by Stuart Woods
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Stone said, rising.
She got up, too, and suddenly emitted a loud sneeze. She groped in her bag for a tissue and blew her nose noisily. “Sorry about that; it seems to be getting worse.”
Stone held out a wastebasket for her tissue. “I hope you feel better,” he said.
Manolo led her toward the front door.
Dino had sat quietly throughout the conversation. “I guess you’re going to want an evidence bag,” he said, digging into a pocket.
“Yes, please,” Stone said, reaching for the wastebasket.
57
Stone put a note to Ed Eagle in the FedEx box, along with the used tissue, and handed it to Manolo. “Please call for pickup, and mark it for early delivery.”
“Yes, Mr. Stone,” Manolo said.
Dino spoke up. “Are you going to sell the property to Mrs. Grosvenor?” he asked. “Knowing what you know about her?”
“Knowing what I know about her,” Stone said, “it would be safer to sell it to her than not. People who cross Barbara Eagle Keeler Grosvenor don’t seem to do well. Look at Terry Prince.”
“I’ll give you odds Prince gets bail,” Dino said. “It’ll be expensive, but he’ll be out.”
“Didn’t you just hear Carolyn say that he’s broke?”
“No, I heard her say he doesn’t have two hundred twenty-five million dollars to close the sale. That’s a far cry from not having a few million for bail.”
“Good point.”
“Now,” Dino said, “you should give some thought to what he’s going to do if he’s back on the street.”
“I’ve been doing just that,” Stone said.
“My guess is, you’re going to screw him out of his twenty-five million dollars.”
“No, I’m just going to let him screw himself out of it. All I have to do is wait until noon on Friday, and if he can’t close-and I don’t see how he can-I’ll keep his money, or rather, Arrington will. I take some satisfaction in knowing that a nonrefundable deposit was his idea, not mine.”
“Well, I don’t think that will make him any less pissed off, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“And Stone, you do remember the things he tried to do to you when he wasn’t pissed off, don’t you?”
“I’m trying not to,” Stone replied uncomfortably.
“Mind if I make a suggestion?” Dino asked.
“Not at all.”
“Why don’t we just get into your airplane tomorrow morning and get the hell out of here and back to New York? I mean, you don’t have to be here to let Prince screw himself out of his deposit, and the relevant authorities will come get Ms. Blaine as soon as they match the DNA samples.”
“You have a point, Dino, as always, but that wouldn’t be any fun. I want to watch, don’t you?”
“From a distance,” Dino said.
“Listen, if you’re really worried, or if you really have to get back to the precinct, then I’ll drive you to LAX, and you can get the red-eye.”
“Me, fly the airlines? Don’t hold your breath.”
“I’ve spoiled you, haven’t I?”
“You sure have,” Dino replied.
“Well, Arrington can take you as far as Virginia, and Mike, all the way to New York. You can have your choice of jet travel.”
“And if I do that, who’s going to watch your back?”
“There is that,” Stone replied.
Arrington finished her nap in time for cocktails, and Mike Freeman joined them at her invitation.
Manolo took orders and served the drinks, along with canapes.
Mike spoke up. “Rick Barron called me a few minutes ago and asked me to join the board of Centurion,” he said.
“I hope you accepted,” Arrington said.
“I did. Who could resist? Are you on the board?”
“No, I didn’t want that, but I’ve asked Rick to appoint Stone instead. He can represent my interests on the board, and eventually, Peter’s.”
Stone nearly dropped his gimlet. “When did this happen?” he asked.
“A few minutes ago,” she replied.
“Same here,” Mike said. “Something else: Rick has decided that, rather than leave his Centurion stock to his grandchildren, he’d rather sell and leave them cash.”
“Is Strategic Services going to buy it?” Stone asked.
“We already have,” Mike said, “pending board approval. As our counsel, will you vote for that?”
“I certainly will,” Stone said.
“Then the vote will be a formality.”
“Then you two gentlemen,” Arrington said, “will have effective control of Centurion Studios.”
Stone took a deep breath. “Whew!”
“Don’t worry, Stone,” Mike said, “it’s just a business, like any other.”
“Not like any other,” Stone said.
“You have a point, I guess. Now that the issue of the land sale is settled, I suppose the next big decision for the board will be who succeeds Rick Barron as chairman and CEO.”
“Rick wants to retire?”
“Do you blame him?” Mike asked. “The man is in his midnineties, and this fight took a lot out of him, I think. He and Glenna want to move up to Santa Barbara full-time.”
“I don’t blame him. Did he make a recommendation on who should succeed him?” Stone asked.
“He told me that Jim Long wants the job,” Mike said.
Stone shook his head. “That’s way too close to Mrs. Grosvenor for me.”
“Me, too,” Mike agreed. “Rick’s recommendation is a fellow named Leo Goldman, Jr. He’s a producer at the studio and a board member, and his late father, Leo Senior, was a very successful CEO.”
“I know Leo Junior,” Arrington said. “He’s smart as a whip and a hell of a producer.”
“I guess we just elected him,” Stone said. “By the way, Arrington, you have another decision to make.”
“Oh, no,” Arrington said, “I’m all out of decisions. I’ve just appointed you to represent me in studio matters. You decide.”
“It’s not related to the studio,” Stone said. “It’s about what to do with the property on which we now sit, sipping gimlets.”
“You decide if Prince should buy it,” she said.
“Prince isn’t going to buy it,” Stone said, “unless he can come up with two hundred twenty-five million dollars by noon, Friday, and I hear his backing has fallen through. But there’s another buyer in line, same terms.” He explained about Carolyn Blaine and Eleanor Grosvenor.
“Well, I’m glad I don’t have to sell it to Prince,” Arrington said.
“Now you have to decide whether to sell it to Mrs. Grosvenor. She wants to build the hotel, and Ms. Blaine wants to run the project.”
Mike spoke up. “Does Mrs. Grosvenor have enough money to handle that?” he asked.
“Not without other backers.”
“Stone,” Arrington said, “let me ask you one question, then you can make the decision.”
“All right.”
“Given everything we know about Mrs. Grosvenor, do you want to be in business with her?”
“Absolutely not,” Stone replied. “And I don’t want to be in business with Carolyn Blaine, either.” He explained her apparent background and current legal situation.
“Good God!” Arrington said. “These two women are Bonnie and Bonnie.”
“They’re also Clyde and Clyde,” Stone said.
“Let me ask you a question, Arrington,” Mike said. “If I could put together a syndicate of my clients to finance the project, would you like to be in the hotel business?”
Arrington thought about that for a moment. “As long as I could have a house on the property, yes,” she said. “Stone, do you agree that it would be a good business move?”
“Without a doubt,” Stone said. “You might even invest some of the proceeds of the sale of the land in the new venture.”
“Well
, then,” Arrington said, “all we have to do is wait for Terrence Prince to default on Friday. The Bonnies and Clydes can take a walk.”
58
Stone arrived for breakfast the following morning to be greeted with a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times about Terry Prince, starting with the Centurion meeting, continuing with his arrest, and finally, with his being released on five million dollars bail, cash.
Dino came to the table, and Stone tossed him the paper. “You were right, pal. Prince is on the loose again.”
Dino glanced through the piece. “So he had at least five million cash. I wonder how much he has left.”
“I expect Carolyn knows what she’s talking about when she says he can’t swing the property deal by himself. She’s been his closest associate for some time, now, and I’d be very surprised if she didn’t have a copy of his financial statement.” Stone looked at his watch. “Ed Eagle will have his DNA sample pretty soon.”
“Yeah, and if Carolyn is taken out of the equation and Prince can’t swing the deal, then you’re left with Mrs. Grosvenor to deal with. That’s gonna be fun.”
“Don’t remind me,” Stone said. “Anyway, we’ve now got Strategic Services to step into the deal.”
“Yeah, and you know if you get into bed with Mike Freeman, you’re not going to wake up with his fangs in your neck.”
“That’s a comforting thought, Dino. I hadn’t thought of Mrs. Grosvenor having fangs, but…” His cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“It’s Carolyn Blaine,” she said. “Have you heard that Terry is out on bail?”
“It’s all over the papers,” Stone said.
“I want you to know that he will not be able to close the deal.”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait until noon Friday to see, won’t we?”
“We can be making other plans in the meantime,” she said.
“The meantime doesn’t exist,” Stone replied. “Either Prince is in or he’s out, and we won’t know that until noon Friday.”
“But surely, you and I can come to an arrangement pending that time.”
“No. I was going to call you today and tell you that. My client has a signed contract with Prince; if he can close, she’s bound by that agreement. If he can’t, then I can talk to other parties.”
“What do you mean, ‘other parties’?” she said, sounding worried.
“I mean other parties,” he replied, “you and Mrs. Grosvenor among them.”
“But that twenty-five million dollars you have in the bank is her money.”
“The check was from Prince’s personal account, with his signature on it, and that’s all I need to know. My deal is with Prince. If you have some other deal with him, that’s between the two of you, and nothing to do with me or my client.”
“Well, when Terry can’t raise the money, I’ll simply get him to assign the agreement to us.”
That was an alarming statement and something Stone had not anticipated. “There’s nothing in the agreement allowing him to assign it.”
“There’s nothing in the agreement preventing him from assigning it, either,” she said.
“I suggest we cross that chasm when we come to it,” Stone said.
“Well, if that’s going to be a problem, we can simply let Terry close with our money, then force him out of the deal later.”
“Carolyn, you’d better take a deep breath and consider your position. The way you’re talking now will guarantee you a lifetime of litigation, and quite apart from the courts, you should consider how Prince has chosen to solve his problems in the past.”
“I know how to deal with Terry,” she said. “I’ll see you at ten o’clock on Friday morning, as previously arranged.”
“Nothing was previously arranged,” Stone said, but she had already hung up. He put his phone away and sighed. “Shit,” he said.
Dino was grinning at him from across the table. “Things not going as smoothly as planned?”
“Stop enjoying this,” Stone said. “God, I wish I hadn’t taken that twenty-five million. I let my head be turned by all those zeros.”
“Don’t you think that’s what Prince intended?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Stone said. “Of course, he could still lose it all.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that Prince couldn’t find another two hundred twenty-five million if he had to?”
“I’m operating on what Carolyn knows about him,” Stone said.
“And Carolyn is an embezzler and murderer,” Dino pointed out.
“Oh, stop it!”
“I just love watching you break a sweat,” Dino said.
59
On Thursday things were deceptively quiet at the Calder house. Stone checked in with Joan, who was happy with her new health plan from Woodman amp; Weld and with the idea of his new partnership as a source of steady income.
“It’s going to be nice getting a check every month,” she said.
“Frankly, I’m tired of the feast-and-famine thing.”
“It hasn’t been as bad as that, has it?”
“You don’t have to worry about paying the bills,” she said. “I do.”
“I suppose we’re going to have to start billing our clients through Woodman amp; Weld,” he said.
“I wondered about that,” she said.
“It’s a small price to pay.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“With any luck I’ll be home Saturday or Sunday, depending on how things go here.” They said goodbye and hung up.
It was nearly lunchtime on Thursday when Ed Eagle called. “Hey, Stone.”
“Good morning, Ed.”
“Thanks for the DNA sample. SFPD is working on it. I think they had to send it away for testing, but they don’t want to admit it.”
“When will we know?”
“A day or two, they say. The D.A. here is about to jump out of his skin; he really wants an arrest in this case. I hope she’s not showing any signs of doing a runner.”
“None at all. There’s going to be a meeting here tomorrow morning that she doesn’t want to miss.” Stone brought Ed up to date on the Bel-Air land deal.
“Well, if the hotel gets built, put me down for a regular suite,” Eagle said. “I seem to be trying more and more cases out there.”
Stone had barely hung up when Carolyn Blaine called, sounding frazzled.
“What’s wrong?” Stone asked.
“I’m worried,” she said. “I’ve been at the office with Terry the past couple of days, and while he’s playing his cards close, I get the idea that the Colombian and the Mexican are back in the picture. What I think is happening is that they’re horning in on the Calder property deal to get their investment in Centurion back from Terry. They’re scrambling around assembling cash from various sources, so that Terry can have a cashier’s check ready for tomorrow.”
“I thought he wanted to keep that deal for himself.”
“He may not have a choice,” she said. “If that happens, it will blow Eleanor’s participation out of the water, but I’ll still get to do the development work.”
“Swell,” Stone said. If you aren’t in a New Mexico jail, he thought.
“I’ll keep you posted; otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” She hung up.
“Now what?” Dino asked, looking over his newspaper.
Stone sighed. “I just may have put Arrington in business with two drug cartels. That’s who Terry Prince is raising his money from.”
Dino shook his head and ducked back behind his paper.
Stone’s phone went off. “Hello?”
“It’s Mike Freeman.”
“How are you, Mike?”
“I’m okay, and I’ve been talking to people about Arrington’s property. One of my clients is the majority stockholder in a worldwide hotel group, and I think he’d be a perfect partner in the deal.”
“That’s great, Mike, but we have a problem: it looks like Prince may be
able to close tomorrow, and the source of his funds is two drug cartels, one Colombian, one Mexican.” He read the names from his notebook. “Word is, they’re assembling cash from what was called ‘various sources’ as we speak.”
“Do you know what account they’re using in L.A.?”
“I assume it’s Prince’s personal account at Wells Fargo, in his office building, because that’s where the first payment came from.”
“Let me make a couple of calls,” Mike said, and hung up. Late in the afternoon he called back. “I’ve spoken to a couple of people I know at DEA and Treasury, and they’re going to be paying a lot of attention to where Prince’s money is coming from,” Mike said.
“Tell them they’d better pay attention fast,” Stone replied.
“We’re running out of time here. Our closing is set for tomorrow morning.”
“Where?”
“Here, at the house.”
“Can you delay it?”
“Maybe for an hour, but Prince won’t like it; he has to close by noon.”
“Try for the hour; it could make a difference.”
“I’ll do that,” Stone said. He hung up and called Carolyn at Prince’s office.
“Yes?”
“Tell Prince we have to close at eleven, instead of ten, and that we’ll be doing it here.”
“He won’t like that.”
“I don’t care if he likes it, just tell him eleven a.m. here, at the house.”
“I’ll tell him.” She hung up.
Stone hardly touched his lunch.
“I’ve never seen you this nervous before,” Dino said. “Relax, will you? You’re making me nervous.”
Stone finished the wine in his glass and took a few deep breaths.
Arrington appeared on the patio. “I’m going home,” she said. “You don’t need me for this closing.”
“No,” Stone replied, “and I think it’s just as well you’re going.” He thought of telling her about the involvement of the two drug cartels but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
She kissed Dino on the forehead, then came and put her arms around Stone. “Thank you for all you’ve done,” she said.
