Free Standup Guy by Stuart Woods Page A

the way.”
    Everybody laughed. Then the doorbell rang, and the laughter stopped.
    “Who the hell is that, this time of night?” Dino asked.
    Stone pressed a button on the phone on his desk and a small screen lit up, revealing a well-lit person wearing a blue shirt and a blue baseball cap, standing with his back to the door. “Yes?” he asked into the phone.
    The man didn’t turn around but waved something that looked like a FedEx envelope. “Mr. Barrington? Delivery.”
    “Just put it through the slot in the door,” Stone replied.
    “Sorry, I need a signature.”
    “Be right with you.” Stone stood up.
    “Watch yourself, pal,” Dino said, standing himself. He unholstered a handgun.
    “Be right back,” Stone said, unholstering his own weapon.
    Viv walked to the door and stood where she could see them.
    Stone went to the door, put the chain on, and opened it a crack, standing well away from it. “Okay,” he said, “hand it through.”
    An envelope came through the door and, simultaneously, there came two rapid booms from the other side of the door, and it moved inward, yanking the chain tight. Then there was the sound of running footsteps, the slamming of a car door, and the noise of rubber burning.
    Stone unhooked the chain, but Dino grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back. “This is a police matter,” he said, stepping onto the front stoop, his gun held before him.
    Stone pulled the door open and looked over his shoulder. Taillights turned right on Second Avenue. “You see anything?”
    “Just the taillights,” Dino replied. He pointed at the front door, where pockmarks had been left and paint burned away.
    “Looks like buckshot,” he said. “You’re going to need a painter.”
    “Guess so,” Stone said. “You going to call this in?”
    “Yeah, but it won’t help much. I’ll put a squad car out front for the night, though, so you can get some sleep.” He produced a cell phone and barked some orders.
    When they returned to the study, Hank had not moved from the sofa. “What was that noise?” she asked.
    “A shotgun,” Dino replied. “There was an attempt on Stone’s life. The front door took the damage.”
    “Won’t a shotgun shoot through a door?”
    “Not a heavy-gauge steel door,” Stone said, picking up his cognac and joining her on the sofa.
    “Why do you have a heavy-gauge steel front door, instead of an oak one, like everybody else?” Hank asked.
    “Oh, a thick oak door would have probably withstood the blast,” he said, “but it would have needed replacing. The steel door will just need a little filler and paint.”
    “Suppose someone had fired through a window?”
    “The windows are armored glass,” Stone replied. “I once had a guest important to the government for some days, and they replaced the door and all the windows, as a security precaution.”
    “So your house is an impregnable fortress?”
    “It probably wouldn’t stand up to a rocket-propelled grenade,” he said, “but those are in short supply in New York City.”
    “You live in a different world from mine,” Hank said.
    “Not really, mine just has harder surfaces.”
    “How did you come to own this house?”
    “Back when I was still a serving police detective, with Dino as a partner, my great-aunt—my maternal grandmother’s sister—died and left it to me. She and her husband had built it during the 1920s. I renovated it over a period of a year and a half, doing all the work myself that didn’t require a plumber’s or an electrician’s license. My father was a cabinet and furniture maker—an artist, really. He made all the shelves, all the doors, and much of the furniture, like the dining table and chairs. I refinished those, updated the kitchen and the electrical supply, air-conditioned it and, voilà, a home.”
    “And a free one.”
    “Hardly. It took all the money I had and all I could borrow, and thousands of hours of labor, most of it mine. I had to use my old law degree