Excerpt #4 - Stone & Steele

This excerpt showcases the chemistry between partners Rico Steele and Sam "Stone" Mason. 
Rico Steele inhaled his Winston deep into his lungs and blew the smoke out his half-open driver side window.  "I'm tired of sitting, Stone."
"It isn't cold enough, you got to have the window open?" his partner asked.  He sipped his coffee, made a face, and turned the collar of his leather coat up around his ears. "What the hell kind of weather is this for September?  What the hell ever happened to global warming?"
"Maalox," Steele said.
"What?  Maalox what?"
"It's true.  They found out that global warming was being caused by cows farting and burping.  So they feed them Maalox now and it stopped.  We're going to have a freaking ice age, because freaking cows don't freaking know how to freaking behave themselves.  Meanwhile, every time you take a deep breath, you're inhaling cow farts."
"It's better than inhaling your damned cigarette smoke," Stone said.  "Being with you is like living in a coal mine.  A coal mine filled with farting cows and smoking degenerates."
"Oh, shaddup, all you do is complain.  I'm getting tired of you," Steele said.
 "Maybe if you had heat in this damned truck of yours.  Don't know why you bought a truck anyway.  Who needs a truck in New York City?"
"It's not a truck.  It's a compact SUV." 
"You're a terrorist.  I heard it on Fox News.  Out in California, they say anybody who drives an SUV is a terrorist and supports Al-Qaeda," said Stone.
"How the hell they figure that out?"
"Because of gas, Steele.  What do you get, three blocks a gallon?  Because of you and all the other terrorists, we've got to buy oil from the Arabs.  And all that money goes to Osama bin Laden's fans."
"That is such crap," Steele said.  He tossed his cigarette out the window and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of the gray Hyundai Santa Fe.  He wondered if it was true that Arab oil money financed terrorism.  Stone had been his partner on and off the job for twenty years and while he did like to bust Steele's chops, he also knew a lot of things that other people didn't know.  Maybe he would get rid of the SUV when the lease was up; maybe it was time for a motorcycle.
He stared across the street at Irving Jerome's office building.  It had a little more personality than its neighbors.  They were glass and steel monstrosities but this building was stepped like a wedding cake, a series of boxes stacked big to small as you moved up.  Jerome's office was on the bottom level of the third box from the top, with a little balcony outside, and very easy to see into from across the street where he and Stone had observed the crooked lawyer for the last two weeks.  Jerome was in early every day and then off for the opening of court.  Almost as soon as Jerome was gone, his receptionist left the building too, usually for no more than half an hour. 
It would be time enough, Steele hoped.
He looked across at his partner.  "You know who I'd like to bang?"
"Let's see.  Yesterday it was Winona Ryder and Ashley Judd.  Who's the object of your affections today?" Stone asked.
"Ryder and Judd, only in a threesome.  One on one, I'd like to bang Ruby Sanchez."
"Get out of here," Stone said.
"What's wrong with that?  She's beautiful and she's got a great ass."
"Exactly.  And that's why she won't have anything to do with you."
"Why?  Why won't she have anything to do with me?" Steele said.
"Because you are a big funny-looking white guy.  She takes a look at you and she sees this guy wearing dopey red-and-white basketball shoes and high-water pants and driving a truck and she says to herself, this guy is just country.  Seriously, what would she want with you?  She takes you back home to meet mama and she gets laughed out of the hood.  Do yourself a favor.  Keep sniffing after Winona and Ashley.  Maybe you can take Winona shopping some day.  Whatever she steals, you can stick in the back of the truck."
Steele lit another Winston.  "Maybe you can put in a good word for me with Ruby.  You know, one black humanoid to another."
"Not a chance.  I like Ruby too much for that.  Besides, if Gorman ever found out you were sniffing around her, there'd be hell to pay."
"Aaaaah, I'm not afraid of Gorman."
"That's just proof of how dumb you are," Stone said.  "Wait.  There he is."
As the two men looked out the window across Park Avenue, Irving Jerome left his office building, stepped to the curb and hailed a cab.
"Let's go," Steele said.
"Wait five minutes for the girl to leave.  And listen, we're in there and we're out.  We're not going to shoot anybody or get in a fight or do anything stupid.  Let's see if we can find something that pins Jerome to buying off a juror.  That's all we want."
"Well, I'm glad of that," Steele said.  "I'm so tired of always winding up in trouble because you're like a crazy man.  There she goes."
Jerome's secretary, short and blonde, came quickly out of the building, belting a trench coat around her against the unseasonable chill.  As she walked down the block, the two men stepped from the parked vehicle.  Samuel Mason was six feet one and as black as men get.  He was built like a running back with short hair and amber eyes.  His face seemed to be composed of flat planes, joined together at sharp angles.  His no-nonsense manner and graveyard voice, as much as his chiseled features, had brought on him the nickname Stone.  As in gravestone.
Rickard. "Rico" Steele was, by contrast, so white, he seemed to be his partner's negative image.  If Stone looked like a running back, Steele was built like an NBA power forward.  He was three inches taller than his partner and his natural pallor and washed-out blue eyes showed his Swedish heritage.  His hair was that perfect Nordic blonde and almost shoulder length.  He wore khakis and a denim jacket, left open as if in defiance of the early autumn breeze.   Stone, on the other hand, wore a dark suit and a black leather topcoat and carried a briefcase.
"I must look like a lawyer escorting some perp into a precinct house," Stone mumbled under his breath as they walked across the street.
Want more? Read other excerpts and character interviews in earlier posts of this blog. If you want it all, Amazon is accepting advance orders for Beyond Blue now.