“I’ll get Dino to trace the location of the cell phone,” Stone said.
“Anything else?” Cantor asked.
“Not at the moment.” Stone hung up and called Dino.
“Lieutenant Bacchetti.”
“I just got a call from Carrie’s husband, from a cell phone. He may still be in town; will you run the number for a location?” Stone gave him the number.
“I’ll get back to you,” Dino said, then hung up.
Stone shaved, showered, and dressed, then he took the
Times
down to his study with a second cup of coffee. He had finished reading the paper and was on the crossword when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Dino. Your guy was calling from LaGuardia, at a gate that a Delta flight is scheduled to depart from in five minutes. He may have already been on the plane.”
“Thanks, Dino.”
“Dinner?”
“Sure. See you then.” Stone hung up and called Bob Cantor.
“Cantor.”
“Bob, Max Long called from LaGuardia, and he’s apparently on a Delta flight to Atlanta, leaving now.”
“I’ll have somebody pick up on him there and follow him home. You want my guy to say anything to him?”
“You might have him give Long the impression that he’s under constant police surveillance, without using those words.”
“Give me a description.”
“Get that from Carrie,” Stone said. “I’ve never seen the man. I just know that he’s tall and slim.”
“Will do,” Cantor said. He hung up.
Stone went back to the crossword. It was a bitch, as it often was on Saturdays. He was still working on it nearly three hours later when Cantor called back.
“Hello?”
“It’s Cantor. My guy met your guy and imparted your suggestion to him. He’s tailing him now. I ran his license plate, but it’s still registered to the Habersham Road address; he didn’t bother to change it after moving. I’ll call you back when I get an address.”
“Good going,” Stone said. He went to the kitchen, made a ham and mozzarella sandwich on whole grain, toasted it, and brought it back to the study with a Diet Coke. He finished it and was down to the last couple of impossible words on the crossword when Cantor called again.
“Got a pencil?”
“In my hand.”
“Max Long drove to an apartment complex in northeast Atlanta called Cross Creek. Nice place, with a golf course. My guy couldn’t follow him past the guard at the gate, but fifty got him the address: 1010 Cantey Place. His phone is unlisted, but I’ll have it for you later. You want my guy to surveil?”
“For a couple of days.”
“I can put a watch for his name on the Delta reservations computer,” Cantor said.
“Great idea. That’ll give us some notice if he decides to come back, and we can have him met at LaGuardia.”
“Consider it done,” Cantor said. “By the way, Max Long is six-three, two hundred pounds, longish dark hair going gray, broken nose. I’ll do a search for a photo; shouldn’t be hard to come up with one.”
“Sounds like we’ve got the guy just about boxed,” Stone said.
“We’re getting there.”
“Talk to you later.” Stone hung up and attacked the last two words on the crossword. They took another half hour.
9
STONE AND DINO HAD BEEN
at Elaine’s just long enough to order a drink, when Carrie came rushing in, flushed and excited. Stone signaled for a drink for her. “You look happy,” he said.
“I feel happy,” she said. “I’ve got two very good solos in the show and one absolute, solid-gold showstopper.”
“I look forward to hearing them,” Stone said.
“Not until opening night; I want you to get the full effect.”
“I’m already getting the full effect,” he replied. Their drinks arrived, and they clinked glasses.
Dino spoke up. “It’s nice to see you both so happy.”
“If you’d had my day,” Carrie said, “you’d be happy, too.”
“I
am
happy,” Dino said. “Can’t you tell?”
“He always looks dour,” Stone said. “You could know him for years before seeing him smile.”
“Do you have a wife, Dino?” Carrie asked.
“Had. Don’t want another.”
“A girl?”
“Until recently.”
“What happened?”
“I got tired of obeying. Stone and I spent a little time in Key West, and I discovered I didn’t miss her.”
“He smiled more then,” Stone said.
“If I goose him, will he smile?” Carrie asked.
“If you goose me in the right place,” Dino said.
Carrie laughed, a healthy, unrestrained sound. Dino smiled a little.
“There, I knew I could do it,” she said.
“So, do you know your script and score?” Stone asked.
“I will by Monday morning,” she said.
“How’d it go with Bob and the Leahys?”
“Bob showed me how to work the security system, then left with Max’s box to take it to FedEx. The Leahys are sweet and made me feel very safe. They dropped me off here, and I’ve dismissed them until Monday morning.”
“I think we’ve got Max pretty boxed in now,” Stone said, “so you shouldn’t have to worry. I wouldn’t go back to Atlanta any time soon, though, or if you do, don’t tell anybody who might tell him.”
“How long will we have to deal with this?” she asked.
“It could go two ways: Either he’ll mellow with time, like most people, or he’ll obsess about it until he can’t stand it anymore, and then make a move.”
“Knowing Max, it’s going to be the latter,” she said. “He’s the obsessive type, believe me.”
“Then we’ll just have to be ready for him,” Stone said.
“Am I going to have to have bodyguards for long?”
“Hard to say. Cantor and I may feel better about it in a week or ten days, but when the show opens, that’s when we’ll have to watch ourselves.”
“You mean, watch me.”
“Well, yes. In the meantime, I’ll cultivate his dislike for me. I’m already off to a good start, after only one phone conversation.”
“Why?”
“We’ll see if we can deflect him from you to me. By the way, on Monday morning we’re going to get you a protection order from the court and have it served on him in Atlanta.”
“If you say so,” Carrie replied, “but I have to warn you, he has a broad antiauthoritarian streak. I used to have to pay his speeding tickets to keep him from getting arrested, and he missed a couple of court appearances during the divorce process.”
“Still, if he violates it, it’s an excuse to put him behind bars, and that’s where I’d like him to be.”
“So would I,” Carrie said.
“What was in the box you sent him?” Stone asked.
Carrie sighed. “Two guns he gave me, and some small things of his that somehow got packed with my stuff—neckties, cuff links, socks, things like that.”
“Maybe you should have kept the guns,” Stone said.
“I still have one.”
“Don’t take it out of the house; New York City has a very rigid licensing law, and they turn down everybody who applies, unless you’re carrying around a briefcase full of diamonds or large sums of cash. The city believes that protecting property is more important than protecting life.”
“But you have a gun,” she said. “I saw you put it in the bedside table.”
“I have several guns, but retired cops get licenses. Dino’s packing right now, but he’s still on the force, so he has to.”
“The one I have is small enough to put in my purse,” she said.
“Have you had any firearms training?”
“I fired a .22 rifle at camp when I was twelve.”
“Then you’re more likely to hurt yourself or an innocent bystander than Max.”
“You underestimate me.”
“Maybe so, but here’s the sort of thing that happens. Maybe you’re injured in a taxi accident, and the EMTs come. At the hospital they go through your purse, looking for ID and an address, and they find your gun and call the cops. Then we’re in court, and believe me, you wouldn’t want to go through that.”
“So I’m vulnerable.”
“You have the Leahys, Dino and me, and Cantor. You have your security system and a phone to call 911. If you have to do that, tell the operator that someone has broken into your house and you’re hiding. That will get immediate attention.”
Dino gave her his card. “Put my cell phone number into your speed-dial list,” he said. “You can always get my immediate attention, even though you’re not in my precinct.”
She took out her cell phone and entered the number. “Thank you, Dino.”
The waiter came with menus, and they talked about other things.
10
ON MONDAY MORNING
the Leahys picked up Carrie and took her to her first rehearsal, and Stone went to work in his office, as usual. Shortly after ten o’clock, Joan buzzed Stone. “Bob Cantor on one.”
Stone pressed the button. “Good morning, Bob. Did you have a nice weekend?”
“I did until a minute ago,” Cantor said.
“What’s up?”
“I had my people in Atlanta on Max Long all weekend. They found a cooperative guard on the apartment complex gate who let them in for a hundred. He was in and out until yesterday afternoon, and then he seemed to hunker down for the evening. Then, this morning, FedEx delivered the box I sent him, and nobody answered the door. Since it required a signature, the guy put it back on the truck.
“My guy got suspicious when this happened. He called Long’s phone number, but there was no answer. Finally, he looked in some windows, and there’s nobody home. His car is still parked outside.”
“So, he got past your guy?”
“His place is on the ground floor; he could have left by a back window and called a cab, I guess. This is not good.”
“No, it’s not. Did the airline’s reservation computer alarm go off?”
“Nope.”
“If he booked under a false name, he’d have to show ID at the ticket counter, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes, but he could have made a reservation under another name and had an e-ticket e-mailed to him.”
“Have you warned the Leahys?”
“Yep, and that’s about all we can do for the moment. Carrie is rehearsing at the theater, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. Since Del Wood owns the theater, they didn’t have to go to a studio.”
“How many ways in?”
“Front doors are locked, so the stage door is the only way. There’s a guard there, and we’ve alerted him, but he’s an old guy, and it might not be too hard to get past him.”
“Keep in touch.” Stone hung up.
TEN MINUTES LATER,
Joan buzzed him. “Carrie Cox on one.”
“Hello?”
“What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the Leahys are all over me.”
“That’s their job.”
“Has something happened?”
“Am I interrupting your rehearsal?”
“No. I’m in the ladies’ room on a break.”
“Max has disappeared from his apartment, and we don’t know where he is.”
“Wasn’t somebody watching him?”
“Apparently, he went out a back window.”
“Is he on his way to New York?”
“There was no Delta reservation in his name, but he could already be here, so listen to the Leahys.”
“How’s the weather?”
“What?”
“Between here and Atlanta,” she said.
“Jesus, I don’t know. When I got up this morning the national forecast was for good weather for the entire East Coast.”
“Then he’s in his airplane.”
“He has an airplane?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you mention that before?”
“It didn’t come up.”
“What kind of airplane?”
“It’s a King something or other.”
“A King Air?”
“Yes.”
“With two engines?”
“Right.”
“What’s the tail number?”
“N-something,” she said.
“Every airplane in the United States is N-something.”
“I don’t remember the rest.”
“Does he often fly to New York?”
“Sometimes.”
“Where does he land?”
“I don’t know, exactly.”
“Did you ever fly to New York with him?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he land?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How did you get from the airport to New York?”
“In a limo.”
“Did you go through a tunnel?”
“No, we went over a bridge, the big one.”
“The George Washington Bridge?”