Page 9 of Near Miss

Chapter 6

Trench Molder snapped the padlock on his locker shut, then walked into the weight room at the East Side Athletic Club and immediately saw Huff across the room, helping another member. Huff saw him, too, and quickly looked away. Trench didn’t like that. Huff had no reason to be furtive with him.

Trench worked his way slowly through his routine. Eventually, Huff got around to him. “Hey, Huff.”

“Hey, Trench.”

“What’s wrong?”

Huff heaved a deep sigh.

“Did you make any progress on the Barrington matter?”

“I’m sorry, Trench. Barrington made me, and so did his pal, Bacchetti.”

“C’mon, Huff, you’re slicker than that.”

“I usually am,” Huff said, “but not today.”

“What happened?”

“I walked into his line of sight.”

“So?”

“Twice. Now he’s curious, and I can’t approach if I’m on his mind.”

“It could happen to anybody, Huff.”

“Not to me. Not ever before. He’s smarter than I thought.”

“Smarter than I thought, too,” Trench said. “So now, what’s your plan?”

“Cool it down for a while. Otherwise, when he sees me on the street again, he’ll approach, and then I’m useless to you.”

“Cool it for how long?”

“Say a couple of weeks. I’ll stick close to home. No contact at all. He’ll eventually forget about me, and then I can do my work. I know you wanted immediate action, but at least you’re not out any money.”

“Let’s leave it like this, Huff,” Trench said. “You do your work in your own good time, and I’ll be satisfied with that. On the other hand, I won’t forget, either.”

“That’s good of you,” Huff said.

“Just let me know when you’re ready.”

The party at Herb Fisher’s was good, and Stone and Matilda immediately fell into the swing of things. There was a jazz pianist and a bass player, which kept the party moving. The noise level, as it does in a good room, went up.

Then, an unwelcome sight greeted Stone: Trench Molder walked into the room with a beautiful blonde on his arm.

“Did you see?” Matilda asked.

“I saw. Ignore him. If he speaks to you, don’t respond. That’ll give his girlfriend something to ask him about, and he won’t have a good answer.”

“Good idea.”

They dragged some stools up to the piano and hung there. Stone liked the way the pianist played, putting thought into the music. Normally, as a kind of joke, Stone would ask a pianist to play “Lush Life,” a Billy Strayhorn ballad so complex that nobody could remember it without the sheet music.

But this guy probably would, Stone surmised.

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