“Keener,” the voice said.
“Seth, it’s Stone Barrington. My client Herbert Fisher is in my office to sign the divorce papers, but he insists on one further condition.”
“I thought we had a deal,” Keener said.
“This is an easy one: Mr. Fisher insists that his soon-to-be-former wife stop trying to have him killed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mr. Fisher has already experienced an encounter on a yacht in New York Harbor that required him to choose between being knifed by two thugs or taking a swim in December. The thugs are still following him.”
“I have no knowledge of anything like that,” Keener said.
“That’s what I would say, too, in the circumstances. Would you be kind enough to mention the situation to Mrs. Fisher?”
“If you insist, but I still maintain she has nothing to do with thugs following Mr. Fisher.”
“Let me know what she says, will you?”
“Sure, I will.”
Stone hung up. “I’m afraid that’s all we can do to put an end to it. In the meantime, may I suggest that you carry a roll of quarters in each coat pocket?”
“You think I can buy them off with quarters, Stone?”
“No, but holding them will more than double the weight of your fists and greatly enhance the effects of a punch in the nose. And if the cops ask, you can say you carry the coins for the parking meters.”
Herbie got up and with a little wave departed Stone’s office. “For this I pay five hundred bucks an hour?” he called out from down the hallway.
11
S tone attended a partners’ meeting at Woodman amp; Weld in the afternoon, and afterward he asked for a few minutes with his old friend and law-school classmate Bill Eggers, the firm’s managing partner.
“What’s up, Stone? You look like a man with a problem.”
“Nothing life-threatening,” Stone replied, “just a little thorny. But I think that addressing some issues now will greatly smooth things for the future.”
“Tell me about it.”
“For a start, you correctly assessed the resemblance between the photograph of my father and Arrington’s son, Peter.”
“Ahhh,” Eggers said. “So you’re finally willing to cop to that?”
“I’ve always been willing, but Arrington was slow to come to that point. Recent events have changed things.”
“Changed them how?”
“Well, Peter arrived in town a couple of days ago, a day ahead of his mother, who was under the weather. She arrived yesterday. Peter saw the photograph of my father and, apparently, considering some past suspicions, put the whole thing together in a flash. The boy is extraordinarily bright.”
“Every father thinks that, Stone, trust me.”
“Not every father has a son who is graduating from high school at sixteen and is already writing and directing his first feature film.”
“Oh, that kind of bright.”
“Yes. He’s big for his age, mature as most people get in their midthirties, and very well-spoken and well-mannered.”
“I’d like to meet him.”