Page 7 of Near Miss

“No matter. I’ll do my research. Is he likely to fight back?”

“If he’s conscious,” Molder said.

Huff laughed. “I’ll take him out with the first punch, then work on him at my leisure.”

“That sounds like the way to go.”

“Is there a message to deliver?”

“You can just say, ‘Compliments of a friend,’ before you knock him out.”

“You want your name mentioned?”

“No, but you can say that your visit is a message from Matilda.”

“Is that a real name?”

“It is. A bit old-fashioned, but it suits her.”

“Should she be present to witness the beating?”

“Why not.”

“Would you like anything done to her?”

“Whatever you feel like,” Molder said, grinning.

“She can be the punctuation mark on delivery.”

“Don’t mark her face. I want her presentable.”

“It’s your dime. If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.”

“Pick your own methods,” Molder said. “I’ll leave an envelope in your box, as soon as I hear the work is done.”

“Fine by me. Does Barrington have any skills I should know about? Karate or boxing?”

“Nah, he’s a ladies’ man.”

“Well, I’ll see that he doesn’t have anything to work with for a while. Final question: Is he likely to be armed?”

“I don’t see any reason why he should be. He won’t be expecting you.”

“I’ll do my due diligence, then.” Huff left the locker room happy. He could use the unexpected five hundred.

Chapter 5

The next day Stone had a business meeting uptown with a client, and when he came back to the car, he saw a man looking at him. The man quickly looked away, and Stone filed the memoryof the shape and heft of the figure as he crossed the street and strode away. He thought the man very confident, sure of himself. He wondered why the man felt that way.

Stone lunched with Dino at their mutual club in the East Sixties, a place so anonymous that it didn’t have a proper name. Its members referred to it as “the club” or “the place uptown,” and the membership was thick with men and women of influence.

“A threat?” Dino asked.

“Not exactly, but he looked as though he could be, if he chose to.”

“Description?”

“Six three or four, wearing a blue suit. Thick neck, long arms, mostly bald.”

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