“I had some dinner with a friend, and when I got home I heard on the news that James Long had been stabbed at the jail and taken to Cedars-Sinai. It was easy to put two and two together.”
“And,” Stone said, “since you put two and two together only after the fact, you had no reason to call the police yesterday.”
“That’s right, and I’m not sure that what I could testify to is enough to get Terry tried and convicted.”
“I think you’re right about that,” Stone said.
Manolo brought breakfast, and they began to eat.
“Tell me, Carolyn,” Stone said, “do you have any idea what happened to Terry’s driver, Alexei?”
“Only what I read in the papers,” she said. “Terry brought up the subject, but he seemed to be as mystified as I. The man hadn’t come to work the day before, and when I called his apartment there was no reply. No reply to his cell phone, either.”
“What about Jennifer Harris? Any ideas about her death?”
“Who?”
“That was in the papers, too. She was the daughter of Eddie Harris, who used to run Centurion, and she had inherited his stock in the studio.”
“Now that you mention it, I think I saw something about her in the papers, too, but I didn’t connect her with Terry’s attempt to get control of Centurion.”
They finished breakfast, and Carolyn got up to go. “What should I do?” she asked.
“Nothing, for the moment, just keep an ear to the ground. Although what you’ve told me isn’t enough for an arrest, it could be very useful at trial in conjunction with other evidence that might be found in an investigation.”
“Stone,” she said, picking up her handbag, “why did you tell me at the Bel-Air Hotel party not to mention to Terry that Mrs. Calder has an option to buy some property adjoining her estate?”
“I can’t tell you that right now, but it’s better for you that Prince doesn’t know. You’ll have to trust me on that.”
“All right,” she said, “I will.”
Stone watched her walk back toward the main house, and he wondered why he was not sexually attracted to her. She was quite beautiful, after all.
27
Stone retrieved the Woodman amp; Weld documents from the fax machine in the house, and when he returned to the patio, Arrington and Dino were having breakfast. He put the envelope on the table and poured himself a second glass of orange juice.
“You’re not eating?” Arrington asked.
“I was hungry; I ate earlier.”
“What’s the big envelope?”
“Many documents for your signature. Signing them will wrap up the property purchase, the airplane purchase, the purchase of Baird’s shares, and it will authorize Woodman amp; Weld and me to transfer funds from your line of credit to pay for all of that.”
“You didn’t mention the purchase of James Long’s shares.”
Stone sighed. “There’s a problem with that.” He told her about the attack on Long.
“You mean Prince can have people killed in prison?”
“It’s not as hard as you might imagine, if you have a contact on the inside.”
“I’m beginning to feel unsafe,” she said.
“You’ve had round-the-clock security since late last night,” Stone said. “Mike Freeman arranged it, and his people are good.”
“Oh, then I feel safer.”
“With any luck at all you’ll have everything wrapped up and will be able to fly back to Virginia tomorrow-the day after, at the most.”
“You mean if James Long doesn’t die.”
“I mean if he signs the papers. If he dies, then we have to deal with his estate.”
“Oh, God,” she said.
“We have to take these things as they come,” Stone said. “Everybody’s working very hard to make this work.”
“I know you’re working hard, Stone, and I’m very impressed by how quickly you’ve been able to generate all the paperwork for these various transactions.” She put her fork down. “Okay, give me a pen.”
Stone guided her through the documents, then doublechecked to be sure she had signed them all, then he summoned Manolo and gave him instructions on faxing the documents.
“Before the day is out, you’ll own Baird’s shares, the adjoining properties, and the airplane.”
“Things didn’t happen this fast when I was dealing with Mr. Sharp, back in Virginia. He would have taken weeks to get all this done.”
Manolo came and told Stone he had a call.
“Hello?”
“Stone, it’s Rick Barron. Have you heard about Jim Long? The morning news said he’s in the hospital.”
“Yes. We’re still going to make this happen, Rick. We just have to wait for him to be sufficiently conscious to sign the sales documents. They’re in his attorney’s hands now.”
“What else can go wrong?”
“Don’t worry, we’re going to get there.” Stone didn’t feel as confident as he sounded, but it was important to keep the man’s spirits up. “His attorney will call me when there’s news, and I’ll let you know immediately. Did you call any of the other shareholders about selling?”
“I stopped when I thought we had enough shares.”
“Well, you’d better get back on the phone, just in case we need more shares.”
“All right, I’ll do that.” Rick hung up.
“Anything I can do?” Dino said.
“Yes, you can call your pal Rivera and tell him there’s a man at Parker Center called Carter, who is in Terry Prince’s pocket and who may have been involved in Jim Long’s shanking.”
“I can do that,” Dino said. He got up and went into the guesthouse.
“Prince is a persistent son of a bitch, isn’t he?” Arrington said.
“Yes, he is.”
“What are we going to do if he wins the Centurion battle?”
“Worst case, you’ll probably get three thousand dollars a share for your stock. That’s not too bad a downside.”
“But Rick will see his beloved studio die.”
“I hope not, but nothing ever remains the same; things keep changing.” Stone thought maybe this was the time. “Worse comes to worse, there may be a way to keep Centurion from Prince, even if he wins this fight.”
“How can we do that?” Arrington asked.
“As of today, you own-what?-eighteen acres of Bel-Air?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Prince has gone into the hotel business, bought several prime properties around the country. That’s mostly why he wants Centurion, so he can build another. He tried to buy the Bel-Air Hotel but failed. I think he wanted it very, very badly.”
“So?”
“So, if he owned your property here, he could build his own hotel in Bel-Air.”
Arrington blinked. “I suppose there is enough land for that,” she said. “But how would that stop him from buying Centurion?”
“You could make the sale of your land conditional on his agreeing not to acquire Centurion. I suspect that, although the Centurion deal might make better business sense, his ego would prefer having his own hotel in Bel-Air.”
“You know,” Arrington said, “I might like to have my own hotel in Bel-Air. That would be quite a project, wouldn’t it?”
“Stop having that dream for the moment,” Stone said. “Let’s see how this works out.”
“If you say so,” she said.
28
Stone gave his car to the parking attendant at the Bel-Air and walked across the bridge to the hotel. The swans were back in the little stream, as if they had never left. Maybe they hadn’t, he reflected.
Stone presented himself to the headwaiter and was shown to a large, semi-circular booth at the rear of the garden restaurant, where Terry Prince was already seated.
“Forgive me for not getting up,” Prince said, offering his hand as Stone slid behind the table. “Would you like a drink?”