Loitering With Intent (Stone Barrington 16)

“Hello?” Stone put it on speaker; it was easier than repeating everything to Dino.

“Is this that little Barrington shit who worked out of the Nineteenth, until they kicked his ass down the stairs?”

Dino broke up. “It’s Manny White.”

“No,” Stone said, “this is the Barrington who was a very smart detective at the Nineteenth and who walked down the stairs on his own.”

“I didn’t know there was one like that.”

“There was.”

“Wally called me. What the fuck do you want?”

“Wally gave you a skip trace on a guy named Evan Keating.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“He said it took you two weeks to find him. What was so hard about it?”

“You think I hoof it up and down the streets looking for guys at my age? I put an agent on it. Took two weeks to check every hotel in South Beach, locate the guy and put a tail on him.”

8 9

S t u a r t W o o d s

“I hear you lost him.”

“So? People lose things all the time. Anyway, my agent lost him. What’s it to you?”

“I need background on the guy; there’s a hundred in it for you, if you can give me something I need.”

“What do you need?”

“Like I said, background. What was he doing in South Beach?

Did he work? Who were his friends?”

“He was doing what everybody else in South Beach was doing—

looking pretty, drinking, snorting powder and spending money they don’t have, except he had the money. That’ll be a hundred bucks.”

“Come on, Manny, give me something about the guy, not about everybody else.”

Manny thought about it for a moment. “He had a boat. He left in it—that’s why my agent couldn’t figure out where he went.”

“I already knew he had a boat. Give me something worth the hundred.”

“He was staying at the Delano, which, if you don’t already know, is a hotshot hotel for the young and stupid. They got a pretty bar, but the rooms look like underfurnished cells in an insane asylum. The people who stay there think this is stylish.”

“Did he have a girl with him?”

“A different one every night. At least one.”

“How long was he there?”

“A month, give or take, and in a suite, too.”

“Where’d he come from?”