“That would thrill him, Pepe,” Brad replied. “He’s getting married soon, and he could use it.”
They broke up the meeting and said their goodbyes. Stone made a point of shaking Caroline Woodhouse’s hand. “I hope I’ll see you again,” he said.
She looked him in the eye. “I hope so, too,” she replied, handing both Stone and Pepe her card.
Stone and Pepe took the elevator downstairs and chatted for a moment in the lobby.
“Tell me about Marty Winkle’s operation,” Stone said.
“I was very impressed,” Pepe said. “I also liked it that his building is quite large. If we can make an initial success of distributing here, then there’s room on the property for a brewing operation. But I’m worried about Gino Parisi’s threat of preventing me from getting a business license.”
“Then I think what we should do is, instead of just buying Marty’s assets, buy the corporation, after satisfying ourselves that there are no liabilities attached. If you own the corporation, you own the license, though you may have to get the sanction of the licensing board. Later on, you’d need another license for brewing, but I think the State of New York would be very happy to have a new brewery in the state. We’ll see, too, what tax incentives they’ll give us for establishing here.”
Pepe shook his hand. “Thanks so much for all your help, Stone. My CFO and accountant will be here tomorrow, and after they’ve looked things over, I’ll give you a call and let you know where we go from here.”
The two men parted, and Stone went home to call Dino. He wanted to find out more about Bowsprit Beverages and its owners, Brubeck and Parisi.
5
Stone called Dino. “There’s a problem you maybe should have a look at.”
“The city is full of those,” Dino replied.
“This one might be more fun. It’s something called Bowsprit Beverages. It’s a liquor and beer distributor, and it appears they play hardball. They tried to get tough with my client Pepe Perado — even said that if he started his own distributorship, they’d torpedo his license application.”
“That doesn’t sound too good,” Dino admitted.
“Something else: remember the two dirty ex-cops, Ryan and Parisi? Well, the partners at Bowsprit are Jerry Brubeck and — wait for it — Gino Parisi.”
“That last one rings a distant bell. I’ll look into it.”
“One more item: Ryan and Parisi the younger are still dogging my client, and they knew he was staying at the Waldorf.”
“Okay, I’ll get our organized crime guys to have a sniff at it. Anything else your police department can do for you today?”
“Well, there’s been a lot of double-parking on my street lately.”
“Let the air out of their tires.” Dino hung up.
Stone hung up, too. He had no plans for the evening, and he didn’t like reading after dark. Also, there were no more old movies on TV to watch, since he’d seen them all at least three times. It seemed that the more recently produced movies made bad old movies. He picked up the phone, called Kelly & Kelly, and asked for Caroline Woodhouse.
“This is Caroline.”
“This is Stone Barrington. Hello again.”
“All right, hello again.”
“I know that when I said I hoped to see you again, you may not have thought it would be quite so soon, but would you like to have dinner this evening?”
“Actually, I thought it might be soon, and yes, I would. I get hungry every evening around eight.”
“Anyplace special you’d like to go?”
“I’m fond of the Four Seasons Pool Room.”
“What a coincidence, so am I. Why don’t you come to my house for a drink at seven or so, and we’ll go on from there.”
“You talked me into it, but I don’t do ‘or so.’ I’ll be there at seven.”
He gave her the address, and they hung up. Stone alerted his factotum, Fred Flicker, to station himself near the front door at almost seven.
She was true to her word; the bell rang at precisely seven, and a moment later Fred showed her into Stone’s study. “Ms. Woodhouse,” Fred intoned. “When would you like the car, Mr. Barrington?”
“At seven forty-five.” Fred vanished.
“What would you like to drink?” Stone asked Caroline.
“What do you recommend?”
“The house specialties are vodka gimlets, vodka martinis, and excellent whiskeys.”
“What’s a vodka gimlet?”
“Trust me, if you don’t like it I’ll get you something else immediately.”
“I’m game.” She began looking at pictures.
Stone opened the little freezer, extracted a bottle of pre-made gimlets, poured her one and handed it to her, then he poured himself a Knob Creek.
She tasted the gimlet. “Whoa, that’s startling,” she said.
“I make them by the bottle and keep them in the freezer.”
“Make them how?”
“Simple — remove six ounces of vodka from a 750-milliliter bottle of vodka, replace it with Rose’s Sweetened Lime Juice, and put it in the freezer overnight.”
Caroline stopped before a painting. “Wait a minute, is this a Matilda Stone?”
“It is.”
“So, somehow you discovered who my favorite painter is, then rushed out and bought this? I’m impressed.”
“No, she’s my favorite painter, too. Would you like to see some others?”
“Yes, please.”
“There’s one more beside the door.” He waited for her to appreciate it, then took her into the living room and dining room and showed her some others.
“My God, how many do you have?”
“Eleven, at the moment, but I have a man still looking for more.”
“That’s more than the Metropolitan Museum has.”
“I know, they keep trying to buy mine. How did you discover Matilda Stone?”
“I saw one at an exhibition, then I discovered those at the Met. I bought four prints at the museum shop, and they’re my favorites of all my pictures. I paint, and she was an influence on my work.”
Stone took her back to the study and sat her down.
“Tell me your story,” he said.
“Long version or short version?”
“I’m not drunk enough for the long version.”
She laughed. “Smart guy. All right, born and bred in a small town in Georgia called Delano, bachelor’s in art history at Vassar, then a master’s in design at Pratt. I met the Kelly boys right after school in a bar, and the next thing I knew I was an art director at their nascent agency. Now I’m head of the art department. Your turn.”
“Born and bred in Greenwich Village, educated at PS 3, NYU, and NYU Law. When time came to practice law I decided to do it on the street, instead of in the courts, so I joined the NYPD, and did that for fourteen years, then I finally passed the bar and became a proper attorney-at-law.”
“Considering your house and your collection of Matilda Stones, you must have done very well at it.”
“I inherited the house from my great-aunt — my grandmother’s sister — and the beginnings of my collection from my mother, but I can’t complain about the hand life has dealt me.”
“Why did you leave the police department?”
“You aren’t drunk enough for that story. Suffice it to say, it was time I grew up and got a real job, even if it wasn’t as much fun as being a cop.”
“What kind of cop were you?”
“I started as a patrolman, like everybody else, and ended up as a homicide detective.”
“And that was fun?”
“You’d be surprised how entertaining a corpse can be. And anyway, everybody loves a murder mystery.”