Dishonorable Intentions (19 page)

S
tone slept soundly until mid-morning, when Bob stuck a cold nose in his ear.

“What have you got against sleep?” he asked the dog, and got his answer from a floor-thumping tail. “You want to go out?”

Bob's response was affirmative.

“Go see Gala.”

Bob did as he was told.

—

S
tone was showered and shaved in time for lunch, then he made a call to the ranger who had investigated the bear earlier.

“I thought you were going to remove the bear,” he said to the man.

“We did. We anesthetized her, drove her up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and left her there to regain consciousness. She was already stirring when we left her.”

“How about her cubs?”

“We never spotted them.”

“Well, I think she must have come back for them, because the dog went off in the middle of the night, and I found a large pile of scat behind the house. Are the cubs old enough to survive on their own?”

“Either she's nursing them again, or they didn't make it.”

“You want to have another shot at removing her?”

“I've got a new assignment that's taking all my time.”

“Can I hire a private contractor to do the job?”

“If you know one, sure. All the guys I know would just kill her and the cubs, too.”

“I don't want that.”

“There's one other possibility that you should keep in mind.”

“What's that?”

“This might not be the she-bear. It could be her mate, and he could be a lot harder to handle.”

“Uh-oh. What's your best advice?”

“Two things. One, don't leave any food outside, and bring your garbage cans indoors. I've already told your neighbors to do that.”

“What's number two?”

“Move out.”

“For how long?”

“I wish I could tell you that—long enough for the bear to give up on finding food around the place, and who knows how long that is?”

Stone thanked the man and hung up, then he went into the bedroom, found Gala and reported his conversation with the ranger.

“So you want to go back to New York?”

“L.A. is closer. I've got an Arrington board meeting coming up out there in a few days—that might be long enough for the bear to forget about us.”

“I guess I can finish my screenplay in L.A.”

“I'll give you the study at the house—you can avoid interruption there.”

She shrugged. “All right, but remember, Boris lives in L.A.”

“We'll lie low—he won't know we're there.”

—

B
efore they took off, Stone called his son, Peter.

“Hi, Dad, you still in England?”

“No, I'm in Santa Fe, but I'll be in L.A. tonight. Can you and Ben and the girls come to dinner?”

“I can. I'll check with Ben.”

“Ask Billy Barnett and his wife, too.”

“All right.”

“Leave me a voice mail about how many to expect.”

“Will do. Seven o'clock all right?”

“Come at six for a drink.”

“Okay.”

They hung up.

—

S
tone, Gala, and Bob landed at Santa Monica Airport at mid-afternoon and an Arrington car drove them to the hotel and home, to his house on the grounds. He got a message from Peter that there'd be six coming for dinner. He called his regular chef and gave her the news, then discussed a menu.

Everybody was there a little after six, and they had drinks beside the pool. When he had a chance, Stone sat down next to Billy Barnett, formerly Teddy Fay, in an earlier existence.

“I've been having some problems, Billy,” he said.

“I've read about some of them.”

“They're continuing. I tried to get him deported, but my plan backfired. I had a visit in England from Lance Cabot, who warned me that Tirov was still a threat. Mike Freeman put some people around my house, and one of them ended up in the hospital. Mike advised me to get back to the States. We went to Gala's place in Santa Fe, but we've had continuing bear problems there and we were advised to get out for a while. I've got a board meeting here in a couple of days, so this seemed like the best idea.”

“Does Tirov know you're here?”

“Not that I'm aware of. It's my intention to stay holed up here until after the meeting.”

“It sounds to me like Tirov is not going to be easy to discourage. Do you know what he wants?”

“Gala, I guess, but any sensible man would know that's not going to happen.”

“Anything else?”

“Maybe me, dead.”

“That's a serious problem and one that requires immediate attention.”

“I'm doing all I can.”

“Why don't I have a word with him?”

“A word? What does that mean?”

“It means I'll speak to him, see if he'll listen to reason.”

“Why do you think that might work?”

“The man's a bully. He has that reputation, anyway. Bullies are accustomed to being the aggressor, the dominator. They're unaccustomed to being called on it.”

“And how do you call him on it?”

“By invading his space.”

“Do I want to know how this will happen?”

“No, you don't.”

“I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.”

“Are you comfortable being the prey in this relationship?”

“Of course not.”

“That won't change, unless Tirov is made to believe he should change his behavior.”

“I don't want him dead, Billy.”

“I would, in your circumstances, but I understand your
qualms. Perhaps we can solve this and still leave him less than dead.”

“What does ‘less than dead' mean?”

“It's one of those expressions that offers a broad latitude in results. Perhaps we can just cause him to be less comfortable in his skin.”

“I think I would be good with that.”

“Then consider it done.”

B
ack when Billy Barnett had been Teddy Fay, he had been a very careful man. He still was.

Teddy had spent twenty years working for the CIA, but not as an operative. He had risen to become head of the Agency's Technical Services division, where his work had been to supply and equip undercover agents with the tools that enabled them to carry out covert operations—weapons, clothing, poisons, burglars' tools, disguises—whatever they needed. In order for Teddy to do his job effectively he had to know the nature and details of each mission, and he had stored this information in his commodious memory. After his retirement he had begun carrying out missions of his own devising, which had not endeared him to the government and agency he had served so well for so many years.

Thus, he had become a fugitive, which had required a great many new skills. Finally, after acting to save the lives of two
young men, Peter Barrington and Ben Bacchetti, the gratitude of Stone Barrington and his friendship with both the former and current presidents had resulted in a presidential pardon for Teddy's sins, for reasons of national security and sealed against any inquiry.

Teddy had become Billy Barnett and had gone to work for the two young men, who were beginning their careers as filmmakers, and eventually, after doing all sorts of jobs for them, he found himself serving in a production role, at which he was very good. When Ben had been promoted to head of production for the studio, there was more and better-paid work for Billy.

Billy had refrained from employing Teddy's methods, except on rare occasions, when the safety of his benefactors was in question, and it was clear to him now that the safety of Stone Barrington was in question.

Billy had developed a disaffinity for Russian mobsters. He had found them to be blunt instruments, without finesse and without much guile, either. From his earlier dealings with them he made some suppositions about Boris Tirov: he thought that Tirov would be guarded by two large men, partly out of a native paranoia, but also out of parsimony—he would be unwilling to pay more people, except under extreme duress. He thought that Tirov, who he knew to be very wealthy, would live in a well-fenced property, but not one so large as to require more security people. He knew there would be a dog, but probably just the one. There would also be a security system, but it would be little
used, because Tirov would believe that two men and a dog were better, and because, with the three of them roaming the house and grounds, they would be continually setting off alarms, disturbing their master's sleep.

Billy took a day to scout Tirov's property and confirm all his suppositions, then he prepared. He visited the arsenal of Centurion Studios, where hundreds of weapons were housed, waiting to be used in shoot-'em-up films of all descriptions. There he found a dart gun, which he had designed and made for a film some years before. He paid a nighttime visit to the studio's pharmacy, part of the clinic the company maintained for its employees, and there chose a surgical tranquilizer, which allowed patients to remain conscious but immobilized and pain-free during minor procedures, so as to be able to answer the doctor's questions during surgery.

Thus armed, he stopped on the way home from work and purchased a Scotch egg, a snack preferred by the British members of the film community.

He went home, had dinner with his wife, and went to bed. He awoke at two
AM
, dressed in black clothing, and went to his car. He drove into the Hollywood Hills and found Tirov's house, then parked, facing downhill, two doors up the street. As he approached the target house, he heard a loud bark from the rear of the property. He leaned against the fence and gave a low whistle, then he heard the dog running toward him. He removed the wrapping from the Scotch egg, which was simply a boiled egg, packed in sausage and injected with a bit of tranquilizer,
and tossed it over the fence. The dog, with its hypersensitive sense of smell, located it immediately, and Billy could hear him devouring it. Soon, he became quiet.

Billy chinned the fence and looked over. Perhaps twenty feet away was the lump of a sleeping Alsatian. He placed both hands on the fence top, vaulted it, and knelt at the base of the hedge inside the fence. There he removed the dart gun from his bag and waited. Soon, a large bald man came out of the house, looked around and knelt by the dog, murmuring to it in Russian. Billy shot him with the dart and watched him crumple next to the sleeping dog. Two down, one to go.

He went to the sleeping man, found a semiautomatic pistol on his belt, removed it, and threw it into the hedge. He went to the rear of the house and peered into a kitchen, where another large man was making a sandwich. He sat down at a table, took a bite and chewed thoughtfully; then he put down the sandwich and came out the back door. “Sergei?” he called. “Sergei?”

Billy shot him with another dart. He fell to his knees, groping at his back to find what had bitten him. Billy walked over and struck him once at the back of the neck, and he fell forward, out.

Billy now knew that there were no motion detectors in the backyard, nor was the kitchen door armed as part of the alarm system. He walked into the kitchen, then stood for about a minute, listening for any footstep or hostile noise, while reloading the dart gun. From there, it was a simple matter to find the master bedroom, since someone there was snoring loudly.

Billy peered around the doorjamb and saw a sleeping male figure, who was doing the snoring. He also noted that the far side of the bed had been slept in and that there was a light on in the bathroom. Best to wait.

After five minutes or so Billy was surprised to see a young woman, quite naked, emerge from the bathroom, dress, and gather her things, including some cash from a bedside table. Billy flattened against the wall. The bathroom light went out, and the woman left the bedroom and walked down the hall to the front door and out of the house. Outside, a car started and drove away. Billy had not seen a car parked out front, so he assumed that the woman had called for a pickup.

Now Billy stepped into the bedroom and fired a dart into the snoring figure on the bed. The man sat bolt upright for a moment, then fell back and began snoring again. Billy unscrewed the dart assembly from the end of the air pistol that held it, then walked to the bed and sat down on the edge. He pinched the man's nostrils closed, and his mouth fell open. Billy placed the barrel of the gun in his mouth and watched his eyes open in shock.

“Good evening, Boris,” Billy said in a quiet voice. “Can you hear me?”

Tirov nodded.

“Good. I have an important message for you. I was asked by a friend to come here and either give you a message or kill you—my call. Do you understand?”

Tirov nodded and tried to speak. “Shut up, Boris,” Billy said,
and he did. “Good. I have decided to deliver the message, instead of killing you. Do you understand?”

Tirov nodded.

“Now, you have been misbehaving, making enemies everywhere. You have been thrown out of bars and clubhouses, you have been shunned by a major film studio, and you have come within an ace of being deported to your native country, where a murder charge awaited you. I congratulate you on weaseling out of that one, but your weaseling days are over. Hereafter, you are going to become a charmer, warm and friendly to everyone. Do you understand?”

Boris nodded.

“If you harm or cause to be harmed any person, or insult or anger anyone at all, whether a studio executive, a waiter, or a car parker, I will hear about it, because I hear everything. Then I will come back into your home and kill you in your sleep. Do you understand?”

Boris nodded.

“Do you believe me?”

Boris nodded.

Billy removed the gun from his mouth. “Now you may go back to sleep.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Boris managed to ask.

“Why, I thought you knew, Boris—I'm your worst nightmare. Sleep tight.” Billy got up and went into the kitchen. He took a small electronic device from a pocket and laid it on the counter next to the phone. He unscrewed the mouthpiece of the
instrument, then connected the device to two wires inside, then he replaced the mouthpiece and left by the front door. He walked up the street to his car, got in, released the brake, and let it roll downhill to the next corner. There he started the engine and drove home.

“That ought to do it,” Billy said aloud to himself.