by Stuart Woods
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 & 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 & 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,” Stone 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
Stone 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.”
“Come on, tell me the whole thing.”
“Someone got ahold of a copy of our marriage license.”
“That’s a public record. What else?”
“Well, they’ve figured out that we were married at Eduardo’s house and about the mayor, too, but they’re afraid of printing anything about that for fear of angering some of Eduardo’s friends.”
“So far, so good. Is there more?”
“They’ve figured out that I’m Vance’s widow and that I have a son.”
“None of this is really a secret,” Stone said. “Nobody could make very much of that.”
“They might, if they can count,” she said.
Stone thought about that. “I think we might have that covered with the change of birth certificate.” He thought some more. “Is Prunella Wheaton a friend of yours, too?”
Arrington shook her head. “No. I met her once, when I was lunching with a group of women in L.A. She and Vance had an affair when they were very young, long before I knew him.”
“And Wheaton didn’t say where she heard all this?”
“No, she said it was just a rumor.”
“Did you get the impression that it was somebody at the Post? Because that’s where Wheaton’s column runs in New York.”
“She didn’t say.”
“Apart from sharing this rumor, did Wheaton ask you any questions?”
“Just girl stuff. She congratulated me on the marriage and asked how Peter is.”
“What did you tell her about Peter?”
“She asked where he was in school, but I dodged that on
e.”
“What else?”
“She asked where I’m living, and I said in New York, then I made an excuse and got off the phone.”
“I think that was a good idea,” Stone said. “I think this rumor may be a fiction and that Wheaton is the one who’s interested. Why would a gossip columnist warn you that another gossip columnist is interested in you? This doesn’t pass the smell test.”
“What should we do?” Arrington asked.
“Let me make a couple of calls,” Stone said, “then we’ll make a plan.”
“What sort of plan?”
“I don’t know yet, but we don’t want to be caught off guard if she calls again, or if someone else does.”
“I see.”
“Did you confirm where and when the wedding took place and that the mayor performed the ceremony?”
“No, but I didn’t deny it, either.”
“For somebody like Wheaton, the lack of a denial is as good as a confirmation. You go upstairs and lie down, and don’t answer the phone for a while. Let Joan deal with it.”
Arrington stood up, and they hugged. “Thank you for being so calm,” she said. She got into the elevator and went upstairs.
Stone called Bill Eggers. “Do you know Prunella Wheaton?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Eggers said. “I’ve been at a couple of dinner parties where she happened to be, but I’ve always tried to bore her rigid when she tried to talk to me. Sometimes being boring is the best defense with somebody like that.”
“Wheaton has caught wind of our wedding and its circumstances. Apparently, she’s afraid to mention Eduardo, but we might see the mayor’s presiding in print.”
“He won’t like that,” Eggers said. “Rupert Murdoch will get an earful.”
“Wheaton knew Vance Calder, and she met Arrington once. She was digging for information about us and Peter. I figure we’re covered on the birth certificate, but I’d like for you or someone to call Peter’s old school and warn them about giving out any information about him, especially his age.”
“I see where you’re going,” Eggers said. “I’ll take care of it, and I’ll talk to the attorney in Virginia who’s handling the name change.”
“Good, Bill, I appreciate that.”
“Do you want me to have someone call Wheaton?”
“No, don’t do that; it will just pique her interest.”
“Right.”
Stone hung up and called Joan in. “Arrington got a call from Prunella Wheaton today,” he said.
“That old bat? What did she want?”
“She said she’d heard a rumor that someone is prying into our lives, but I think that she’s the one doing the prying.”
“If she calls back, I’ll squash her like a bug,” Joan said.
“No, don’t do that. Put on your sweet act.”
“What sweet act?”
“The one you use when you want something from somebody you hate.”
“But I don’t want anything from her; it’s the other way around.”
“Exactly.”
“Oh.”
“Arrington is always out shopping or at a meeting or taking a nap, or something. Always take her number, but we won’t call back. Be careful about giving her any information at all.”
“I won’t give her the time of day.”
“But be sweet about it.”
“Butter won’t melt in my mouth.” Joan went back to her office.
Stone went upstairs to check on Arrington, who was stretched out on the bed but awake. “When Peter was born was there a birth announcement?”
She shook her head. “No, Vance told the publicity department at Centurion that he wanted no mention of it in the press.”
“How about the columns? Did any of them print anything?”
“No, nothing at all. I spent much of my pregnancy in bed—doctors’ orders—so I wasn’t seen around town with a belly.”
“Good,” Stone said. He had a feeling that they were now going to learn how good a job they had done with Peter’s name and age change.
31
The following afternoon Stone attended the meeting between Hank Hightower and his people and Eggers’s department heads at Woodman & Weld. He drank a double espresso after lunch, which kept him from dozing off and having his head strike the conference table at an inopportune moment. Too many facts about the insurance business traveled into one ear and out the other, without stopping in his brain. Once or twice he was called on to nod sagely or speak an encouraging word, and at the end of the meeting, when everyone stood and shook hands and walked to the elevators together, he was of the impression that the meeting had gone very well and that a new and important client was in the offing.
“I thought that went very well,” Eggers said, as Stone walked with him back to his office, “and that we may have a new and important client in the offing.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Stone replied. “I was very impressed with how you made it possible for me to attend the entire meeting without having to voice an opinion or make any other substantive contribution.”
“And that double espresso kept you bright-eyed,” Eggers remarked. “I must pour that stuff into all our people before after-lunch meetings.”
“Cocaine might work, too,” Stone suggested.
“Well, we wouldn’t want anyone to giggle or break into song, would we?”
“You have a point.”
“I want to congratulate you, Stone,” Eggers said. “In the space of a year you have brought three large and profitable clients into the fold. That’s an impressive achievement, even if you did have to marry one of them.”
“I regret that I have but one bachelorhood to give for my firm,” Stone replied.
“I’ve spoken to the attorney in Virginia, who has already accomplished the name change in that state. The petition was advertised in a weekly publication aimed at tobacco farmers, so it is unlikely to be noticed by gossip rakers. Our partner here, who is a board member of Peter’s old school, has had a discreet word with the headmaster. No information of any kind about Peter will be conveyed to anyone outside the school, which, in any case, is their longtime policy on privacy for students.”
“Thank you, Bill. By the way, Peter got a letter from Yale after he left for school this morning.”
“Good news?”
“Joan tried to get me to let her steam it open, but I resisted. I think, whatever information it contains, it would be best if Peter were the first to read it.”
“Well, let me know,” Eggers said. “I think I’m more nervous about this than you are.”
“Peter feels that both he and Ben Bacchetti are very well qualified to be accepted at Yale, and that the interview, should they be invited for one, will be the crucial test.”
“How did they do on the SATs?” Eggers asked.
“Ben did extremely well in all three categories, coming out with a combined score of 2140 out of 2400.”
“And Peter?”
“He aced the thing.”
“A 2400?”
“That’s right. They both did lots of activities in prep school as well, including working for charities, which is looked upon with favor these days. Ben was the editor for his school paper and wrote a column, and Peter has a nearly complete film to show.”
“You’d think that would get them into any school in the world,” Eggers said.
“Who knows?” Stone replied. “It was a lot easier when you and I were applying to NYU Law School. These days you can’t know how these admissions committees work.”
“Do they have backup schools?”
“Ben has already been accepted to Columbia, but Peter has no backup.”
“It might not hurt if he did.”
“The better I get to know Peter, the more I realize that he habitually assesses the possibilities and alternatives of any situation and chooses what he thinks is the best path. If he felt he needed a backup, he’d have one.”
“He calls it structured optimism.”
Eggers laughed. “I like that.”
“Let’s hope Yale likes it, too.”
“What are you doing this evening?”
“Ben’s off to Choate next week, and we’re having an eighteenth birthday party for him at the house. I’ve rearranged my gym to provide a dance floor, and we’ve hired a DJ, and they’ll all eat in the kitchen.”
“Are you chaperoning?”
“Joan and Helene, my housekeeper, are handling that; they’re a lot tougher than either Arrington or I would be. I’m setting the motion detectors on the first floor so that if anybody tries to make it to a bed, the alarm will go off and lights will flash.”
“Smart move. Good luck.”
Stone got back to the house in time to be there when Peter returned from school. Joan handed him the letter, and he carried it to Stone’s office.
“I got a letter from Yale,” he said, holding it up.
“Good,” Stone replied.
“I’m going to read it now.”
“Good idea.”
Peter stared at the envelope a little longer, then he picked up a letter opener and carefully slit the envelope flap and removed the letter. He unfolded it and read aloud: “‘Dear Mr. Barrington, we are in receipt of yours and Mr. Benito Bacchetti’s applications and their relevant enclosures. We have scheduled an admissions committee meeting for 11:00 AM this Friday, the 7th, and we invite you and Mr. Bacchetti to be interviewed at that time. If this is seriously inconvenient, please phone my office to make other arrangements.’”
Peter flopped down on the couch and heaved a huge sigh. “Wow!” he said. “It’s signed by the dean of the School of Drama.”
“I’ll drive the two of you up to New Haven on Friday morning, if you like,” Stone said.
“I like,” Peter replied. “Ben likes, too. Holy cow, I have to call him!”
“Call him from your room, if you will. I have work to do here, and I don’t want to listen to your squeals.”
Peter ran up the stairs, waving the letter.
Joan came in. “I was listening,” she said. “This is so great!”
