Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

“When he shoots me? I thought he hired you to do that.”

“Well, yeah, but only if you give me any trouble. He wants to do it himself, if he has the time. Something personal, I don’t know.”

“Tell you what. You make the call. If I can get him to agree to a settlement, I’ll give you another fifty, on top of the twenty-five he’s already given you.”

“I don’t know,” Larry said.

“What have you got to lose? Tell you what. Drive me to the nearest bank, and I’ll give you the fifty right now, in cash. Any bank will do. I just have to make a phone call.”

“Well, see, I’ve got a lot of problems with that,” Larry said. “You could make all sorts of trouble for me in a bank.”

“You’ve got a point,” said Stone, who had been planning on making a lot of trouble for him.

“And that wouldn’t be the honorable thing to do, see? I mean, my deal is with Doug, not with you. Word got around about that, and I’d be short of clients.”

“So, call him and let me speak to him.”

“What the hell, why not? Ernest, give me the phone.”

Ernest passed back a cell phone, and Larry dialed, mouthing the numbers from memory.

Stone heard the electronic shriek from the phone, and the announcement that the cellular customer being called was unavailable or out of the calling area.

“No luck,” Larry said.

“Try him again in a minute,” Stone replied. They were out of West Palm, now, headed west on a narrowing, increasingly empty road that seemed to be heading straight into the Everglades. He didn’t want to go there.

“Okay,” Larry said.

“You do a lot of this work?” Stone asked.

“You bet. Make a nice living at it, too.”

“How’d you get into it?”

“Fellow offered me five grand once, when I was broke, so I got myself a mail-order book that tells you how to do it and get away with it.”

“The work doesn’t bother you?”

“Naw, it’s just business. I mean, I don’t have anything against the people I hit.”

“You know, in my line of work, I have clients who sometimes have need of somebody with your skills. Maybe you should give me your number?”

Larry grinned broadl

y. “Well, first, let’s see how this goes, okay?”

“Why don’t you try the number again?” Stone said.

“Sure thing.” Larry punched redial, then held the phone away from his ear, so Stone could hear the recorded message again. “Hey, Ernest,” Larry said. “It’s your next left, right?”

“Right,” Ernest said, and a moment later, he turned left onto a dirt road. A moment later, they were winding down a track that ran through scrub pines. To their right, mangrove grew in swamp water. Shortly, they came to a small clearing, and Ernest made a U-turn and stopped.

“Okay, out of the car,” Larry said, opening the door and helping Stone out of the rear seat.

“Let’s try the number again,” Stone said.

Larry punched redial, and again, the dreaded message repeated.