Raising the Stakes

Jesus, Gray thought, his uncle had finally gone senile. “No,” he said carefully, “you haven’t.”

“Not since Samantha married that Dee-mee-tree-ose guy,” Jonas said, turning the Greek name of his stepdaughter’s husband into pure Texas.

Forget senile. The old man still had a mind like a steel trap. “So?”

“So…” More silence, then the sound of Jonas clearing his throat. “So, I wondered if you might be in the mood to pop down for a visit.”

“Let me get this straight,” Gray said carefully. “You phoned in the middle of the night to invite me to Espada?”

The old man chuckled. “You don’t buy that, huh?”

“No.” Gray walked through his dark apartment to the kitchen, tucked the phone against his shoulder and opened the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed the top and lifted it to his lips. “Hell, no,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Did you really think I would?”

“That’s what I like about you, boy. You ain’t like some people. You don’t believe in treatin’ me like I was God.”

Gray laughed. What his uncle meant was that he didn’t like the old man and he’d never pretended otherwise. He’d never toadied up to the Baron money the way his father did. Jonas whistled; Leighton came running. It had always been like that, all the years Gray was growing up. Sometimes he’d been hard-pressed to know which of the men he despised more, his father for sucking up or Jonas for wallowing in the pleasure of it. After a while, he hadn’t bothered giving it much thought. All that mattered was that he hadn’t done the same thing. He’d thumbed his nose at both of them and at a system that should have died out in the middle ages, and made his own way in the world.

“No,” he said bluntly, “I don’t.” He put the bottle on the counter and made his way back toward the bedroom. “Look, Jonas, let’s cut the crap, okay? It’s the middle of the night. This is the first time you’ve ever phoned me. Come to think of it, this might just be the first time you’ve said more than three words in a row to me.”

“Or you to me, boy.”

“Absolutely. So, why would you expect me to buy into the idea that you called to invite me down for the weekend? Get to the bottom line. What’s the deal?”

Another of those pauses hummed over the phone. Gray could hear the rasp of the old man’s breath.

“You’re some kinda hotshot lawyer up there in New York, ain’t you?”

Was he? He was a partner in a prestigious firm, but did hotshot lawyers spend their days putting the scum of the earth back on the streets?

“I’m a lawyer, licensed to practice in the state of New York,” Gray said brusquely.

“Well, I got a legal matter needs tendin’.”

“A legal matter?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why come to me? For starters, I’m not licensed to practice in Texas.”

“Don’t need you to practice. Maybe I should have said what I need is legal advice.”

“You have people to give it to you. Your son, for one.”

“Travis is a lawyer, all right. But he lives in California.”

“Yeah, and as we both just agreed, I live in New York.”

“I don’t want to involve Travis in this.”

Did the old man know the effect that remark would have? Gray squelched the sudden rush of curiosity that shot through him.

“Well,” he said, “you’ve probably got a powerhouse law firm on retainer in Austin.”

“Damned right.” A touch of pride crept into his uncle’s voice. “The best.”

“Exactly. Whatever legal advice you need, you’d be better off turning to them than to—”

“This here’s a private matter. I want you to handle it, not my son or a passel of lawyers who got no more interest in the Baron name than when they see it on checks.”