but tiny. There was an S600 sedan—big, powerful, and extremely expensive, maybe too much of all those things. And sitting in a prime spot, an E320, the middle Mercedes, in a nice, tan metallic color.
A man materialized at his elbow. “May I show you something?” he asked.
“I’m interested in the V8 version of that one,” Stone said, pointing at the E320.
“The E430? Wonderful automobile. I can get you one in about four months, if you’d like to order now.”
“I was thinking about this afternoon.”
“Can’t be done, I’m afraid. The demand has just been too great.”
Stone was annoyed. He’d rented an E430 in Los Angeles a few months before and loved it. He strolled toward the big V12 sedan. “How much?”
“A hundred and thirty-seven thousand, plus various taxes.”
Stone held up a hand. “Stop. Don’t tell me what the taxes are.”
“You’re very wise,” the man replied. “I can get you an S500, the V8 version of this one, almost immediately.”
“How long is ‘almost immediately’?”
“I’ve got one coming in in about two weeks.”
“You really know how to take the pleasure out of impulse buying,” Stone said.
“I’m sorry, but we’re dealing with a lot of demand and not enough cars.”
Stone looked out the side window of the showroom. A car-carrier truck had pulled up and unloaded something black. Now a double door had been opened, and four men were pushing a car onto the sales floor. “What is that?” he asked.
“Ah, now there’s something special,” the salesman said. “It’s called the E55; it’s an E430 that has been specially modified by AMG, the German tuning shop that does a lot of work on various Mercedes models. It’s in obsidian black with parchment-leather upholstery.”
The car was a lot like the E320 on display, but seemed lower and meaner-looking. “Just what, exactly, has AMG done to that car?”
The man went to his desk and removed a folder from a drawer. “This is very out of the ordinary,” he said, reading from the folder. “The car has a five-and-a-half-liter V8 that’s more powerful than the one in the S500, at three hundred fifty-four horsepower, and with the S500 transmission. The body is lowered, and the suspension has upgraded shock absorbers, antiroll bars, and springs. It’s got eighteen-inch wheels, Z-rated tires, and the brakes from the SL600.”
Stone sucked in a breath.
“The windows are tinted darkly enough to make the occupants unrecognizable, and, after it arrived in this country, we sent it to a specialist to be lightly armored.”
“What, exactly, does ‘lightly armored’ mean?”
The salesman opened a door, pressed a button, and a window rolled down halfway. “As you can see, the glass is a lot thicker than standard—half an inch thick, in fact—and the roof, all the door panels, and the floorpan have been reinforced with lightweight, but very tough materials like Kevlar. The car will repel small-weapons fire, even heavy machine-gun fire, but it won’t, of course, stop a bazooka or a land mine. You’d need the fully armored version for that level of protection.”
Stone got into the car and looked around.
“You’ve got sport seats and special trim; there’s also a concealed radar scrambler on board,” he said, looking around to see that no one was listening. “It detects, then makes police radar useless; it’s legal in most states.”
“It’s very nice,” Stone said. “How much?”
“It doesn’t belong to us, actually,” the salesman replied. “It’s the property of the widow of a former client, a South American gentleman.”