Stuart Woods - Fresh Disasters

“Are you finished?” Finger asked.

“No, Bernie, not quite. I should tell you that everything I have just mentioned can be substantiated with your own files, to which Bernice has legal and proper access, and of which she has availed herself.” Stone opened his briefcase and slid a handful of file folders across the table. “Of course, if we go to trial, there’s just no telling what my investigators will come up with when they start pawing through your law firm’s files and, of course, your personal life. I don’t think that will play very well with your firm’s clients, Bernie, particularly with those clients on the criminal side of your practice, when they start reading their names in the newspapers.” Stone snapped shut his briefcase. “And you and I both know that any court is very likely to give Bernice half of everything, even without Bernie’s outrageous adulterous behavior.” He stood up. “I think that about does it for now, Sam. Have a chat with your client and get back to me.” He turned and began walking toward the conference room door.

“Just a moment,” Teich said.

Stone turned and looked at him.

“Would you mind waiting outside for a few minutes while I confer with my client?”

Stone noticed that Finger had turned a peculiar shade of red. “Not at all, Sam. Take your time.” He walked outside, took a seat in the waiting room, picked up a copy of the Times, turned to the Arts section and started working on the crossword puzzle. He was a little more than halfway through when the conference room door opened and Sam Teich walked toward him, a sheet of paper in his hand. Stone stood to meet him.

Teich handed him the paper, on which there was a handwritten list. “Is this everything you asked for?”

Stone read the list carefully. “Everything except one hundred percent of Mrs. Finger’s legal costs,” he said.

“And what do you estimate those will be?”

“Thirty percent of her settlement.”

A tiny grimace of pain crossed Teich’s face. “She signed a contingency agreement? How did you get her to do that?”

“It was her expressed wish, with no suggestion from me.”

“We’ll give you everything on the list and ten percent. It’s not as though you’ll have put in a lot of hours.”

“Fifteen percent, if we have a signed agreement before the end of the business day.”

Teich sighed. “Done. Send me your draft.”

“It won’t be a draft,” Stone said, “it’ll be final, and it will include a provision for hidden assets that may be uncovered at some later date.”

“Bernie will sign an agreement for the real estate and half of the assets contained in the file you showed us,” Teich said.

“And half what’s in the Caymans account. I’ll want to see a bank statement.”

“It’s not the kind of account that produces a monthly statement, and for legal reasons, Bernie does not want any document to exist that mentions a balance. We’ll add a million dollars to the settlement to cover the Caymans account and any assets not mentioned in the files.”

“Oh, then there are unnamed assets?”

“All right, two million.”

“Five million.”

“Three million, and no more.”

“Bernie signs the agreement first.”

“All right. We have an agreement.” Teich offered his hand.

Stone shook it. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Sam; you gave Bernie good advice.”

“I know,” Teich said, then he turned and walked back into the conference room.

Stone left the law firm in a rosy daze of elation. He forced himself to breathe normally as he hailed a cab and went back to his own office.

“So?” Joan said, as he walked into the office.

“Come in and bring your pad,” Stone said. “I want to get this thing wrapped up today.”

He called Bernice Finger and gave her the news.

“He agreed to everything ?” she asked incredulously.

“Everything, plus your legal costs. I cut my contingency from thirty to fifteen percent.”

“If he agreed so quickly, he must be hiding a lot of money,” she said. “We should ask for more.”

“I got you three million to cover any hidden assets.”

“Wow!” she said softly.

“It’s a good deal, Bernice, and without the pain of a trial. I’ll have it ready for your signature by the end of the day.”

“I’ll sign it,” she said.

Stone hung up with his heart pounding.

Joan came into the office. “What did you get for her?”

“The earth, sun and moon,” Stone said, hardly able to believe it himself. Bernie’s net worth was going to run to at least forty million dollars, and he was going to get fifteen percent of half of it. That was…he did the arithmetic…good God, three million dollars! Stone’s mind spun out of control; he started thinking about one of those new, very light jet airplanes.

Stone had a dinner date with the lovely, rangy Celia, but first he had promised her he would perform a chore. He got out of the cab in front of the SoHo gallery and peered through the window at the very good crowd that had assembled to see the artist’s work. A very large sign in the window read:

DEVLIN DALTRY

“Wait for me,” Stone said to the cabbie. “I won’t be long. He walked into the gallery, grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray and looked around for the artist. He located him at the center of a small group of women who were at least as fascinated with him as with his sculpture, so Stone passed a little time peering at the lumps of marble and steel arrayed on pedestals throughout the large room. They were uniformly uninteresting, Stone thought, the product of an empty mind.

Shortly, he spotted Devlin Daltry, slim and dressed entirely in black and momentarily alone, so he set his champagne glass down on a pedestal next to a lump titled “Doubt,” walked quickly over to the man and offered his hand. “How do you do, Mr. Daltry,” he said, squeezing his hand, and with his other taking him by the arm and steering him out of the hearing of others.

Daltry followed, because he had to. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“My name is Stone Barrington, and I am the attorney representing your former friend, Celia.”

“I don’t have to talk to you,” Daltry said, attempting and failing to free himself from Stone’s clutches.

“That’s right, you don’t,” Stone replied. “But you have to listen for just a moment, or I’ll break your hand.” He squeezed it for emphasis.

Daltry winced. “All right, get it over with.”

“I’ve come here to tell you that your relationship with Celia is over from this moment and that, should you attempt to see her or even contact her ever again, I will see that a world of legal and financial problems falls on you from a great height and makes your life not worth living. This will be in addition to the criminal penalties that will follow, and follow you they will, right into Rikers Island. And finally-and this is entirely personal, not legal-after all that is done, I will find a quiet moment with you alone and leave you in a condition that will prevent you from making any more of these awful little things you dare to call ‘sculptures.’ Is all that perfectly clear?” He squeezed Daltry’s hand again for emphasis.

“Yes,” Daltry grunted.

“I hope I won’t find it necessary to see you again.” Stone released the sculptor from his grip, walked out of the gallery and got into his waiting cab. “Sixty-fifth and Madison,” he said.

He walked into La Goulue, one of his favorite non-Elaine’s restaurants, twenty minutes later to find Celia waiting for him at his usual table, sipping a glass of wine. He gave a kiss to Suzanne, who ran the place, then slid into his seat. “Sorry to be late,” he said. “It’s a long trip from SoHo.”