Carnal Curiosity (5 page)

“I put Herbie on it. He’ll scare the guy’s lawyer silly.”

“I didn’t know Herbie was that scary.”

“He is when facing opposition.” Stone’s cell phone went off. “Yes?”

“It’s Herb.”

“Hey.”

“I got the suit tossed.”

“How’d you do that? Dugan wasn’t represented, was he?”

“His attorney was in court on another case, and I know the guy. I made my case, and Dugan’s attorney called his client and got him to back off.”

“That’s good news.”

“Why? You didn’t expect it to go to trial, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“One more thing: his attorney says he’s convinced Dugan to sign the settlement document.”

“Too late, we’ve already withdrawn the offer.”

“Get your client to think about it, Stone—she’ll have her divorce. Is it worth the money to her, or does she want to roll the dice in court?”

“Do you really think Dugan would get anything from her from a judge or a jury?”

“Given the brevity of the marriage, probably not.”

“Then you know what I’ll advise her.”

“Okay, up to you. You can buy me dinner for my fee.”

“You’re on.” They hung up. “Herbie got the suit withdrawn.”

“You lead a charmed life,” Dino said.

Stone looked up to see Crane being escorted to their table; he got up and let her into the booth. She pecked Dino on the cheek, then put her hand on Stone’s thigh. He removed it. “Later,” he said.

Dino rolled his eyes.

After dinner, Stone paid the bill. “Will you do me a favor?” he said to Dino.

“Maybe.”

“Will you drop Crane off at my house? I’ll get a cab. Give me five minutes.”

“Sure, I wouldn’t want you shot down on your doorstep.”

Stone found a cab outside, went home and let himself into the house. As he arrived upstairs his doorbell was ringing. He buzzed her in.

Crane took the elevator upstairs, and by the time she got to the bedroom she was half undressed.

Stone was already in bed, and he greeted her hungrily.

An hour later they lay beside each other panting.

“Wow,” she said.

“Me, too.”

“Can we talk now?”

“Do we have to?”

“We can do it again, but not until I’ve said some things.”

“Speak to me.”

“Don is dangerous.”

“Swell, just what I wanted to hear. How dangerous?”

“He’s hit two men he thought were paying too much attention to me, and one of them he put in the hospital. He had to buy the guy off to stay out of jail.”

“Does he go around armed?”

“At least some of the time. He’s got a carry license.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I was going to shoot him.”

“Please try to take this seriously, Stone.”

“I
am
taking it seriously. You know, I’m six-two, and I only come up to his collarbone.”

“He keeps himself in perfect condition, too, and he was a boxing champion in college.”

“Maybe I should just carry a baseball bat everywhere I go.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” she said.

Then they did it again.

8

T
hey awoke at dawn and started all over again, doing everything they could imagine, and they were both inventive. Finally, when they had showered and were having breakfast, Stone changed the subject.

“Dugan has told his lawyer he’ll sign the settlement,” he said.

She looked at him unsurprised. “It seems to me I’ve heard that song before.”

“It’s time to consider what you’ll do if he actually signs it.”

“What’s your advice?”

“It’s the easy way out. You get your divorce, and you’re free of him.”

“But I will have to have paid him a quarter of a million dollars for the privilege of having a life again.”

“That’s certainly true.”

“So what’s your advice?”

“The other side of the coin is that you drag him into court and slug it out. You could walk away without paying him 
anything, but you’d still owe a bunch of attorney’s fees. It won’t be two hundred and fifty grand, but it could be fifty, even a hundred, depending on how long Dugan drags it out.”

“If I win, can I make him pay attorney’s fees?”

“Possibly. No guarantee, though. The other thing is, we’ll have to wait for a court date, and that could take another year.”

She thought about it some more. “All right, tell his attorney that when I get the document with his signature on it, I’ll sign it.”

“And no alterations to the document.”

“Not unless they’re in my favor.”

“I’ll pass that along the food chain, and we’ll see what happens.”

—

W
hen Stone got to his desk, albeit a little late, he called Herbie Fisher. “When she gets the signed document, she’ll sign it,” Stone said, “and we’re done with it.”

“I’ll call his attorney and tell him we need it today without fail.”

“Let’s say a prayer,” Stone said.

Joan buzzed him. “Mike Freeman on two.”

Stone picked it up. “Hey, Mike.”

“Good morning, Stone. Question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“What do you think of Crane Hart?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I don’t want to know about your sex life. I want to know if you think she’d make a good employee for us.”

Stone thought about it.

“It troubles me that you’d take so long to answer the question,” Mike said.

“It’s not because I have anything derogatory to say about her, it’s just that my business experience with her amounts to a single meeting about my insurance claim.”

“Did she handle that efficiently?”

“Very much so,” Stone said. “But I don’t know anything about her investigative skills, and that’s what you’re interested in, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t know how to help. You can hardly call her ex-husband for a reference, and I don’t know how she’d feel about your calling Steele.”

“You’re right.”

“Why don’t you ask her in and have some of your people interview her thoroughly?”

“That’s my next move. Thanks, Stone.” Mike hung up.

Stone had another thought. He called Herbie Fisher. “When you talk with Dugan’s attorney, tell him that Crane’s acceptance of the deal is contingent on his agreement not to harass her further.”

“Too late, I’ve already called him, and he says that Dugan has already signed the agreement and that I’ll have it forthwith.”

“Okay.” Stone hung up.

Joan was standing in the doorway. “Why do you get involved in these things? Do you need more tsuris in your life, is that it?”

“Your Yiddish is impressive.”

“I’m half Jewish, you know.”

“I’d forgotten.”

“You want me to ask the question again?”

“No.”

She went back to her office. She was right, he knew; why didn’t he just stay out of it? Too late, he reckoned. He was in it now, until it was resolved, and he had a bad feeling about it.

9

T
he following day, Stone got a call from Herbie Fisher. “Dugan signed,” he said.

“Who says that prayer doesn’t work?”

“You can buy me lunch instead of dinner,” Herbie said.

“You’re on. Today?”

“Good for me.”

“The Four Seasons at one o’clock?”

“That’s entirely satisfactory.”

“See you there.” Stone hung up and asked Joan to book the table.

He left the office early and, it being a nice day, decided to walk to the restaurant. On Park Avenue he looked across the street and saw a sign saying
KATE LEE FOR PRESIDENT NYC HEADQUARTERS
plastered across the windows of what had been an automobile showroom. Curious, he crossed the street and walked in. The first thing he saw was Ann Keaton disappearing into a glassed-in office.

“Can I help you?” a young man at a desk called to him.

“Ms. Keaton,” he replied, pointing toward her office and not waiting to be announced. The glass was mirrored on the outside—the room had apparently been the manager’s office—but the door was open, and Ann Keaton was at the desk, talking on the phone. She looked up, saw him, and waved him in.

“Look, we’re around until election day, and we’ll be buying a lot of ad time,” she was saying. “You might take that into consideration before you quote me prices like that. I want a volume price.” She listened for a moment. “I’ll get back to you,” she said, then hung up. “Well, look who’s here,” she said cheerfully. “The lawsuit-bedeviled seeker of a campaign job.”

Stone took the chair opposite hers without being asked. “Two things,” he said. “First, the lawsuit that was, as you put it, bedeviling me, was withdrawn before yesterday was out, and second, as I recall, the campaign job was seeking me, not the other way around.”

“Congratulations and touché,” she said. “But I’m afraid the job went to another New York lawyer—campaigns wait for no man.”

“I’m delighted to hear it. Spending my days on the phone begging money from recalcitrant upstate lawyers was never my cup of tea.”

“What did you have in mind?” she asked.

“Tell you what, I’ll give your super PAC another hundred thousand dollars if you don’t offer me another job.”

“Done!” she crowed.

Stone whipped out his iPhone, called Joan, and told her to mail the check, attention of Ms. Keaton.

“I love a man who acts decisively,” Ann said.

“Then you’ll join a friend and me for lunch at the Four Seasons right now,” he said.

“Let me touch up my lipstick,” she said, grabbing her handbag and disappearing into an adjoining powder room.

Stone stood up and stretched, then he turned toward the large open room filled with desks and was stopped in his tracks. Standing not twenty feet from him at a desk, talking to a young woman, was none other than the giant, Don Dugan. Stone was looking through the one-way mirror of the office wall and was invisible to him.

“All ready,” Ann said from behind him.

“Close the office door and come here for a moment,” Stone said.

She did so. “What is it?”

“See the very large man talking to your campaign worker?”

“How could I miss him?”

“He’s the guy who filed the spurious lawsuit against me yesterday, then withdrew it. He’s the husband of my client. He’s also trouble. A couple of nights ago at an announcement event of Kate’s, he made an ass of himself and had to be removed from the premises.”

“Just a minute,” she said. She went to her desk, picked up the phone, and dialed a number. The young man at the desk next to the one where Dugan stood picked up his phone.

“You see the large gentleman at the desk next to yours?” She listened for a moment. “Take his address and phone number, tell him we’ll get back to him, then get rid of him, shred his particulars, and don’t, under any circumstances, get back to him.” She hung up. “He came in to volunteer,” she said to Stone,
then she joined him and watched as the volunteer took a business card from him and said goodbye. “Good boy,” she muttered under her breath. “Thank you, Stone, for warning us.”

Stone watched as Dugan left the premises, crossed the street, and walked into the Waldorf-Astoria. “I think we can go now,” he said.

—

T
he headwaiter seated them as soon as they arrived. “We’ll be three,” Stone said to him, and a waiter came with another place setting and a chair.

“Drink?” he asked her.

“Fizzy water,” she said. “Martinis don’t mix well with my afternoons.”

“A bottle of Pellegrino,” Stone said to the waiter. “Tell me, what did you do when you were at the CIA?”

“You know the old joke about if I told you I’d have to kill you?”

“Sure.”

“Nothing of the sort. I was an analyst until Kate unearthed me and put me to work for her office. I
would
have to kill you if I told you, if I told you what I did for her.”

“And at the White House?”

“Her deputy chief of staff.”

“I was around the West Wing from time to time, but I never saw you there.”

“I was camped out in the Executive Office Building, working my ass off.”

“Ah.”

“Today, only the real estate has changed,” she said, “but I have more working space—I’m now in a car salesman’s office.”

“And what do you do for Kate now? Or would you have to kill me if you tell?”

“Whatever she asks,” Ann replied. “Officially, I’m a deputy campaign manager.”

“You seem to be a deputy a lot.”

“It’s the deputies who do the dirty work and bury the bodies. The campaign manager just stands in front of TV cameras and denies all knowledge.”

“Are you optimistic about Kate’s chances in the remaining primaries and the convention?”

“I’d still be at the White House if I weren’t. I’d say, just between you and me, that there is a better-than-even chance that your friend Kate is going to be the next POTUS.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Stone said. He looked up and saw Herbie making his way across the dining room, stopping here and there to shake a hand.

“Here comes our lunch companion,” Stone said. “Now you’ll meet someone you might want to hire if you win and work for if you don’t.”

10

T
hey were on dessert when Ann Keaton looked at her watch. “Uh-oh, gotta get out of here,” she said. “Not that you two haven’t been wonderful company and a nice break from my particular grind. Herb, very good to meet you. You’ve got my card, and I’ll look for your check later today.”

They both stood up and shook her hand.

“Remember your promise,” Stone said.

“No job for you,” she replied, then she was off.

Stone sat down. “Whew!”

“Brisk, isn’t she?” Herbie said. “And this has been the most expensive free lunch I’ve ever had.”

“She fleeced you pretty quickly, didn’t she? How would you like a job as New York State campaign coordinator of attorneys?”

“I wouldn’t,” Herbie said.

“The contribution was a good idea. Make another one after the convention, it will stand you in good stead. After all, you might need the White House on your side someday.”