Hot Pursuit

11

Stone went back to his office and called Pat Frank.

“Pat Frank,” she said.

“Is that the business or the woman?” Stone asked.

“Both,” she replied. “Are you back?”

“Yep.”

“Come over tonight and I’ll cook dinner for you.”

“Who’ll be cooking? The business or the woman?”

“The cook.”

“What time?”

“Seven?”

“I’ll bring the wine — red or white?”

“Red.”

“See you at seven.”

Stone passed the remainder of the day with mundane chores. Then, at a quarter to seven he went down to the wine cellar and chose a bottle of Romanée-Conti Richebourg, from 1978. He lit a candle and decanted it, then rinsed the bottle of the lees, poured the wine back into it, and recorked it. He blew out the candle, locked the cellar, and left the house to find a cab.

At ten minutes past the hour he walked into a town house on East Sixty-third Street and rang the bell marked “Frank.” The buzzer opened the door, and down the hall Pat stood in her open doorway.

She gave him a wet kiss and brought him inside. He had been expecting a single-girl walk-up, and what he found himself in was a large duplex garden apartment that was beautifully furnished, except that there were no pictures on the walls. Something from the kitchen smelled good. “Whatever I’m smelling, it will go well with this,” he said, handing her the bottle of Richebourg.

She looked at it and smiled. “Where on earth did you come by this?” she asked.

“A French friend gave me some cases of wines, and that was in one of them. I decanted and rebottled it, so it wouldn’t get shaken up in the cab.”

“You have good friends,” she said.

“One of them lives across the street from you,” he said.

“Dino?”

“Yep.” He looked around. “This is a beautiful place. Why no pictures?”

“Greta took those with her. Her first husband bought it as a pied-à-terre. They lived on the North Shore of Long Island, at Oyster Bay, but they spent a couple of nights a week in town. Her second husband has an even nicer pied-à-terre, so she rented this place until I could collect myself and get to New York.”

“And you’re going to buy it from her?”

“After I’ve saved some money.” The doorbell rang.

“That’s Greta now,” she said. “She and her husband are stopping by for a drink on the way to the theater.”

Ah, Stone thought, I get to meet the socialite murderess.

Greta Frank turned out to be totally disarming. She was cheerful, witty, and seemed delighted to meet Stone. “The first customer,” she said. “I’m pleased to meet any customer of Pat’s.” She introduced her husband, who was handsome, ten years older than she, and very well-tailored. His name was Greg Lewin. They shook hands.

“I hear you’re with Woodman & Weld,” he said to Stone.

“I am.”

“I do some business with Bill Eggers from time to time.”

“I’m glad to hear it, we need all the business we can get.”

“And you’re on the board of Strategic Services.” The man had done his homework. “I worked on their initial public offering, a while back.”

“I have that honor. I’m afraid I don’t know as much about you as you do about me.”

“Hedge fund,” Lewin said, as if that were all anybody needed to know about him.

“Ah,” Stone said, “a money factory.”

“That’s a very good way to look at it,” Lewin said, smiling broadly.

Greta rummaged in her handbag and came up with an envelope. “I have a present for you,” she said to Pat, handing her the envelope.

“What’s this?” Pat asked, handling it as if it were an explosive. “An eviction notice?”

“It’s something I would have given you sooner, but I didn’t really believe you’d resettle in New York, until you moved in.”

Pat opened the envelope and peered at the sheet of paper that emerged. “What is it?”

Stone looked at the document over her shoulder. “It’s a deed,” Stone said.

“A deed to what?”

Greta laughed. “A deed to this apartment. It’s all yours.”

Pat was flabbergasted. She recovered enough to hug her sister. “Then I’ll never be homeless.”

“Never. My attorney is mailing you a package of stuff you need to know about the property.”

Stone took the deed from Pat and examined it. “This is not a deed to this apartment,” he said.

Pat looked worried. “What did you say?”

“It’s the deed to the building.”

Pat was speechless.

“There are three other apartments upstairs,” Greta said. “And a professional suite next door. All rented, but the doctor’s lease will be up soon. You might want to use that for your new business. The rents will give you some income while you get it up and running.”

Pat collapsed into a chair. “I think I need a drink.”

Stone went to a well-stocked wet bar, poured her a Knob Creek, and handed it to her. “There you go. Can I get you folks something?”

“We’d better get going,” Greg said, looking at his watch. “The traffic is always very slow near curtain time in the theater district.”

Pat set down her drink, struggled to her feet, and hugged her sister again. “You are incredibly generous, and I can’t thank you enough.”

She showed them out, and by the time she got back, Stone had his own drink. “You’re lucky to have a sister like that,” Stone said.

“She’s taken care of me since we were little girls,” Pat said. “She bought me a new wardrobe the last time I was in the city, and she gave me my last car. Now I’m rich!”

“Don’t start living that way just yet. The house is a nice asset, but this is an expensive city.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“What smells so good?”

“Beef bourguignonne. It’ll be ready in half an hour. We can drink until then. That should settle my nerves.”