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.”
58
Stone arrived for breakfast the following morning to be greeted with a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times about Terry Prince, starting with the Centurion meeting, continuing with his arrest, and finally, with his being released on five million dollars bail, cash.
Dino came to the table, and Stone tossed him the paper. “You were right, pal. Prince is on the loose again.”
Dino glanced through the piece. “So he had at least five million cash. I wonder how much he has left.”
“I expect Carolyn knows what she’s talking about when she says he can’t swing the property deal by himself. She’s been his closest associate for some time, now, and I’d be very surprised if she didn’t have a copy of his financial statement.” Stone looked at his watch. “Ed Eagle will have his DNA sample pretty soon.”
“Yeah, and if Carolyn is taken out of the equation and Prince can’t swing the deal, then you’re left with Mrs. Grosvenor to deal with. That’s gonna be fun.”
“Don’t remind me,” Stone said. “Anyway, we’ve now got Strategic Services to step into the deal.”
“Yeah, and you know if you get into bed with Mike Freeman, you’re not going to wake up with his fangs in your neck.”
“That’s a comforting thought, Dino. I hadn’t thought of Mrs. Grosvenor having fangs, but…” His cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“It’s Carolyn Blaine,” she said. “Have you heard that Terry is out on bail?”
“It’s all over the papers,” Stone said.
“I want you to know that he will not be able to close the deal.”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait until noon Friday to see, won’t we?”
“We can be making other plans in the meantime,” she said.
“The meantime doesn’t exist,” Stone replied. “Either Prince is in or he’s out, and we won’t know that until noon Friday.”
“But surely, you and I can come to an arrangement pending that time.”
“No. I was going to call you today and tell you that. My client has a signed contract with Prince; if he can close, she’s bound by that agreement. If he can’t, then I can talk to other parties.”
“What do you mean, ‘other parties’?” she said, sounding worried.
“I mean other parties,” he replied, “you and Mrs. Grosvenor among them.”
“But that twenty-five million dollars you have in the bank is her money.”
“The check was from Prince’s personal account, with his signature on it, and that’s all I need to know. My deal is with Prince. If you have some other deal with him, that’s between the two of you, and nothing to do with me or my client.”
“Well, when Terry can’t raise the money, I’ll simply get him to assign the agreement to us.”
That was an alarming statement and something Stone had not anticipated. “There’s nothing in the agreement allowing him to assign it.”
“There’s nothing in the agreement preventing him from assigning it, either,” she said.
“I suggest we cross that chasm when we come to it,” Stone said.
“Well, if that’s going to be a problem, we can simply let Terry close with our money, then force him out of the deal later.”
“Carolyn, you’d better take a deep breath and consider your position. The way you’re talking now will guarantee you a lifetime of litigation, and quite apart from the courts, you should consider how Prince has chosen to solve his problems in the past.”
“I know how to deal with Terry,” she said. “I’ll see you at ten o’clock on Friday morning, as previously arranged.”
“Nothing was previously arranged,” Stone said, but she had already hung up. He put his phone away and sighed. “Shit,” he said.
Dino was grinning at him from across the table. “Things not going as smoothly as planned?”
“Stop enjoying this,” Stone said. “God, I wish I hadn’t taken that twenty-five million. I let my head be turned by all those zeros.”
“Don’t you think that’s what Prince intended?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Stone said. “Of course, he could still lose it all.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that Prince couldn’t find another two hundred twenty-five million if he had to?”