AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Tell me.”
“The kid cop from East Hampton called to say that an ID card of sorts had been found on the body of the dead guy.”
“What kind of ID?”
“One with the name ‘Mac’ written on it.”
“Just ‘Mac’? And who issued the card?”
“The YMCA on the West Side.”
“So now we’ve got a nexus with the Black Dog, Eddie Jr.!”
“Not so fast, my friend. They don’t have any record of an Eddie Charles Jr. as a guest there.”
Stone frowned. “How about a record of Mac’s whole name?”
“Nope. It’s not that easy to get lucky on this case.”
“Fingerprints?”
“There you got lucky. John Joseph MacLean.”
“Well, he had to have gotten the pistol from Eddie.”
“Once again, not so fast. Mr. MacLean has done time for burglary and was skillful enough to have gotten nailed only once. He could have burgled the house and got interrupted by Annetta and desired to eliminate her as a witness. Or somebody else did and sold the gun to Mac.”
“Somebody like Eddie Jr.?”
“Maybe, but prove it.”
“That’s your job, not mine.”
“Oh, you’ve just been keeping your hand in, huh?”
“In a manner of speaking. Oh, I had a call from Sergeant Powell, too, asking me to get you to give his gun back.”
“Hisgun?”
“I pointed out his error. He wants to show it off to his chief.”
“Well, fuck his chief and the horse he rode in on.”
“I predicted to him that something like that would be your reaction, thus saving you from having to deal with him again.”
Dino drained his glass and signaled the bartender for a refill. “You know me so well,” he said.
“I do?”
“No, the bartender does.”
FORTY-ONE
Stone went down to work the following morning and was surprised to find Joan there, bustling around his office.
“I thought you were in East Hampton. What are you doing here?” Stone asked.
“Cleaning up after you,” she said. “It’s astonishing how big a mess you can make in such a short time.”
