Dirty Work (Stone Barrington 9)
Page 52
Dino held it away. “She’s calling me, I’m talking to her. What’s up, Carpenter?”
“I have a little problem for you, Dino.”
“For me? What kind of problem?”
“A couple of my people stumbled into a murder on your patch.”
“Who did they murder, Carpenter?”
“Nobody. La Biche took care of that.”
“Who’d she murder, one of yours?”
“A civilian, a woman named Ginger Harvey, and La Biche has taken her identity, at least for the time being.”
“Tell me about it.”
Carpenter gave him the address. “It’s a ground floor, rear apartment with a garden. The body’s in a hotbox in the garden.”
“What’s a hotbox?”
“It’s a gardening thing, like a small greenhouse without glass.”
“I’ll send some people over there.”
“They’re not going to find much, except for the body. This woman is very smart, and she will have eliminated all trace of her presence there.”
“Yeah, but we’ve gotta go through the motions.”
“A favor, Dino: Can you wait until, say, mid-morning tomorrow before going in there? I’ve got the place staked out in case La Biche returns, and she’ll run like the wind if she spots anything resembling a policeman.”
“Okay. I’ll wait to call it in.”
“I appreciate that, Dino. I know it’s not proper procedure, but we’ve got at least a chance of bagging her.”
“Don’t worry about it. Keep in touch.”
“Let me give you my cell phone number.”
Dino fished for a pen. “Shoot.”
“I want to talk to her,” Stone said.
Dino nodded, writing down the number. “Hang on, Stone wants to talk to you.”
Stone took the phone. “Hi. You all right?”
“Right now, I’m running. La Biche has made me, and I’m holed up at the Carlyle.”
“Oh, shit. How’d she find you?”
“I think when she kidnapped our man in Cairo, he must have given up our New York office address. She probably waited outside for me to leave the building and followed me to P. J. Clarke’s, where we had a nice little chat at the bar.”
“Are you going to stay at the Carlyle?”
“No, I’ll get out of here in the morning. I can’t go back to the Lowell, either.”
“Go to my house.”