Unintended Consequences - By Stuart Woods

40





Stone awoke a little before eight to the smell of bacon wafting up the stairs from the kitchen. He showered, shaved, and dressed while Helga slept on like a gorgeous Swedish statue, then he went downstairs. Dino and Viv were at the table.

“Morning,” they said.

“Good morning. Helga is still out like a light. Is Marcel still asleep, too?”

“No, Marcel is awake,” a voice said from the door behind him. Marcel came into the kitchen, sat down, and helped himself to muffins, eggs, and bacon. “I don’t know why,” he said, “but I slept like a child.”

“It’s the country air,” Stone said.

“I suppose so. Anything new?”

Viv spoke up. “I got ahold of the state police last night and went with them to check out the van. It was gone.”

“Gone?” Stone asked. “Where would they have got a wrecker in the middle of the night?”

“We reckoned they must have just rolled the van upright and driven it away.”

“Then there was more than one of them.”

“Probably more than two,” Viv said. “It was a big van.”

“Did you see anything inside it that might help us find it?” Stone asked.

“No, we were concentrating on the people who had been inside. I expected that the state police would haul in the van and go over it properly. They put out an alert for it, but the van was probably back in New York by the time we got to the scene. Oh, I reported your phone out, so somebody should be here soon to reconnect it.”

“Thanks.”

“So what do we do now?” Dino asked.

“How about just enjoy our weekend?” Stone suggested. “My house won’t have any windows in it until Monday morning, so there’s no point in going back to the city.”

“How should we enjoy our weekend?” Dino asked.

“I don’t know—lunch at a country inn and some antiquing?”

“Antiquing?” Dino said. “My favorite thing!”

“Dino,” Viv said, “we’re apartment hunting, remember? We’re going to need new things to fill up a bigger place. Antiquing sounds good to me.”

“Then there’s golf,” Stone said.

“Ha!” Dino said. “Viv, you antique, we’ll golf.”

“I’ll go with Viv,” Marcel said. “I’ve never seen any of New England.”

“Okay,” Stone said, “drinks at six, followed by dinner in Litchfield. I booked a table at the West Street Grill before we left. Viv, you and Marcel take the security guys with you.”

“Done,” Viv said.

“I wonder if Helga plays golf,” Stone said.

• • •

Helga, as it happened, played to a six handicap and won all of Stone’s and Dino’s money. They got back to the house just in time to clean up and have drinks.

“I won!” Helga said as she walked into the library.

“Gloating is unattractive,” Stone said.

“Gloating is fun!” she cried.

“How was the antiquing?” Stone asked Viv. “To change the subject.”

“It was spectacular!” she replied. “I found a couple of good pictures, a beautiful set of china, and a dining room table and twelve chairs! I couldn’t believe it!”

“I don’t believe it now,” Dino said. “We don’t have a dining room.”

“We will have, and they’ve agreed to deliver when we move in.”

“Where are you looking?” Stone asked.

“Upper East Side,” Viv replied. “I’ve already seen a dozen places. Dino has seen two.”

“I work for a living,” Dino said.

“I work for a living, too,” Viv said. “He just doesn’t like the idea of moving.”

“I like my place.”

“It was a great bachelor apartment, Dino, but you’re not a bachelor anymore, and there isn’t enough closet space or a dining room or a study for you and one for me.”

“I would like a study,” Dino admitted.

“Also, now that you’re in the NYPD hierarchy, we’re going to have to entertain a lot.”

“Now and then,” Dino said, “not a lot.”

“She’s right, Dino,” Stone said. “You’re going to have to have the commissioner over a lot, maybe even the mayor, and a lot of people whose friendship the department needs. It will be expected of you.”

“I hate it when they expect stuff from me,” Dino said grumpily.

“You don’t hate going to other people’s houses and eating their food and drinking their scotch,” Viv said.

“Yeah, I like that okay.”

“It’ll be more fun in your own home. I’m looking at a place Monday on Park in the Sixties, and I just have a feeling . . .”

“Uh-oh,” Dino said. “The feeling. I’ve learned that the feeling is irresistible.”

“My lawyers are meeting with Bill Eggers over the weekend,” Marcel said. “By Monday, we should have a contract.”

“You’re very easy to deal with, Marcel.”

“When both sides know they want the same things, it’s easy to agree. I’ve cultivated a reputation for being easy to deal with. It makes others easy to deal with, as well. You don’t learn that in your business schools over here. Your businessmen look upon a negotiation as a fight. I look upon it as making everybody happy. And achieving agreement is cheaper than fighting.”

“You should write a business book, Marcel,” Stone said.

“I’ve already written thirty chapters,” Marcel replied. “And I don’t have to worry about getting it accepted by a publisher, because I own a publishing house.”

Everybody laughed.

“There, laughter,” Marcel said, “that’s a nice sound. I haven’t heard that sound since dinner last night.”

• • •

They had a good dinner, followed on Sunday by sitting around and reading The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, then more golf and more antiquing, followed by dinner at home, prepared by Viv and Helga. They got up early Monday morning, had a good breakfast, and drove back to the city, unthreatened by black vans.

• • •

As they drove up to his house, Stone stopped before opening the garage door and looked at the building. “Nothing has changed,” he said. “They didn’t install the windows.”

“Or,” Dino said, “maybe they did such a good job that you can’t tell the new windows from the old ones.”

Dino turned out to be right.