Eduardo led them to his large living room, where his elderly sister supervised the pouring of champagne, and toasts were offered. Then Pietro opened the doors to the dining room, they found their place cards, and were seated. There followed a parade of food that could have fed everyone in a Salvation Army chapel, where, Dino whispered, most of it would end up, with the mayor delivering it personally.
After Christmas dinner they adjourned to Eduardo’s handsome library for coffee. Ben came over to Peter, whispered something to him, and Peter handed him an envelope from his little leather case. Ben went to his grandfather and asked if he could speak to him alone for a moment. They were out of the room for, perhaps, ten minutes, then returned. Ben flashed Peter a thumbs-up.
Stone leaned over to Peter, who sat between him and Arrington. “What was that all about?” he asked.
“Ben’s grandfather is going to help him change from Columbia to Yale, so that we can go to college together. He’s going to pass along my application, too.”
“You shouldn’t have asked Eduardo to do that without talking with us first,” Arrington said.
“I didn’t ask him, Ben did.”
“Still.”
“Mom, he’s just passing along my application. I think it’s better than mailing it in, don’t you?”
“I hope you both get in,” Stone said.
“We’ve both got the qualifications,” Peter replied. “It’s the interview that’s important, and at least they’ll know who we are when we get there.”
Stone looked at Arrington. “I don’t think Dino and I could have dealt with this as well as the boys have.”
Dino pulled up a chair. “I’ll second that,” Dino said.
Peter went over to talk with Ben and his grandfather.
“Ben’s not going to law school,” Dino said. “He wants to be a movie producer.”
“I can imagine where he got that idea,” Arrington said.
Stone spoke up. “I think it’s a good idea that they go to college together.”
“I’m for that, too,” Dino said. “I suppose you dealt with Peter’s birth certificate.”
Stone nodded. “Bill Eggers did it through an L.A. judge with whom we both went to law school.”
Later, Stone had an opportunity to talk with Eduardo.
“I’m very impressed with your son,” the older man said.
“To tell you the truth, so am I,” Stone replied. “He surprises me every day.”
“Benito has told me of their plans to work together after Yale,” Eduardo said. “I think it’s good that he has a friend with a good head on his shoulders.”
“I’m glad Peter has such a good friend, too, Eduardo,” Stone replied.
He was going to have to ask Peter about this plan he had, since he had heard nothing of it.
23
K elli Keane was at her tiny desk in a corner of the Page Six offices at the New York Post when she got a call from the young man with whom she had slept the night before, who happened to work on the outer periphery of the mayor’s staff.
She listened through her earpiece while simultaneously typing on her computer keyboard. “Go,” she said.
“Word around the office is that the mayor married somebody yesterday.”
“I thought he wouldn’t do that.”
“Only in exceptional cases, and in this case, secret ones. It happened at the home of Eduardo Bianchi.”
“Who?”
“Big shot, lives way the hell out in Brooklyn; on a lot of boards, corporate and charitable.”
“So, who got married?”
“That’s the mystery. The mayor has had Christmas dinner booked there for weeks, and after the dinner he took all the considerable leftovers to some mission down on the Bowery.”
“Come on, Bruce,” she said, “who are the happy couple? They must be somebody special.”
“You’re right, but it beats me.”
“Who were the other guests for Christmas dinner?”
“I don’t have anything hard on that; I’d have to guess.”
“So, guess.”
“Well, Bianchi has two daughters, but one of them is supposed to be in a loony bin somewhere, so the one daughter must have been there. She used to be married to Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti, who runs the detective squad at the Nineteenth Precinct, and they have a son, so he must have been there.”
“How about Dino, was he there?” She had seen him often at Elaine’s.
“Maybe, who knows? Bianchi has an old battle-ax of a sister, who acts as his hostess when he entertains. That’s all I can think of.”
“Thanks, Bruce.”
“See you this week?”
“Maybe. Give me a call.” She hung up and thought for a minute, then she got up and maneuvered her long legs toward a bulletin board across the room. There was a photograph, taken at the marriage license office downtown, of a couple standing in line for a license. They were noticeable, because they were so much better dressed than anyone else in the room, but the woman stood behind the man, and her face was visible only from the eyebrows up, while the man’s back was halfway to the camera. A Post-it was stuck to the picture and the words “Who are these people?” were scrawled on it. Kelli unpinned the picture and walked back to her desk with it.
Who, she wondered, was that guy who was always with Dino Bacchetti at Elaine’s? Kelli was new at Page Six, having come up from Philly, so she was new in the city as well. She had been told this guy’s name, but she hadn’t written it down. He was tall and good-looking and always well-dressed, like the man in the photograph. She phoned her friend Gita, who worked in sports.
“Gita,” the woman said. “Speak.”
“It’s Kelli. Remember when we were at Elaine’s last week?”
“Yeah, sure.” The two women had had a few drinks at the bar.
“Remember the cop Dino Bacchetti was there?”
“Yeah; he almost always is.”
“And who’s the good-looking guy he hangs with?”
“That’s Stone Barrington. All the girls at the bar want to screw him.”
“Who is he?”
“Lawyer, sort of a fix-it guy for Woodman amp; Weld.”
“What does he fix?”
“Whatever needs fixing, I guess.”
“Is he married?”
“No, famous bachelor. What, you want to screw him, too?”
“Not that I would mind, but no. We have a picture of somebody who looks like him standing in line for a marriage license the other day.”
“That would definitely not be Stone Barrington; he’d rather be struck by lightning.”
“There were some other people with him and Dino that night-a woman and a couple of kids.”
“One of the kids was Dino’s son-I don’t know his name. No idea who the others were.”
“Thanks, sweetie.” Kelli hung up. Her stomach growled; it was nearly eight p.m. She turned to her computer and wrote: “Item: At whose marriage did the mayor officiate at Eduardo Bianchi’s house on Christmas Day? We thought Hizzoner didn’t hitch folks.”
She printed it out and dropped it in the day editor’s in-box on the way to the elevator. She pressed the down button and waited, then the day editor appeared with a sheet of paper in his hand and thrust it at her.
“This won’t fly,” he said.
“Why not? My source is good.”
“You don’t fuck with him.”
“The mayor? We fuck with him all the time.”
“That’s right, you’re new in town, aren’t you? We don’t fuck with Eduardo Bianchi. Nobody in this city does.” He turned and went back to his desk, and Kelli followed him.
“So who the fuck is Eduardo Bianchi,” she demanded, “that we can’t fuck with him? I thought we could fuck with anybody, if the source was good.”
“Almost anybody,” the editor said, sinking into his chair. “We don’t fuck with Rupert Murdoch, and we don’t fuck with Eduardo Bianchi.”
She started to ask why, but he held up a hand.