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BOOKS BY STUART WOODS

FICTION

Hot Pursuit

Insatiable Appetites†

Paris Match†

Cut and Thrust†

Carnal Curiosity†

Standup Guy†

Doing Hard Time†

Unintended Consequences†

Collateral Damage†

Severe Clear†

Unnatural Acts†

D.C. Dead†

Son of Stone†

Bel-Air Dead†

Strategic Moves†

Santa Fe Edge§

Lucid Intervals†

Kisser†

Hothouse Orchid*

Loitering with Intent†

Mounting Fears‡

Hot Mahogany†

Santa Fe Dead§

Beverly Hills Dead

Shoot Him If He Runs†

Fresh Disasters†

Short Straw§

Dark Harbor†

Iron Orchid*

Two-Dollar Bill†

The Prince of Beverly Hills

Reckless Abandon†

Capital Crimes‡

Dirty Work†

Blood Orchid*

The Short Forever†

Orchid Blues*

Cold Paradise†

L.A. Dead†

The Run‡

Worst Fears Realized†

Orchid Beach*

Swimming to Catalina†

Dead in the Water†

Dirt†

Choke

Imperfect Strangers

Heat

Dead Eyes

L.A. Times

Santa Fe Rules§

New York Dead†

Palindrome

Grass Roots‡

White Cargo

Under the Lake

Deep Lie‡

Run Before the Wind‡

Chiefs‡

TRAVEL

A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland (1979)

MEMOIR

Blue Water, Green Skipper

*A Holly Barker Novel

†A Stone Barrington Novel

‡A Will Lee Novel

§An Ed Eagle Novel

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G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Publishers Since 1838

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

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Copyright © 2015 by Stuart Woods

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Woods, Stuart.

Naked greed / Stuart Woods.

p. cm.—(Stone Barrington ; 34)

ISBN 978-1-101-66424-7

1. Barrington, Stone (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.O642N35 2015 2015007427

813'.54—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

CONTENTS

Books by Stuart Woods

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Author’s Note

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Stone Barrington and Dino Bacchetti were having dinner at Patroon, a favorite restaurant. Dino’s wife, Viv, was out of town on business—she was an executive at the world’s second-largest security company, Strategic Services, and had to travel a lot, so Stone and Dino were having, perhaps, their thousandth dinner together, just the two of them.

The owner, Ken Aretzky, stopped by and bought them a drink, then continued on his rounds. They ordered the Caesar salad, a house specialty prepared at the table, and the chateaubriand, medium rare, and Stone ordered a bottle of the Laughing Hare Cabernet.

“Laughing Hare?” Dino asked.

“A Cabernet you never heard of,” Stone said. “Honest public servants can’t afford it.” Dino was New York City’s commissioner of police, but the two men had been partners as homicide detectives many years before. “That’s why I’m buying.”

The waiter brought the bottle and poured them a taste. Dino sampled it. “So I should consider this a bribe?”

“Let’s call it a bribe in the bank, since there’s nothing in particular I want from you at the moment.”

“That makes a nice change,” Dino said, and took a larger swig of the wine. “Not bad.”

“You are given to understatement,” Stone said.

“Okay, it’s pretty damn good.”

Stone took a swig himself. “Better than that.”

“So how come you’re alone tonight? Where’s Pat Frank?”

“Who knows?” Stone said. “She has let it be known that she’d rather be alone than with me.”

“What did you do?”

“It’s what you did,” Stone said. “You arrested her boyfriend on a double murder charge and her old friend as an accessory after the fact.”

“And she blames you?”

“I tried blaming you—it didn’t work.”

“So she pulled the plug?”

“Not exactly, she just got really busy.”

“She just started a new business, maybe she is really just very busy.”

“When I hear that excuse twice, I usually pull the plug myself. But the second time I was understanding, then I heard it a third time, and I got the message.”

“I’m sure it’s you, not her.”

“Isn’t that line supposed to be the other way around?”

“It’s always you.”

“What, am I too nice to them?”

“Maybe. They don’t always appreciate that the way you expect them to.”