“I could probably find you some crack and a dirty syringe,” Dino said.
“Never mind.”
They order dinner and another drink.
“Is the bourbon finding its way to all the right places?” Brooke asked.
“It’s doing very nicely,” Stone said, sipping from his second Knob Creek.
“So,” Dino said. “How are we going to kill this guy?”
“Don’t talk that way in front of Brooke. She’ll get the wrong impression.”
“I’m getting the right impression,” Brooke replied. “And I want to help.”
The others laughed.
“I just want to watch,” Viv said. “Others can do the dirty work.”
By the time they had dined, it was feeling like any other evening, Stone reflected. “It’s nice to have friends who would have cared if the newspaper had been right,” he said, raising a brandy glass to them all.
“It’s nice to be drinking your cognac, instead of mine,” Dino replied.
Brooke spoke up, “I think I had better get Stone home while he’s still ambulatory.”
“Yeah, and before he gets weepy,” Dino said. “I don’t think I could stand that.”
The party broke up, and the celebrants went their ways.
I don’t think I can undress myself,” Stone said, sitting down heavily on the bed.
“I’ll deal with that,” Brooke said, working on his buttons.
“I wish I could do the same for you,” he said, falling back onto the bed.
She got his feet under the covers and pulled them over him. “We’ll finish this in the morning,” she said, “when you’re a new man.”
“In the morning, I could have been dead,” Stone said, then he fell soundly asleep.
“Poor baby,” Brooke said, kissing him on the forehead and switching off the lights.
The following morning, with sunlight streaming through the blinds, Stones sat up, erect in every sense of the word.
“I see duty calls,” Brooke said, pulling back the covers and mounting him.
“That was the patriotic response,” Stone replied, doing what he could to help.
After they had collapsed and dozed off, they were awakened by the dumbwaiter’s bell, and Brooke got up and served them.
“You look wonderful naked,” Stone said, observing her sleepily.
“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Only the naked ones.”
“Shut up and eat breakfast,” she said.
It was mid-morning before Stone could bestir himself to dress, shave, shower, and go downstairs.
Joan brought him a sustaining second cup of coffee.
“Anything up?”
“A FedEx came from the lawyer in California, Ted Stein.”
“Who?”
“From the L.A. office. He called about it. It’s the closing documents on the Malibu house Shep bought, and some personal papers of his,” she said. She left and came back with a FedEx box.
“Just leave it on the sofa,” Stone said, opening the Times. “I’ll go through it later.” He began his morning stroll through the newspaper, and when that was done, settled into the crossword, with his feet on his desk and his chair rocked back.
Joan woke him in time for lunch. “Why are you so punchy this morning?” she asked. “Is this a hangover from the morphine?”
“If it is, it’s very pleasant,” Stone said.
The phone rang, and Joan answered it. “It’s Lance,” she said, covering the phone.
Stone picked up. “Good morning, Lance.”
“You sound drowsy. Still on the morphine?”
“I haven’t been able to get anybody to give me any.”
“Careful, you may have an addictive personality,” Lance said.
“If that were true, I’d have died from a diseased liver long ago.”
“What a pleasant thought. Have you given any more thought to the Kronk problem?”
“I thought I’d let him sweat for a while, before I make a move.”
“What move is that?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Stone said.
“You’d better come up with something before he does,” Lance said, then hung up.
Fifty
The next morning Stone sent Brooke home and went down to his office, feeling very much more sober than he had the day before. He actually got some work done before noon, when Joan buzzed. “It’s that guy from the L.A. Woodman & Weld office, Ted Stein.”
Stone picked up. “Good morning, Ted.”
“You sound like a new man,” Stein said.
“In a manner of speaking, I am.”
“Did you have an opportunity to go through that package I sent you?”
“Not yet. I’ve been lazy.”
“I think you’re going to find it interesting, particularly the will.”
“The will? Shep never mentioned a will.”
“That’s because he didn’t have one. I suggested that before he bought the Malibu house might be a good time to address that, so he dictated a will, which required only a little editing, we typed it up for him and he signed, in the presence of enough witnesses to satisfy the states of both California and Massachusetts. I suggest you read it and call me back, if you have any questions. Oh, and after he signed the will he signed another document, making you his executor.”
“Why two documents?”
“You’ll see.” Ted hung up.
Joan came in.
“Where’s that FedEx box from Ted Stein?”
“It’s in the Excelsior,” she said.
“I hope to God you can open the beast,” he said.
Joan disappeared into the back room and, after a few minutes, came back with the box. She set it on his desk, took a box cutter from her pocket, cut it open, and shoved it across his desk. “There you go,” she said.
Stone upended the box, and everything spilled out on his desktop. The paperwork for the house seemed in order, as did the document naming him executor. Then he got to the will.
There was a fairly long list of schools, colleges, charities, and apparent friends, all of which or whom were left a million dollars each. He had forgotten how rich Shep had become before his death.
Then came the final bequest, which set him back on his heels.
The balance of my estate, whether in cash, securities, or real property, I leave and bequeath to my good friend and attorney, Stone Barrington, with all taxes to be paid by the estate.
Stone tried to make sense of that. How much did Charley Fox say Shep had deposited in his investment account? Stone believed he had said “two hundred and fifty million dollars.” He sucked in a breath, then he remembered that he had deposited $150 million from Kronk into Shep’s account two days before. He did some quick arithmetic on taxes and came up with a net of roughly $250 million. Then he remembered that there was the house in Lenox and those three newly leveled beachfront lots on Martha’s Vineyard. Holy shit.
He called Ted Stein in L.A.
“I thought I’d be hearing from you,” Ted said. “I take it you’ve read Mr. Troutman’s will.”
“I have.”
“By the way, Shep’s father left his entire estate to him. The documents are with Rod’s personal attorney in Massachusetts. His card is in the envelope.”
“Did you total the whole thing?”
“I think it’s going to be in the neighborhood of four hundred million dollars, you poor guy. Not counting the real estate.”
“Wasn’t there some charity or school he’d rather have left it to?”
“Read the list, pal. They all got a mil each.”
“Listen, Ted, I’m going to send all this stuff back to you and let you and our estate department handle it. I’m not going anywhere near it.”
“Well, if you can hang on to it until tomorrow, I’ll be in New York for the quarterly partners’ meeting at Woodman & Weld. I’ll go over it with the estate department and see what we have to do about probate. We probably ought to run it by the bar association, too.”