Dirty Work (Stone Barrington 9)

“Me too,” Stone replied.

The cab screeched to a halt in front of the building. Dino got out.

“Pay the guy,” he called over his shoulder.

Stone paid the cabbie and followed along, still trying to eat his bacon cheeseburger.

Dino was on the stoop, ringing doorbells. The super appeared, chewing his own lunch.

“What d’ya want?” he said, in heavily accented English.

Dino showed him his badge. “Is the sixth-floor apartment locked?” he asked.

“You better believe,” the man said. “FBI guy gave me instructions.”

“Give me the key,” Dino said.

“I’m not fucking with FBI,” the man replied, swallowing food.

“Give me the key now, or I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice and send you back to whatever godforsaken country you came from.”

The man dug into a pocket and gave Dino a key. “Don’t tell nobody,” he said, then went back into his apartment.

They took the elevator to the sixth floor. “There’s the door to the roof,” Dino said, as they got off. He opened the apartment door.

It was dark inside, and Stone found a light switch that turned on a lamp in a corner. The massage table, two of its legs broken, lay on its side in the middle of the floor.

“There’s why it’s dark,” Dino said, pointing upward. The broken skylight had been replaced with sheets of plywood. “Cozy little pad,” Dino said.

“Looks like it was rented furnished,” Stone observed. “Nobody would buy those pictures, except a landlord.”

“Okay, enough of the art lecture,” Dino said. “Where’s the film?”

Stone went to the fireplace and opened the wood box next to it. It was half full of logs made of compressed sawdust. He lifted one and extracted a 35mm camera with a zoom lens attached. Stone rewound the film, popped the case, and put the film cartridge in his pocket. He removed the lens from the camera and put the lens in one inside pocket of his raincoat and the camera body in the other. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“I want to see the roof,” Dino said, striding toward the door. He opened the door and walked outside. Stone followed him. The door closed behind them.

Stone looked around. “I don’t see how that girl got down from here,” he said.

“Well, we’d better figure out how in a hurry,” Dino said.

“How come?”

“Because the Feds will probably be here any minute, and you’ve closed the fucking door and locked us out.”

Stone tried turning the knob. Nothing. “Shit,” he said.

Dino peered over the edge of the roof. “There’s a drainpipe,” he said. “You go first. I want to see if it’ll hold your weight.”

Stone peered over the parapet. “I’m not shinnying down that,” he said. “I’m wearing a good suit. You go down it, then take the elevator back up and open the door.”

“You know, that’s a terrific idea,” Dino said. “Why should both of us have to shinny down the drainpipe?” He pulled out his gun and pointed it at Stone. “Go down the drainpipe, or I’ll shoot you.”

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Stone shook his head. “Go ahead and shoot me. It beats falling off a building.”

They were standing there like that when the door opened, and the super stepped out. “The FBI just call,” he said. “You guys got to get out or I get in trouble.”