Unnatural Acts

by Stuart Woods

“Good morning, Mike. I want to thank you for your advice and for your very kind offer. I was promoted to senior associate yesterday, and I got my first client this morning, a software start-up. I’ve just bought them a building, but it’s completely without any kind of security, physical or electronic. Can you get something done about that?”

  “Give me the address and the name of the company.”

  Herbie recited the information.

  “I’ll have a team down there in two hours, maybe sooner.”

  “I’ll be here to meet them.” Herbie thanked him, hung up, and called James Rutledge, an architect he’d met through Stone Barrington who had left Architectural Digest to start his own firm.

  “How are you, Herbie?”

  “I’m just great, Jim, and from now on, it’s Herb. I got promoted, so I need a grown-up name. How’s business?”

  “I’ve got a couple of leads—nothing definite yet.”

  “I’ve got something definite for you, Jim. Write down this information.”

  “Got it. What’s the job?”

  “A six-story industrial building to be transformed into the offices of a new software company, very promising, and very well financed by Marshall Brennan. Can you come over here right now?”

  “Gee, let me check my schedule. I see that I’m free. I’ll try not to break my neck hurrying over there. Bye.” Rutledge hung up.

  Herbie hung up, too.

  “Wow,” Bobby Bentley said. “That’s moving! Does it bother you that a lot of this has nothing to do with practicing law?”

  “It all has everything to do with helping a client,” Herbie said. “By the end of the day, Mark Hayes won’t ever make another move without consulting me. You get back to the office, find the best intellectual property lawyer in the firm, and start making a list of every document we have to generate, every permit we need, and every patent and copyright application we need. But first, ask Eggers’s secretary to generate a legal services contract for Mark to sign, and rush messenger it down here. Oh, and get a title search on this building started.”

  “I’m on it,” Bobby said, running for the door.

  James Rutledge was there with an assistant in twenty minutes, and the assistant had a laser tape measure. Herbie got them started measuring the space, then his cell rang.

  “Herb Fisher.”

  “This is David Schwartz. I represent Mrs. Friedrich, to whom you made an offer on her building.”

  “Yes, Mr. Schwartz, and she accepted.”

  “I can’t allow her to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “This has to be negotiated properly.”

  “She wanted six million, I offered her five, and she accepted. What’s improper about that? She used the words, ‘Tell Mark he’s got a deal,’ and wanted to know how fast we could close. I’m ready to close right now. How about you, Mr. Schwartz?”

  The man sighed. “I can do it Friday morning at ten.”

  “You’re on. I’ve already started the title search. You have our address?”

  “Woodman and Weld? Yeah, I know where they are.”

  “My office at ten. Goodbye.” Herbie hung up.

  James Rutledge walked over. “This is fabulous space,” he said. “I can work wonders with it.”

  “You know a builder you trust?”

  “Yes, and a good one.”

  “Use this phone and hire him right now. I want him to go to work on Saturday morning, and he’s going to need a double crew to get at least part of this place in shape fast.”

  “All right.” James got on the phone.

  Half an hour later a group of six men walked in, and the apparent leader introduced himself. “I’m Walt Harris,” he said. “Mike Freeman sent me.”

  “Good to meet you, Walt. I want you to secure this computer layout, then secure this floor of the building and the main entrance. Can you get it done today?”

  “Can we work late?”

  “As late as you like.”

  “I can have it done by midnight,” Walt said.

  “Don’t let me slow you down,” Herbie replied.

  They were done at a quarter to midnight. Mark Hayes was still working at his computer, occasionally interrupted by James Rutledge showing him sketches.

  Herbie walked over and stood by Mark’s desk. “All right, Mark, nobody can steal you blind now. Here are your new keys and your security system codes.” Herbie handed him a sheet of paper.

  “Thanks, Herb.”

  “We close on the building at ten Friday morning. I’m going to need you to transfer five million dollars to Woodman and Weld’s trust account the day before.”

  “I’ll call my bank in the morning and have it done. Do I have to be there?”

  “Yes. My office at ten.” Herbie gave him a card.

  “See you then.” Mark went back to work.

  “Do you ever sleep?” Herbie asked.

  “Sometimes,” Mark replied.

  Herbie chuckled to himself, then went outside and started looking for a cab.

  16

  WHILE HERBIE was transforming High Cotton Ideas and Mark Hayes into an actual business, Stone was shopping for groceries. He had received a call at four o’clock from Marla Rocker, telling him that the chaos was moderate, and she would join him at seven.

  Stone left delivery instructions for his groceries and took a cab home. By seven, dinner was under way, and a bottle of vodka gimlets and one of martinis were in the freezer, chilling.

  It was seven-thirty before Marla scratched at the kitchen door and was let in.

  “Good evening,” Stone said. “Would you like a drink?”

  “I would kill for a martini,” Marla replied, plopping down on the kitchen sofa.

  Stone poured her the martini and himself a Knob Creek and sat down beside her. “Cheers,” he said. “Is the show coming into shape?”

  “It is,” she said, “praise God. The structure is intact, and the lines, music, and choreography have been learned by my cast. Now we’re just working on not tripping over the scenery.”

  “Congratulations on not having to panic at this juncture,” Stone said, clinking her glass with his.

  “Mmmmm,” she said, sipping her martini. “Perfection. Don’t let me drink more than eight of these or I’ll make a fool of myself.”

  Stone laughed. “I promise—not one more than eight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll talk to you from the direction of the stove.”

  “What are we having?”

  “Osso buco,” Stone said, “with risotto.”

  “Doesn’t that take hours?”

  “Not in the pressure cooker,” he replied. “The risotto takes half an hour, though—no way to speed it up.”

  “It all smells wonderful, and I thank you for not making me dress up to go out to a restaurant.” She pulled up a stool to the stove and watched him add stock to the risotto and stir it in. “Let’s get this out of the way,” she said. “Tell me about your wife.”

  “She was murdered by a former and insanely jealous lover,” Stone said.

  “I hope he got the chair.”

  “They don’t do the chair anymore, it’s the needle nowadays,” Stone said. “But, in any case, he’s still at large, probably in Mexico.”

  “That must be hard to take.”

  Stone shrugged and added more stock. “I’m not a vengeful person. He’ll be caught, eventually, and will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

  “Not the death penalty?”

  “I’m opposed to the death penalty.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Religious, moral, and economic.”

  “I can understand the first two, but economic?”

  “The death penalty costs the state several times as much as a prisoner’s serving life without parole, what with appeals. And in prison, they can make him earn his keep, until he’s too old or sick to work.”

  “I never thought of that,” she said. “I guess I’m more vengeful than you.”
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  “I’ll try never to earn your vengeance,” Stone said.

  “Smart move. I can be a real bitch.”

  “Or your anger.”

  Stone turned off the pressure cooker and let it cool, but he kept stirring the risotto and adding the stock. Finally, when all the liquid had been absorbed, he folded in half a container of crème fraîche and a couple of fistfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, then raked the rice into a platter and made a wall of it around the rim. He opened the pressure cooker, spooned out four slabs of the veal, and poured the sauce over it. “Voila,” he said, setting the platter on the table. And seating her.

  “Why so much?” she asked. “Are we expecting someone else?”

  Stone tasted the wine and poured them each a glass. “Nope, but I’ll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow and maybe for dinner tomorrow night, too.”

  “How long ago did your wife die?”

  “A year ago Christmas.”

  “And how long have you been dating?”

  “You’re the first woman I’ve asked out in New York,” Stone said.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  Stone raised his wineglass. “You have convinced me I’m ready.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “I’m flattered that you’re flattered. Try your food.”

  She forked a piece of the veal into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, then tried the risotto. “You’re hired,” she said. “Can you come to the theater and make lunch every day?”

  “I work every day,” he replied, “but I appreciate the offer.”

  “Your offices are in the Seagram Building, aren’t they?”

  “That’s right, but my office is right through that door and through a couple of rooms. It used to be a dentist’s offices, but when I inherited the house, I made it into my workplace. It houses my secretary, an associate, and me.”

  “You inherited all this?”

  “Yes, from a great-aunt, but it wasn’t in this good a shape. Took a lot of work.”

  “I want to see the whole place,” she said.

  “After dinner. Besides, I haven’t heard your life story yet.”

  “Born in a small town in Georgia called Delano,” she said. “Learned to tap dance at four—a regular Shirley Temple—started ballet at six, and danced my way through school and college. Came to New York, auditioned for thirty-seven shows, finally got one, and I haven’t been at liberty since.”

  “That was concise,” Stone said.

  “Well, I skipped the early husband, who turned out to be gay, and a few unsatisfactory love affairs. Something I don’t understand about you: how did you make the leap from the NYPD to Woodman and Weld?”

  “I graduated from NYU Law before becoming a cop. Then I was wounded and invalided off the force. An old law school friend, who was at Woodman and Weld, took me to lunch and convinced me I should take a cram course for the bar exam and get myself a license. He promised me work.”

  “So Woodman and Weld was your first job?”

  “Not exactly a job. I was ‘of counsel,’ which meant, in my case, that I handled the cases the firm didn’t want to be seen to handle.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, a client’s wife is involved in a hit-and-run, a client’s son is accused of date rape, that sort of thing.”

  “Sounds sordid.”

  “Actually, it was very interesting indeed. I had more fun than anybody over at the Seagram Building.”

  “Is that what you still do for them?”

  “No, I became a partner last year, after I made some rain.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I brought in some serious business.”

  “What sort of business?”

  “A large corporate security business called Strategic Services, Centurion Studios, the Steele insurance group, and a new hotel being built now in Bel-Air, California.”

  “Sounds like a great list. Did you and your wife have any children?”

  “A son, Peter, who’s at the Yale School of Drama now.”

  “Studying acting?”

  “Studying everything. He wants to direct. In fact, his first film is being released this fall.”

  “An indie, of course.”

  “Yes, but it got picked up by Centurion.”

  “You have anything to do with that?”

  “I introduced Peter to the CEO. He did the rest.”

  “Sounds like a very bright boy.”

  “You have no idea.”

  They lingered over their wine, then he showed her the house. Just before eleven, she made her way back across the garden to her own place, unmolested.

  Stone couldn’t remember ever having let that happen before.

  17

  HERBIE SLEPT his usual six hours and made it into work at seven-thirty a.m.. He walked into his office, which was oddly dark, and felt for the light switch. He was in the wrong office.

  “What do you think?” Cookie asked from behind him.

  Herbie looked at her, then turned back to the strange room. It was now lit by lamps in the four corners and one behind an Eames lounge chair, with a matching ottoman, which seemed to have replaced the desk. A glass coffee table sat next to that, and a leather sofa on the opposite side, with matching armchairs on the other two sides of the table. A beautiful oriental rug glowed golden in the light from the lamps. Sunlight was shut out by venetian blinds that matched the wood in the floor.

  “Do I work here?” Herbie asked.

  “You do, if you want to,” Cookie said. “I can send it all back, if you don’t like it.”

  Herbie went and sat in the beautiful chair and put his feet on the ottoman. His back didn’t hurt. “I like it,” he said. “No, I love it. Where’s all my stuff?”

  “In the credenza at your right hand,” she replied. “There are four file drawers and eight ordinary ones.”

  Herbie reached to his right and his hand fell on the phone. Next to that was a marble pencil box. He looked around and saw handsomely framed pictures on the walls and a Chinese terra-cotta horse in the center of the coffee table.

  “It’s T’ang dynasty,” she said, “about eleven hundred years old.” She handed him a sheet of paper. “Here’s the bill for everything.”

  Herbie looked at it: $54,540. “You’re nearly five grand over budget.”

  “Tell me what you’d like to send back,” she said.

  Herbie looked around. “Absolutely nothing. How’d you get this done so fast?”

  “ABC has people who are accustomed to putting together whole rooms for movies and TV commercials in short order. I know one of them.”

  “Cookie,” Herbie said, “how’d you like to redo my apartment in your spare time?”

  “What’s my budget?”

  “You can go to half a million, if you have to, but that won’t include art—I like the art I have.”

  “My fee is five percent of what I spend,” she said.

  “You’re hired.”

  She poured him a cup of coffee, and it tasted much better than it had the day before.

  “This isn’t my usual coffee,” he said. “It’s a lot better.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” she responded. “Excuse me, I have to get to work on your closing Friday morning.”

  “We’ve got a real estate department for that,” Herbie said.

  “I know how to put a closing together,” she said, “and it will take me a third less time than if they do it.”

  “Then go to work.”

  Herbie looked around for his phone messages: there were two, one from Stone Barrington and one from Mike Freeman. He called Mike first, and was surprised when he answered his own phone. “Hey, Mike. Don’t you have a secretary anymore?”

  “She doesn’t get in this early,” Mike said. “Only the boss does.”

  “Thank you so much for sending your team down to High Cotton,” Herbie said.

  “They’re back this morning—they’ve got the whole
building to wire.”

  “That’s great. With your help, I’ll turn this little venture into a real business.”

  “From what Marshall Brennan tells me about their ideas, that will happen very quickly,” Mike said. “Tell me, Herbie, how’d you like a new client?”

  “I’d like nothing better!”

  “I hired a guy yesterday, and he’s going to set up a new division for me that will specialize in bodyguard training. We’ve always done that for our own people, but now we’re going to offer the training to our clients’ employees. We’ve bought an old road racing track upstate a ways that we’ll turn into a high-performance, defensive-driving school, and there’ll be four firing ranges, too—everything from handguns to automatic weapons.”

  “Sounds terrific, Mike. How can I help?”

  “I’d like you to create a corporate framework for the division, set up the accounting and a purchasing system for equipment. Though it’s wholly owned, I’d like it to operate like a separate company.”

  “I can do that.”

  “The guy I’ve hired, who’ll be the CEO, is called Josh Hook. He’s ex-CIA, spent a little over twenty years there, in operations. His experience is broad and deep. I’ll have him call you.”

  “I’ll look forward to hearing from him, Mike, and I’ll go ahead and set up the company as a client. You have a name yet?”

  “Strategic Defense,” Mike said.

  “Got it.”

  “You’ll hear from Josh later today.” Mike said goodbye and hung up.

  There was a knock, and Herbie looked up to find Bill Eggers leaning against the doorjamb. “What the hell is this?” Eggers asked.

  “Come in, Bill, and have a seat.”

  “I didn’t authorize you to redecorate,” Eggers said.

  “No, and you didn’t pay for it, either,” Herbie pointed out.

  “In that case, I’ll have a seat.” He settled into an armchair and looked around. “I didn’t know you had taste this good, Herbert.”

  “I don’t,” Herbie said, “but I have good taste in secretaries. She’s out in her cubicle right now setting up a real estate closing for Friday.”

  “We have a department for that,” Eggers said.

  “She’ll use their checklist, but she can do it faster and cheaper. You can bill High Cotton Ideas for your department.”