by Stuart Woods
When they got home, Anna had left a big pot of beef stew on the stove, so they didn’t have to make dinner.
* * *
—
THE BOARD of directors of the Steele Group stood at the front of the Casa Marina Hotel and waited for something to happen. Men in suits with bulges under their jackets stood quietly by, also waiting for something terrible to happen.
“All right, gentlemen,” Meg said, taking out her iPhone. “We’ve just finished a good dinner, and now we need our car.” She opened an app and tapped a few keys. From around a corner, a bright red car with no driver in sight appeared, turned into the hotel’s block, then stopped and flawlessly backed into a parallel parking spot. Two more cars, green and yellow, followed, then the three vehicles drove up to the front door of the hotel, stopped, and all their doors opened. “Ms. Harmon,” a voice said from inside the lead vehicle, “your cars are here for your party.” The board members got into the vehicles, and Stone rode in the lead car with Meg, who sat in what would ordinarily be the driver’s seat. “Where to, Ms. Harmon?” the car asked.
“Key West International Airport,” she said. “The departure set-down.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the car said, and the little caravan set off, negotiating turns, stopping at stop signs and traffic signals, avoiding careless tourists crossing the road in front of them, and giving bicycles and scooters a wide berth. At the airport, the cars pulled up to where departing passengers would be set down. “You are at your destination,” the car said. “Would you like me to call someone to help with your luggage?”
“No thank you,” Meg replied. “We’ve decided not to leave, but to go back to the Casa Marina instead.”
“Would you like a sightseeing tour on your way?”
“Why not?” she replied.
The cars set off again, while the car radio broadcast a continuous guided tour of the town, giving the riders a history, pointing out landmarks, and making a few jokes. Presently, they were driven back to the hotel, where the passengers got out, and the cars drove away. Meg got a big round of applause from the board.
“That’s very impressive, Meg,” Arthur Steele said for the group. “Do the vehicles always operate so flawlessly?”
“They certainly do,” Meg said. “We’re now ready to proceed from beta testing to fleet trials for the Department of Transportation and the State of California. We’ve also assigned vehicles to about two dozen officials for their daily commutes and normal uses.”
“A smart move,” Arthur said.
“Well,” Meg replied, “it will be much better than waiting for them to read the written reports from their testing staff. There’s nothing like a hands-off experience to sell a new idea.”
That got a big laugh from the board, and everybody went inside for a cocktail party, joining selected investors of both the Steele Group and Harmony Software.
“That was spectacular,” Stone said to Meg, as they followed the group.
“It kind of was, wasn’t it?” Meg replied with a big smile.
“Tell me,” Stone said, “what would have happened if one or more of the cars was involved in an accident?”
“First of all, no accident would have occurred that could be blamed on the cars, only other, driver-operated vehicles, and our cars are very good at anticipating errors by drivers of other cars. But if an accident had somehow happened, the cars would have collaborated with each other on an assessment of the injuries and damage, taking only a few seconds, then the police and ambulances, if necessary, would have been automatically notified. By the time they arrived, the cars would have printed out a completed standard-form accident report for the police and the insurance company, and the passengers would have been on their way again in record time.”
“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”
“We better have,” Meg replied.
13
The following morning Stone called Joan and let her know they were returning to New York a little early.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want Fred to meet you?”
“Good idea. I’ll be bringing a guest, and we’d be crowded in Dino’s car.”
“I’ll let Helene know, too. Dining in tonight?”
“I expect so, just the two of us, in my study.”
“You should know that when you arrive you’ll find an unexpected guest waiting for you.”
“Who’s that?”
“You’ll see,” Joan replied, then hung up.
Stone wondered if that person could be of the female persuasion. He would not be comfortable with such a presence on this occasion. He nearly called Joan back and told her to clear the decks, but decided, instead, to rely on her discretion.
* * *
—
THEY ARRIVED at the Key West airport and left the car in the lot for George to pick up, then walked out to the airplane. Stone unlocked the baggage compartments and began loading luggage.
“You didn’t tell me you had your own airplane,” Meg said. “I was expecting an airliner.”
“What’s money for?” Stone asked.
“I don’t see any pilots.”
“There’s just one, and you’re looking at him.”
She appeared a little uncomfortable.
“Are you concerned about my piloting skills?” Stone asked her.
“Not at all, except maybe when I’m aboard that,” she said, pointing at the Citation.
“If you’re uncomfortable, I’ll be happy to put you on an airline, but it will be close to bedtime before you arrive, since you’d probably have to make a couple of stops to change airplanes.”
Viv stepped in. “Meg, we’ve flown with Stone many times, and believe me, you will be in good hands. You and I can talk on the way about your security arrangements in New York.”
Reluctantly, Meg climbed aboard the airplane and took a seat with Viv in the passenger compartment, while Stone conducted a preflight inspection. Dino took the copilot’s seat; he didn’t fly himself, but he liked to complain about Stone’s flying.
They were first in line for takeoff, and a minute later they were climbing in a northerly direction, before joining Stone’s filed flight plan. Within half an hour they were at flight level 400, or forty thousand feet. Stone adjusted the heating for comfort and let the autopilot do the rest, then turned on some classical music in the hope of soothing Meg. The air was smooth up high, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight.
“A good day to have Meg as a passenger,” Dino said, looking around. “God help us if she sees a thunderstorm or we fly through a cloud.”
“You think I should have warned her that I would be flying? It never crossed my mind.”
“I think that if you had, she’d be aboard an airliner now.”
Stone opened the New York Times. “You’re in charge,” he said to Dino. “Let me know if anything awful happens.”
They had a strong tailwind and flew at around 500 knots, over the ground for most of the trip. As they flew the arrival procedure for Teterboro, they descended through some clouds until they were at three thousand feet. Shortly, they picked up the Instrument Landing System for runway 6, and Stone put down the crossword puzzle.
* * *
—
CARS WERE not normally allowed on the ramp at Jet Aviation, but Dino’s was, and Fred had managed to follow his car through the gates and out to the airplane. Dino went back and helped the women down the stairs, while linemen took their luggage to the appropriate vehicles. Shortly, they were on their way into the city, well ahead of rush-hour traffic, Dino and Viv in his car and Stone and Meg in the rear seat of the Bentley.
“You’re very quiet,” Stone said.
“I’m still calming down,” she replied. “I mean, I relaxed a lot when we were high up, but when we b
egan to come down and flew through those clouds, I got nervous again.”
“Clouds are just collections of water vapor. Do you get nervous during airline flights?”
“No, not anymore.”
“I hope you’ll get used to flying with me. Did you ever consider a corporate aircraft?”
“I didn’t really fly all that much on business for a long time, so it seemed unnecessary.”
“You should think about it now. I’m sure the board would approve the expenditure, since all of them fly corporate.”
“Do you fly yourself going overseas?”
“Yes, I have a house in England and one in Paris. I fly up to Newfoundland, refuel, then go nonstop from there. Coming back against the wind, I stop in Iceland or the Azores, as well, to refuel.”
“You make it sound like a very ordinary way to travel,” she said.
“It is for me. I don’t enjoy the airport experience, and as you saw, we managed to avoid all that.”
“It’s certainly a convenient way to travel. And I will be crossing the country a lot.”
“If you want to look into it, I can find a consultant to help you find an aircraft that meets your needs.”
“I’ll think about it.”
* * *
—
THEY ARRIVED at Stone’s house and left Fred to deal with the luggage, then went to Stone’s office. Bob, his Labrador retriever, ran to him with tail wagging, and to Stone’s surprise, a nearly identical Lab followed him, wagging all over.
“Who’s this?” he asked Joan, after he had introduced Meg.
“That’s your surprise visitor,” she said. “Her name is Sugar, and she belongs to a lady across the street. We met when walking them, and she asked me to keep Sugar for a couple of days while she was away. Bob is agreeable to the arrangement, as you can see.”
“I hope we’re not going to have a lot of Lab puppies running around here anytime soon,” Stone said.
“I don’t suppose you’ve noticed, but Bob has been deprived of that function, and so, I’m told, has Sugar.”
Stone took Meg up in the elevator and into the master suite, where her clothes had been unpacked and put into the second dressing room.
Meg inspected the premises. “I like the way you live,” she said.
“Thank you, so do I.”
“And now that I’m on the ground safely, I feel better about your flying arrangements. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with it next time.”
“I’m glad of that. I’d rather fly with you than without you.”
* * *
—
GINO AND VERONICA BELLINI got through baggage and customs and found a driver waiting for them. Once in the car, Gino said, “I’m going to buy a fucking airplane.”
“That’s fine by me,” Veronica said, “as long as you’re not flying it. I mean, when you had the little airplane, I kind of enjoyed flying with you, but anything bigger, I’d like a pro—no, two pros—up front.”
“I’ll start looking into it tomorrow,” he said.
“How much does that sort of airplane cost?”
“New, somewhere between five and fifty million dollars, depending on your tastes.”
“That’s quite a price range.”
“I expect we could get something suitable for ten or fifteen million.”
“Why don’t we wait until you screw a lot more money out of Meg Harmon,” Veronica said.
“There won’t be long to wait,” Gino replied.
14
They dined before a cheerful fire in Stone’s study. Bob and Sugar slept by the hearth, curled up together. “I like your house,” Meg said. “How old is it?”
“Seventy years or so. I inherited it from my great-aunt, my grandmother’s sister. I did most of the restoration work myself, just about everything that didn’t require a license, like plumbing and electrics.”
“How could you afford to live here on a police detective’s salary?”
“I couldn’t,” Stone replied. “I was up to my ears in debt when an old friend from law school invited me to join his firm. I had never gotten a law license, so I took a cram course and passed the bar. He had it in mind that I specialize in handling the cases the firm didn’t want to be seen handling—in short, the personal, often messy side of clients’ lives. My experience as a cop helped.”
“That doesn’t sound as though it could make you rich enough to live like this.”
“Oh, I did better and better, as time passed, and my clients got better, too. Then I married the widow of an actor—you remember Vance Calder?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Arrington and I had had a relationship for a while when she met Vance, and they were soon married. He had become extremely wealthy during his long career. Arrington didn’t know it, but she was pregnant when they married. Our son, Peter, who took my name after Vance’s death, is a film director in Los Angeles, and his partner is Dino’s son, Ben.”
“So you married a rich widow?”
“I did, and I helped her become richer before she was murdered by an ex-lover.”
“And you inherited everything?”
“Oh, no, only about a third. The bulk of it went into a trust for Peter, which I manage. He’s old enough now to take charge of it himself, but he’s asked me to continue in that role.”
“So, like me, you became suddenly rich?”
“Not quite. I was doing very well in my practice and I was made a partner in Woodman & Weld. While she was alive we lived mostly on my income, while continuing to build her fortune. I preferred it that way.”
“But you experienced the shock of suddenly being able to have anything you want, just as I did.”
“Not exactly—that took a while to dawn on me. That’s when I started buying houses—my great weakness, as you have come to know.”
“I could use some advice on how to conduct myself,” Meg said.
Stone took a sip of his wine. “Go shopping,” he said.
“I have already done so,” she replied, laughing.
“Not just clothes and jewelry—art, if you like it, the airplane we talked about, a place in New York, and maybe a vacation house somewhere you love. The aircraft can take you there. Just keep remembering—you earned it, and you deserve it. That’s more than I could say for myself.”
“That’s good advice. I didn’t ask you about your family.”
“Ah, they’re an interesting story. My parents grew up together in a town in western Massachusetts called Great Barrington. They were, I think, third cousins, and their fathers were both in the textile business—woolens, mainly. When it became obvious that the young people were attracted to each other, their parents deeply disapproved.”
“Why? Genetics?”
“No, politics. My father and, to a lesser extent, my mother held leftist views. My father was for a while a card-carrying Communist. He had no interest in his family’s wealth or their business. I think he felt guilty that he had had such a privileged upbringing. He was at Yale when he discovered a love for woodworking, and he wanted to make that his trade. His father, of course, wanted him in the business, but he disdained that.
“After a couple of years at Yale, which he had spent seeing my mother as much as possible—she was at Mount Holyoke—they eloped, he dropped out of college, and they moved to New York to live a bohemian existence. My mother was a talented painter. Both their parents disowned them, my father for being a Communist, my mother for marrying my father.”
“And your father became a woodworker?”
“Not at first—that required space for a shop and a lot of expensive tools. He began by going door-to-door in Greenwich Village with his toolbox, offering to do odd jobs. Gradually, he got small commissions—a bookcase, a dining table. My mother’s paintings were selling, and together they saved enoug
h to make a down payment on a house with room for a shop in the cellar. After a few years he had earned an excellent reputation as a designer and craftsman. In fact, he made just about every wooden thing in this house. I helped him when I was a teenager, and I learned the skills from him that helped me renovate this house. They’re both gone now.”
“What a lovely story.”
“What about your family?”
“My father was an aeronautical engineer, and after Stanford he was hired by Douglas Aircraft and made a career there. He was on the design team for many of their models. My mother taught high school in Santa Monica, and they lived near her work and his. I was born late in their marriage—quite a surprise, I think.
“We were solidly middle class—I didn’t have to work my way through college. I had a golden California girlhood, spent a lot of time at the beach with boys who were clearly not going to amount to anything, although a few of them did. One made a fortune building surfboards.
“I was interested in engineering, but more interested in electronics. I followed my father to Stanford, where I studied computer science, instead of airplanes. I worked at Apple for a while, then, when they showed too little interest in what I wanted to do, I started consulting, wrote a couple of pieces of successful commercial software, which made me some cash, founded Harmony, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
* * *
—
FRED CLEARED their dishes, and Stone poured them both a cognac, then he leaned back in his chair and regarded her. “Why do I get the feeling that I haven’t heard the whole story about you and Gino Bellini?”
“Well,” she said, “I guess that’s because I haven’t told you the whole story.”
“If I’m going to stop him from ruining your business and killing you, I think I should know everything.”
Meg sighed. “I suppose it would be ungrateful of me not to tell you about it.”
“Worse, it could be dangerous.”
