by Stuart Woods
Barrington, Bacchetti, a beautiful blonde, and two late-teen boys came into the restaurant together. The adults were seated up front, but the boys were given their own table farther back, a couple of tables from where Kelli and Bruce were seated.
“I think Mrs. Barrington was married to Vance Calder,” Kelli said.
“That’s quite a leap, given what you’ve got,” Bruce replied. “Anyway, she’s too young to have been married to Calder. He was in his seventies when he died, and that was years ago. I mean, look at her.”
“Wouldn’t be the first May-September romance in Hollywood,” Kelli said.
“Why are you obsessed with this?” Bruce asked.
“I’m thinking of doing a biography of Vance Calder,” she said.
“Good God, why?”
“Because there hasn’t been one for more than twenty years, and a lot happened to him late in life, like getting married, having a kid, and getting murdered. Did you know his wife was a suspect?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“From Prunella Wheaton.”
“How do you know her?”
“We work at the same paper, on the same floor,” she pointed out. “I just introduced myself, and we had a conversation about Vance Calder. She told me she fucked him, and that he was the best lay she ever had. She used exactly those words.”
“And she looks like such a lady.”
“She’s a tough old bird,” Kelli said.
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Excuse me for a moment,” Kelli said. She got up and walked over to where the two boys sat, drinking Cokes. “Hi, fellas,” she said. “My name’s Kelli. What’s yours?” To her surprise, both boys stood up.
“Hi, I’m Ben,” one of them said. “This is-”
“Joe,” the other said quickly.
“Glad to meet you both. Tell me, guys-”
Then Frank, one of the headwaiters, was positioning his large frame between Kelli and the table. “No, Kelli,” he said. “You don’t bother the customers.”
“Take it easy, Frank,” she replied, returning reluctantly to her own table.
“You’re lucky Elaine isn’t here yet,” Frank said, then walked away and positioned himself near the boys’ table.
“What was that all about?” Bruce asked.
“That was about me doing my job,” she replied.
“Well, stop doing your job,” Bruce said. “I don’t want to get thrown out of here and eighty-sixed.”
Two tables down, Ben said, “How come you told her your name is Joe?”
“She’s press,” Peter said. “I could have spotted her when I was six. Don’t ever talk to her.”
“Gee, I’d like to jump her,” Ben said.
“And she’d probably let you, for a story,” Peter replied. “But you’d regret it.”
“I don’t think so,” Ben said, sneaking another peek at her legs.
“Ben, you’re going to have to learn how that game is played,” Peter said. “You’re going to see a lot of it when we’re in the film business.”
“If you say so,” Ben replied.
“Didn’t you see what Frank just did? He rescued you from making an ass of yourself. You watch Gianni and Frank; they know who’s who around here.”
Frank came over. “I’m sorry about that,” he said.
“Who is she?” Ben asked.
“Kelli Keane. She works on Page Six at the Post. ”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Peter said.
“What did she ask you?” Frank asked.
“She wanted our names,” Peter said. “I lied to her.”
“You’re a smart boy,” Frank said, then went to meet some customers.
Ben sighed. “You were right,” he said, “but I’d still like to jump her.”
28
K elli left Elaine’s pissed off, and her anger kept her awake that night. The following morning she went back to see Prunella Wheaton.
“Good morning, Kelli,” Wheaton said. “Have a seat. Would you like some coffee?”
“Thank you, Prunie, yes,” Kelli replied, taking a chair.
“So, how are things?”
“I’m having trouble on my story,” she said, “and I want to ask your advice.”
Wheaton handed her coffee on a small tray, with milk and sweeteners and a cookie. “Frankly, I get bored around here. I do my work on the phone, more often than not, so I’m glad to have some company.”
“I asked you before about Vance Calder,” Kelli said.
“I remember.”
“Let me go back to the beginning.” She told Wheaton about the wedding at the Bianchi house, the mayor and Stone Barrington and Christine Carter. “I think she may be the woman Calder married, but I just can’t get any confirmation. In the business reports about Centurion last year, she was always referred to as Mrs. Vance Calder. Now, if Carter turns out to be Mrs. Calder, there’s a juicy little story in all this, particularly if she’s as rich as you say she is. There might even be a book in it-a new bio of Calder.”
“Do you know who Eduardo Bianchi is?” Wheaton asked.
“No, except that he’s on a lot of boards. Nobody will talk about him, not even a guy I met in a bar.”
“Who did you meet?”
“Somebody named Anthony Cecchini.”
“I see,” Wheaton said. “The buzz for decades on Bianchi is that he was once a very powerful mover in the Mafia, although entirely behind the scenes. Early on, he saw a better way ahead by becoming a respectable financier and a big philanthropist, though he was said to keep a hand in with his Italian friends.”
“If he’s so respectable now, then why is everybody afraid of him?”
“Sweetie, there are people out there in this life that you never want to mess with.”
“Like Rupert Murdoch.”
“If you work at this paper, sure. Bianchi has so many good friends and contacts in this town that if you spoke ill of him or invaded his privacy, he wouldn’t have to lift a finger to make life difficult for you; his friends would do it for him. A phone call would be made by someone, or a few words exchanged at some club, and next thing you knew, you’d be out of work and never even know why.”
“That’s scary,” Kelli said.
“And you should know that your new acquaintance, Mr. Anthony Cecchini, is the grandson of one Onofrio Cecchini-also known, improbably, as Irish Mike-who has probably been responsible for more sudden deaths than you have pubic hairs, if indeed you do, in this age of the Brazilian. I don’t understand why a woman would endure that kind of pain just so her boyfriend won’t get hairs in his teeth.”
Kelli laughed.
“But I digress,” Wheaton said. “If Cecchini petit-fils heard you mention Eduardo Bianchi, and if he knows what you do for a living, then Mr. Bianchi or someone who feels beholden to him knows, too.”
“I just asked him if he knew who somebody was named Eduardo Bianchi. He immediately moved away from me at the bar, and he left as soon as he finished his drink.”
“Could he have asked the bartender about you?”
“I didn’t see them have any conversation.”
“Good. If I were you, from this moment on, I would not let Mr. Bianchi’s name pass my lips, nor would I utter the mayor’s name in conjunction with his.”
“Well, there goes my item,” Kelli said sadly.
“If you were contemplating something along the lines of ‘The mayor wedded Stone Barrington to the widow of Vance Calder at the home of Eduardo Bianchi,’ then certainly your item is gone-or you are. Take your pick.”
Kelli nodded. “I get it.”
“Now, it would not be off-limits for you to connect the studly Mr. Barrington to the Calder widow and her fortune if, indeed, you can substantiate that such nuptials actually took place. Page Six thrives on that sort of thing.” Wheaton picked up her phone and leafed through a fat Rolodex. “Go to the powder room, take your time, then come back.”
Kelli set down her coffe
e cup and left Wheaton’s office. She visited the ladies’, did her business, touched up her makeup, then returned. Wheaton was just hanging up.
“Good timing,” she said, pointing at the visitors’ chair. “I just spoke to an old friend of mine, Rick Barron. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Kelli shook her head.
“Of course not; you are hardly contemporaries. Rick was, for many decades, a macher at Centurion. He put Vance Calder under contract when he was nineteen, at the suggestion of his wife, Glenna Gleason.” She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
Kelli shook her head again.
“Major singer and movie star from the late thirties up to the sixties. They’ve been married for at least sixty years. So, here’s the dope. Vance Calder was visiting New York around fifteen years ago when he met a young woman named Arrington Carter.”
“Then Arrington is the “A” in Christine A. Carter.”
“Correct. Arrington had been seriously seeing Stone Barrington for a while, living with him for much of the time, but when she did the profile on Vance, he swept her off her feet, took her back to L.A., and married her. Almost exactly nine months later, she produced a son, Peter. They lived happily ever after, until someone deposited a bullet in Vance’s carcass.
“When that happened, she was a suspect, being the spouse, and she apparently called on Stone B. For help. He went out there and helped straighten out things for her. Again, last year, when the corporate raider made a run on Centurion, she called on Stone, and he was very helpful. About that time she fired her attorney and hired Stone to represent her in all things, among them, dealing with her very large interest in Centurion by serving on its board. Bringing her in as a client probably resulted in Stone’s being made a partner at Woodman amp; Weld. Rick knows Stone and was not terribly surprised to hear that he and Arrington have married. By the way, Arrington has lived for a number of years in the environs of Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is currently building a house.”
“And you got all that from one phone call?”
“You can do that, if you call the right person,” Wheaton said, stroking her Rolodex like a puppy.
“Tell me, Prunie, did your contact address the issue of the father of the nine-month baby?”
Wheaton’s eyebrows went up. And she smiled broadly, revealing perfect dental implants. “No, my dear,” she said, “but I think you have a future in the gossip business.”
29
W hen Stone arrived at his desk Joan handed him a slip of paper. “Mike Freeman would like you to have lunch with him and a friend at the Four Seasons, at one o’clock,” she said.
Stone looked at the paper. “Who’s his friend?”
“He didn’t say, even when I asked him, but there’s nothing else on your calendar, so I accepted for you.”
“All right,” Stone said.
“Also, Herbie Fisher’s divorce petition has been granted.”
She handed him a document. “Here’s his copy of the decree.”
“That was unusually fast,” Stone said.
“My information is that a lot of petitions have been withdrawn, pending the new no-fault law coming into effect.”
“Get Herbie for me, please.”
A moment later the phone buzzed, and Stone picked up. “Good morning, Herbie.”
“Good morning, Stone. You got me on the way out to class.”
“I won’t keep you. Your divorce petition has been granted; you’re a free man again.”
“That’s great news, Stone.”
“Try and hang on to your freedom for a while, will you?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Bye.” Herbie hung up.
Stone shook his head. He fully expected to hear soon from Herbie that he had found The One.
Stone walked up the stairs at the Four Seasons and immediately spotted Mike Freeman at his regular table in the Grill, along with another man. As he approached the table, Stone saw a thickly built gentleman in a good suit with short, salt-and-pepper hair, whom he did not recognize.
Mike stood when he saw Stone coming and offered his hand. “Stone, I’d like you to meet Hank Hightower. Hank, this is Stone Barrington.”
Stone shook the man’s hand and sat down.
“Drink?”
“I’ll stick with San Pellegrino,” Stone said.
Mike ordered the water for them all, and menus arrived. He waited until lunch was on the way before continuing. “Stone, Hank is CEO of Steele Security, the insurance company.”
“Ah, of course,” Stone said.
“Steele, as you probably know, is a broad-based insurance company, offering just about every sort of coverage.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the ads,” Stone said. “You’re an old-line company, aren’t you, Hank?”
“Since 1850,” Hightower replied.
Mike continued. “Hank and I have worked out a way for Steele to offer its best customers additional coverage from Strategic Services: personal security, various travel coverages, et cetera. For instance, many of Steele’s clients when traveling domestically or abroad take along expensive items, like jewelry.”
“Yes,” Hightower said, “and these days, with all the terrorism in the world, many of our customers are feeling a bit nervous about the personal safety of themselves and their families-kidnapping, robbery, that sort of thing.”
“I can understand that,” Stone said.
“We’re going to need a legal framework to cover our collaboration,” Mike said, “and we’d like your firm to draw that up.”
“We’d be very happy to do so,” Stone replied. “Hank, can you supply me with an outline of your collaboration, the specific services involved, and your various responsibilities to each other?”
“I can,” Hightower said, “and I will have it in your hands by tomorrow.”
“Then I should think that, in a week or so, Woodman amp; Weld will have a draft agreement for you both to review.”
“Thank you, Stone,” Hightower said. “There’s something else: we’ve been with a large law firm downtown for a dozen years or more, but for the past year or two we’ve been feeling neglected. I know you’ve heard this before: we’re not getting the kind of prompt attention to our needs as in the past, and we’re not getting the attention of the senior partners. In short, we’re being taken for granted.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Hank,” Stone said with a straight face, although he was delighted to hear it. “May we be of service?”
“I think that’s a very good possibility,” Hightower said. “I’d like to meet some of your people.”
“I’ll be very happy to arrange that,” Stone said. “I think we should start by having you meet our managing partner, Bill Eggers, and perhaps you might bring your in-house counsel, as well. Bill can give you both a precise description of the breadth and depth of our services and how we might be of help to you.”
“I’d like that,” Hightower said.
They talked further over lunch, and Stone left them with a promise to get back to Hightower with a firm appointment to meet with Eggers.
Stone didn’t go home immediately. Woodman amp; Weld was located in the Seagram Building, upstairs from the Four Seasons, so he took the elevator and went straight to Eggers’s office. The secretary showed him in.
“Afternoon, Stone,” Eggers said. The debris of his lunch was still on his desk, and the secretary cleaned up. “What’s on your mind?”
“New business,” Stone said.
“Glad to hear it. Anybody I ever heard of?”
“Steele Security.”
Eggers’s eyebrows went up. “Are you serious?”
“I am. I just had lunch with Hank Hightower, their CEO, and Mike Freeman. They’ve asked us to put together an agreement between Steele and Strategic Services to cover some joint services they’re going to be offering.”
“Sounds interesting. Could be a wedge to get some more business from Steele.”
“We don’t need a wedge,” S
tone said. “Hightower says they’re feeling neglected by their current firm and are looking for new representation. He’d like to bring his in-house counsel to meet with us.”
Eggers placed a hand on his chest. “Be still my heart,” he said. “Set it up. I’ll make time whenever they want to come in.”
Stone dug Hightower’s card out of his pocket, walked over to Eggers’s sofa, sat down, and picked up the phone. Five minutes later he hung up. “Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” he said.
“Done,” Eggers said, making marks on his calendar to block out the time. “And you’ll be there, too.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course, though please remember that I don’t know a hell of a lot about insurance.”
“Maybe not, but you know how to tap-dance. I’ll get a couple of department heads in on this, too.”
Stone got up to go. “Bill, thanks for handling Arrington’s will with such dispatch. I’m happy not to have been involved in that process.”
“Have you read the will?”
“No, and I don’t intend to.”
“As you wish,” Eggers said. “If you ever get around to it, I think you’ll be pleased with the way we’ve organized her estate.”
“I’m sure I will.”
“How’s the new school for Peter?”
“He’s eating it up. He’s going to screen the rough cut of his film for them next week.”
“I made a call to Yale on the subject of his and Ben’s applications,” Eggers said, “and learned that Eduardo was in ahead of me.”
“Thanks, Bill. Peter wants Yale badly.”
Stone excused himself and walked slowly back to the house, thinking he had had a pretty good day. He walked into his office and found Arrington waiting for him, and she was in tears.
30
S tone sat down on the sofa next to her. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
Arrington grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table and blew her nose. “I just had a call from an old friend of Vance’s, Prunella Wheaton?”
“The gossip queen? What did she want?”
“She said she got wind of somebody looking into you and me.”
