Read Online Standup Guy by Stuart Woods - Free Book Online

were a few of those,” the blonde said, then moved the conversation to another subject.
    Joan switched off the set. “Looks like the guy from the
Times
isn’t the only one on your trail,” she said, then she went back to her desk.
    Stone’s private line rang, and he picked it up. “Hello?”
    “It’s Dino. I hear Fox News is calling you a big-time New York attorney.”
    “That sounds more like Bill Eggers,” Stone said. “And what are you doing watching TV at this time of the morning? You should be ashamed of yourself, wasting the city’s money that way.”
    “Somebody told me about it,” Dino said defensively.
    “Nah, you were watching Faux News. Bad Dino!”
    “All right, I turned it on to what was said about a police shooting last night, and I just happened to hear.”
    “What police shooting?”
    “Sean Donnelly got popped coming out of P.J. Clarke’s in the middle of the night. He had apparently closed the place.”
    “Is Sean dead?”
    “No, it was a chest wound, caught a lung instead of his heart. He’ll live.”
    “Who the hell would shoot a cop who’s been retired for fifteen years?”
    “Good question. We’re looking at his old cases. Maybe somebody Sean put away got sprung and is holding a grudge.”
    “I think I’ll send him a dozen roses,” Stone said, “just to piss him off.”
    Dino laughed hard. “And don’t include a card, it will drive him nuts!”
    “Where have they got him?”
    “New York Hospital.”
    “Consider it done.”
    “You want dinner this evening? Viv’s back, and she’s always happy to see you.”
    “Sure.”
    “Clarke’s at eight?”
    “You’re on.” Stone hung up and buzzed Joan. “Sean Donnelly caught a bullet last night. He’s at New York Hospital. Send him a dozen red roses, no card, and book me a table for three at Clarke’s, please, eight o’clock.”
    “Done,” she said.
    Stone picked up a stack of mail and leafed through it. An envelope with a Palm Beach, Florida, postmark caught his eye, and he opened it: a twenties-style cartoon of a man under a beach umbrella, a cocktail in one hand and a cigar in the other. Scrawled at the bottom
: Good advice, thanks! J.F.
    Well,
Stone thought,
John Fratelli can afford Palm Beach
.

16
    Dino Bacchetti attended a meeting at an uptown precinct, and among the subjects discussed was the shooting of Sean Donnelly.
    “What’s happening with that?” Dino asked the group.
    A detective spoke up. “We’re doing the obvious—checking his old cases for somebody newly out of the joint who has a grudge, but nothing yet. Donnelly’s being a bastard, won’t give us anything.”
    “Why do you think he’s holding out on us?” Dino asked.
    “I think he’s scared the perp will have another shot at him if he talks,” the detective replied.
    The meeting broke up, and Dino got into his car and headed back downtown. Then they were passing New York Hospital, and he said to his driver, “Pull into the hospital. I want to visit somebody.”
    Sean Donnelly was sitting up in bed, his left arm in a sling, disconsolately watching Fox News. He turned and saw Dinostanding in the doorway, then turned back to the TV without speaking. A large vase of red roses rested on the windowsill.
    “So, Sean,” Dino said, pulling up a chair to Donnelly’s bedside. “Tell me who shot you last night.”
    “No idea,” Donnelly replied. “The blonde’s not bad, is she? I wouldn’t kick her out of the sack.”
    “How come you’re stiffing the detectives on your case, Sean?”
    “Spectacular tits, huh? Where do they find these women? You don’t see them on MSNBC—they’ve all gotta be so fucking smart over there. Either that or they’re dykes, like whatshername.”
    “Sean, look at me,” Dino said.
    Donnelly glanced at him, then turned back to the TV. “I’d rather look at the blonde’s tits, if it’s all the same to you, Dino.”
    “I guess you retired before the department stopped us from talking like that,”