“Manning did play basketball for his fraternity, as you said he did. In fact, I’ve got a copy of the yearbook for his senior year, and there’s a very good photograph of him in it. He looks very different—thinner and no beard. Would you like to see it?”
Forrester looked at his nails. “It doesn’t interest me,” he said.
“I guess not,” Stone agreed. “Tell me, where are you living these days?”
“I’ve been living here in the city, but I think I’m going to do some traveling now.”
“I’m not surprised,” Stone replied.
Alma walked into the garage from the house. “Oh, there you are. Bill Eggers is on the phone; he wants to know if you want to have lunch.”
“Tell Bill I can’t make it today, but I’ll call him later,” Stone said. “Oh, and call Dino and tell him to pick me up in five minutes and to bring his friends. I’ve got some stuff I want to give to the Salvation Army.”
“Okay,” Alma said, then left.
“Stone,” Manning said, “I really came to see you to find out if you would represent me as my attorney.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re looking for attorney-client confidentiality, aren’t you?”
“In part.”
“Well, you won’t get it from me, pal.”
“Stone, I don’t understand…”
“Sure you do, Paul. By the way, I got a check for your yacht this morning. It brought a million eight after the broker’s fee.”
His face flushed. “I should have thought it was worth a good deal more.”
“Oh, I know you paid more, but what with the market and all…”
Paul Manning looked at his nails again. “When did you figure it out?”
“Oh, I was very slow. It didn’t all come together for me until I was sailing the boat from St. Marks to Fort Lauderdale. No, a little earlier, I guess, when I saw the repair you’d made to the headsail reefing swivel.”
“What else do you think you’ve figured out?”
“The dinghy was never stolen in Las Palmas.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“You just made some noise about it, replaced it, then sailed the old one back to the Canaries after Expansive was over the horizon.”
“If you say so.”
“What did you do about clothes and papers? You couldn’t use your own passport.”
Manning looked at Stone for a long moment, then apparently decided it didn’t matter anymore. “All right, I left a car on the south coast of Gran Canaria with some clothes.”
“How long did it take you to lose the weight?”
“I started dieting the minute we left the States,” Manning said. “Losing weight has never been easy for me, but I had some time; I lost a pound or two a week. By the time we got to Las Palmas, I was as slim as I am now.”
“Careful you don’t gain it back, Paul; somebody might recognize you.”