Hot Mahogany (Stone Barrington 15)

20

Stone and Holly went to the Mayflower Inn the following morning for Sunday brunch and lingered over their food.

“Stone, where would Abner Kramer hide the secretary in New York?”

“Kramer strikes me as the type who would be very well prepared,” Stone replied. “He may have rented storage space for it.”

“Or it could be in his house or apartment.”

“That’s a possibility, too.”

“So, let’s go to New York and break into his place.”

“Well,” Stone said, “I now have a fairly complete set of burglar tools. It would be a shame not to put them to use.”

“Good.”

“I’m kidding. I’ve had enough of housebreaking; I don’t have the innate sneakiness required for the work.”

“Are you saying I’m sneaky?”

“Let me be clear: You are sneaky. Isn’t that one of the prime requisites for working at the CIA? I’ll bet you aced the Sneaky 101 final at the Farm.”

Holly giggled. “You know me too well.”

“Are you going to stick around here for a few more days?”

“Well, it’s a paid vacation, isn’t it? And I’ve got a free house. I miss Daisy, but she’s staying with my housemate.”

“You have a housemate? I’m jealous.”

“It’s a female-type person. The place had a spare bedroom, so I cut my rent in half.”

“Sounds sensible.” Stone waved for a check. “I’m going to have to go back to the city.”

“Why don’t you just hang out here with me?” Holly asked.

“Well, I do have a law practice that requires my attention from time to time if I want to earn a living, and I have to look into the other guy from Barton’s Marine outfit… What’s his name?”

“Charles Crow.”

“Right. From the Bronx.”

“That’s the one.”

“Watch your ass, Stone.”

“You mean more than usual?”

“Remember, Crow is the operator, according to Barton. Sounds like a guy with few, if any, scruples.”

“Okay. I’ll watch my ass.”

Stone got back to the city late in the afternoon, went through his mail and checked his phone messages. Alarmingly little business activity, he thought. He was going to have to make some money pretty soon.

Dino was already at Elaine’s when Stone got there.

“How was the country?” Dino asked.