“Stone, there’s nothing wrong with your asking me for somebody’s home number.”
“Tell you what, Rick, can you give me the home numbers of Jim Long, Charlene Joiner, and Jack Schmeltzer? This has nothing to do with what we were talking about.”
“Sure, Stone.” Rick read out the three numbers, and Stone dutifully wrote them down.
“Do you want me to call anybody for you?” Rick asked.
“No, please, don’t. I want to talk to the shareholder and to Harvey Stein. Then I’ll get back to you.”
“I’m at the studio,” Rick said, “on stage four.”
“What are you doing at the studio on a Sunday morning?”
“I’m arranging a little reception for our shareholders,” Rick said. “You’ll see on Tuesday. I’ve got to run.” He hung up.
Stone called Jack Schmeltzer’s home and got an answering machine. “Hello, Jack. It’s Stone Barrington. I’d be grateful if you’d give me a call at the first opportunity.” He left his cell number. Then he called Harvey Stein’s cell, got voice mail, and left the same message. He hung up. He didn’t know what else to do.
Stone and Dino had a late lunch on the patio, and late in the afternoon the house phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Arrington. We’ll be landing at Santa Monica in an hour,” she said. “We’re parking at Atlantic Aviation.”
“I’ll see you there,” Stone said. “Oh, by the way, Mike Freeman is going to join us for dinner.”
“He called me. I’ve already added him to our table.”
“Great, see you in an hour.” Stone hung up. He told Dino about the call from Rick Barron earlier in the day.
“That sounds ominous,” Dino said.
“Yes, it does. I’ve called both Schmeltzer and Harvey Stein, and neither of them has gotten back to me.”
“It’s Sunday afternoon,” Dino said. “They’re probably on the golf course.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Stone said. “You’re probably right; they’ll call back this evening.”
Stone got Vance Calder’s Bentley Arnage out of the garage, and they drove to Santa Monica Airport and got buzzed through the security gate and onto the ramp.
“Here comes a G-III,” Dino said, pointing.
Stone looked up to see the beautiful plane turning from the taxiway into the Atlantic Aviation ramp. “That is she,” he said. He waited until the airplane was chocked, then drove out and parked near the door. The airstair dropped into place, and Arrington walked down the steps, looking fresh as a teenager.
Stone hugged and kissed her, and she gave Dino a kiss, too. “How was your flight?” Stone asked.
“Heavenly,” she replied. “It’s like having your own railroad car, except it moves at five hundred knots. I actually had a shower, so I wouldn’t have to change at home.”
Stone opened the boot of the car so that the crew could load her luggage, then he turned to see another G-III taxiing onto the ramp. “There’s the Strategic Services airplane,” he said. “I’d thought Mike would go into Burbank.”
“We coordinated,” Arrington said. “I was actually able to telephone him from my airplane to his. Isn’t that extraordinary?”
“It is,” Stone agreed. He watched a black SUV pull up to Mike’s airplane and saw Mike get out.
“Why don’t we go straight to the restaurant?” Arrington said.
“It’s Michael’s, in Santa Monica. Mike’s car can take his luggage to the Bel-Air.”
“Good idea,” Stone said, and in little more than a moment they were all in the Arnage, and shortly after that they were settled in a garden table at Michael’s.
Arrington was facing the door. “Well, that’s awkward, isn’t it?” she said, nodding toward the restaurant door.
Stone turned and saw Terry Prince, Carolyn Blaine, and two other people enter the garden.
“Yes, it is,” Stone said. “Ignore them.”
45
Drinks and menus arrived, but Stone was preoccupied with Prince and his dinner guests. “Dino,” he said, nodding toward their table, “isn’t that the woman we saw out in Malibu, the one with the Rolls-Royce?”
“I thought we were ignoring them,” Dino said.
“What was her name?”
Dino produced his notebook. “The car was registered to an E. K. Grosvenor, of San Francisco. The name meant nothing to you.”
“It still doesn’t,” Stone said, but he had an oddly unsettling feeling about the woman.
“Oh, come on, Stone,” Arrington said, “order something. I’m hungry.”
Everyone ordered. As they were waiting for their food, Terry Prince got up and walked over to their table. “Good evening, Mrs. Calder, Stone, everybody.”
Replies were muttered.
Prince turned to Arrington. “Have you had an opportunity to consider my offer yet?”
“I’ve just arrived,” she said. “I haven’t seen it.”
“You’ll get an answer Tuesday,” Stone said, “after the Centurion business is settled.”
“Very well,” Prince said. “Enjoy your dinner.” He turned and ambled back to his table.
Stone reflected that Prince was looking a lot more relaxed than the last time he had seen him. Carolyn, too, he recalled. What were they so relaxed about? Then his mind made one of those off-the-wall connections, put two and two together and got eight. The thought didn’t make him feel any better. Dinner arrived, and he turned his attention to his sweetbreads with a sauce of morel mushrooms.
Mike spoke up. “Arrington, how are you enjoying your new airplane?”
“It’s just wonderful, Mike, and I thank you again for helping me choose it.”
“I thought you would like it.”
“Mike,” she asked, “what, exactly does your company do?”
“Strategic Services supplies security and investigative services to governments, corporations, and individuals worldwide,” Mike replied. “We also have several manufacturing divisions, including those for armored vehicles, body armor, and electronics associated with our work.”
“Is it fun?” she asked.
Mike laughed. “Sometimes.”
“Mike,” Stone said, “Woodman amp; Weld would like to buy me a car. Is the one you loaned me for sale?”
Mike took a card from his pocket, wrote something on the back of it, and handed it to Stone.
It was a number: 100K. “That seems low,” Stone said. “Are you sure?”
“It’s about what it would bring on the wholesale market or at auction.”
“Consider the deal done,” Stone said. He was thrilled but tried not to show it.
“Is it one of your armored models?” Arrington asked Mike.
“Yes.”
“Good. Stone needs it.”
Everybody laughed.
It was still early when they got home, and Stone called Ed Eagle at the Bel-Air.
“Hello?”
“Ed, it’s Stone. I’m glad to catch you in.”
“Hey, Stone, I’m glad you called. I remembered the name of the woman, the embezzler: her name was Dolly Parks. As I said before, that may not mean anything, since she would certainly have changed it when she left town.”
“Thanks, Ed. It was another name I called you about. You said your ex-wife, Barbara, was living in San Francisco and had remarried. Do you know her new name?”
“Well, she changed it from Barbara to Eleanor when she married Walter Keeler.”
“Walter Keeler, the avionics guy?”
“One and the same. He was the one killed in the auto accident.”
“And she has a new husband now?”
“Yes, a car salesman, an Englishman. When she married him, she bought the dealership and gave it to him.”
“What kind of dealership?”
“Rolls, Bentley, Aston Martin, that sort of thing.”
“And his name?”
“Grosvenor; he changed the dealership name to his. I don’t know his first name.”
“So E. K. Grosvenor could mean Eleanor Keeler Grosvenor?”
“Yes.”
“What does she look like?”
“Fairly tall, slim, always fashionably dressed; quite beautiful.”
“And she knew this Dolly Parks?”
“Yes. I had a pair of P.I. s following her, and they made that connection.”