“Tell me about Marty Winkle’s operation,” Stone said.

“I was very impressed,” Pepe said. “I also liked it that his building is quite large. If we can make an initial success of distributing here, then there’s room on the property for a brewing operation. But I’m worried about Gino Parisi’s threat of preventing me from getting a business license.”

“Then I think what we should do is, instead of just buying Marty’s assets, buy the corporation, after satisfying ourselves that there are no liabilities attached. If you own the corporation, you own the license, though you may have to get the sanction of the licensing board. Later on, you’d need another license for brewing, but I think the State of New York would be very happy to have a new brewery in the state. We’ll see, too, what tax incentives they’ll give us for establishing here.”

Pepe shook his hand. “Thanks so much for all your help, Stone. My CFO and accountant will be here tomorrow, and after they’ve looked things over, I’ll give you a call and let you know where we go from here.”

The two men parted, and Stone went home to call Dino. He wanted to find out more about Bowsprit Beverages and its owners, Brubeck and Parisi.

Chapter 5

Stone called Dino. “There’s a problem you maybe should have a look at.”

“The city is full of those,” Dino replied.

“This one might be more fun. It’s something called Bowsprit Beverages. It’s a liquor and beer distributor, and it appears they play hardball. They tried to get tough with my client Pepe Perado—even said that if he started his own distributorship, they’d torpedo his license application.”

“That doesn’t sound too good,” Dino admitted.

“Something else: remember the two dirty ex-cops, Ryan and Parisi? Well, the partners at Bowsprit are Jerry Brubeck and—wait for it—Gino Parisi.”

“That last one rings a distant bell. I’ll look into it.”

“One more item: Ryan and Parisi the younger are still dogging my client, and they knew he was staying at the Waldorf.”

“Okay, I’ll get our organized crime guys to have a sniff at it. Anything else your police department can do for you today?”

“Well, there’s been a lot of double-parking on my street lately.”

“Let the air out of their tires.” Dino hung up.

Stone hung up, too. He had no plans for the evening, and he didn’t like reading after dark. Also, there were no more old movies on TV to watch, since he’d seen them all at least three times. It seemed that the more recently produced movies made bad old movies. He picked up the phone, called Kelly & Kelly, and asked for Caroline Woodhouse.

“This is Caroline.”

“This is Stone Barrington. Hello again.”

“All right, hello again.”