57
Stone put a note to
Ed Eagle in the FedEx box, along with the used tissue, and handed
it to Manolo. “Please call for pickup, and mark it for early
delivery.”
“Yes, Mr. Stone,”
Manolo said.
Dino spoke up. “Are
you going to sell the property to Mrs. Grosvenor?” he asked.
“Knowing what you know about her?”
“Knowing what I know
about her,” Stone said, “it would be safer to sell it to her than
not. People who cross Barbara Eagle Keeler Grosvenor don’t seem to
do well. Look at Terry Prince.”
“I’ll give you odds
Prince gets bail,” Dino said. “It’ll be expensive, but he’ll be
out.”
“Didn’t you just hear
Carolyn say that he’s broke?”
“No, I heard her say
he doesn’t have two hundred twenty-five million dollars to close
the sale. That’s a far cry from not having a few million for
bail.”
“Good
point.”
“Now,” Dino said,
“you should give some thought to what he’s going to do if he’s back
on the street.”
“I’ve been doing just
that,” Stone said.
“My guess is, you’re
going to screw him out of his twenty-five million
dollars.”
“No, I’m just going
to let him screw himself out of it. All I have to do is wait until
noon on Friday, and if he can’t close—and I don’t see how he
can—I’ll keep his money, or rather, Arrington will. I take some
satisfaction in knowing that a nonrefundable deposit was his idea,
not mine.”
“Well, I don’t think
that will make him any less pissed off, do you?”
“No, I
don’t.”
“And Stone, you do
remember the things he tried to do to you when he wasn’t pissed off, don’t you?”
“I’m trying not to,”
Stone replied uncomfortably.
“Mind if I make a
suggestion?” Dino asked.
“Not at
all.”
“Why don’t we just
get into your airplane tomorrow morning and get the hell out of
here and back to New York? I mean, you don’t have to be here to let
Prince screw himself out of his deposit, and the relevant
authorities will come get Ms. Blaine as soon as they match the DNA
samples.”
“You have a point,
Dino, as always, but that wouldn’t be any fun. I want to
watch, don’t you?”
“From a distance,”
Dino said.
“Listen, if you’re
really worried, or if you really have to get back to the precinct,
then I’ll drive you to LAX, and you can get the
red-eye.”
“Me, fly the
airlines? Don’t hold your breath.”
“I’ve spoiled you,
haven’t I?”
“You sure have,” Dino
replied.
“Well, Arrington can
take you as far as Virginia, and Mike, all the way to New York. You
can have your choice of jet travel.”
“And if I do that,
who’s going to watch your back?”
“There is that,”
Stone replied.
Arrington finished
her nap in time for cocktails, and Mike Freeman joined them at her
invitation.
Manolo took orders
and served the drinks, along with canapés.
Mike spoke up. “Rick
Barron called me a few minutes ago and asked me to join the board
of Centurion,” he said.
“I hope you
accepted,” Arrington said.
“I did. Who could
resist? Are you on the board?”
“No, I didn’t want
that, but I’ve asked Rick to appoint Stone instead. He can
represent my interests on the board, and eventually,
Peter’s.”
Stone nearly dropped
his gimlet. “When did this happen?” he asked.
“A few minutes ago,”
she replied.
“Same here,” Mike
said. “Something else: Rick has decided that, rather than leave his
Centurion stock to his grandchildren, he’d rather sell and leave
them cash.”
“Is Strategic
Services going to buy it?” Stone asked.
“We already have,”
Mike said, “pending board approval. As our counsel, will you vote
for that?”
“I certainly will,”
Stone said.
“Then the vote will
be a formality.”
“Then you two
gentlemen,” Arrington said, “will have effective control of
Centurion Studios.”
Stone took a deep
breath. “Whew!”
“Don’t worry, Stone,”
Mike said, “it’s just a business, like any other.”
“Not like any other,”
Stone said.
“You have a point, I
guess. Now that the issue of the land sale is settled, I suppose
the next big decision for the board will be who succeeds Rick
Barron as chairman and CEO.”
“Rick wants to
retire?”
“Do you blame him?”
Mike asked. “The man is in his midnineties, and this fight took a
lot out of him, I think. He and Glenna want to move up to Santa
Barbara full-time.”
“I don’t blame him.
Did he make a recommendation on who should succeed him?” Stone
asked.
“He told me that Jim
Long wants the job,” Mike said.
Stone shook his head.
“That’s way too close to Mrs. Grosvenor for me.”
“Me, too,” Mike
agreed. “Rick’s recommendation is a fellow named Leo Goldman, Jr.
He’s a producer at the studio and a board member, and his late
father, Leo Senior, was a very successful CEO.”
“I know Leo Junior,”
Arrington said. “He’s smart as a whip and a hell of a
producer.”
“I guess we just
elected him,” Stone said. “By the way, Arrington, you have another
decision to make.”
“Oh, no,” Arrington
said, “I’m all out of decisions. I’ve just appointed you to
represent me in studio matters. You decide.”
“It’s not related to
the studio,” Stone said. “It’s about what to do with the property
on which we now sit, sipping gimlets.”
“You decide if Prince
should buy it,” she said.
“Prince isn’t going
to buy it,” Stone said, “unless he can come up with two hundred
twenty-five million dollars by noon, Friday, and I hear his backing
has fallen through. But there’s another buyer in line, same terms.”
He explained about Carolyn Blaine and Eleanor
Grosvenor.
“Well, I’m glad I
don’t have to sell it to Prince,” Arrington said.
“Now you have to
decide whether to sell it to Mrs. Grosvenor. She wants to build the
hotel, and Ms. Blaine wants to run the project.”
Mike spoke up. “Does
Mrs. Grosvenor have enough money to handle that?” he
asked.
“Not without other
backers.”
“Stone,” Arrington
said, “let me ask you one question, then you can make the
decision.”
“All
right.”
“Given everything we
know about Mrs. Grosvenor, do you want to be in business with
her?”
“Absolutely not,”
Stone replied. “And I don’t want to be in business with Carolyn
Blaine, either.” He explained her apparent background and current
legal situation.
“Good God!” Arrington
said. “These two women are Bonnie and Bonnie.”
“They’re also Clyde
and Clyde,” Stone said.
“Let me ask you a question, Arrington,” Mike said. “If I
could put together a syndicate of my clients to finance the
project, would you like to be in the hotel business?”
Arrington thought
about that for a moment. “As long as I could have a house on the
property, yes,” she said. “Stone, do you agree that it would be a
good business move?”
“Without a doubt,”
Stone said. “You might even invest some of the proceeds of the sale
of the land in the new venture.”
“Well, then,”
Arrington said, “all we have to do is wait for Terrence Prince to
default on Friday. The Bonnies and Clydes can take a
walk.”