Kisser

12

WHEN STONE GOT to his desk the following morning, there was a note on his desk from Joan. “Bill Eggers wants to see you ASAP,” it read.

Stone walked over to the offices of Woodman & Weld, the law firm to which he was of counsel. Bill Eggers was its senior attorney and managing partner. When Stone had been forced out of the NYPD, Eggers, an old friend from NYU Law School, had taken him to lunch and suggested that Stone put his law degree to work for Woodman & Weld. Stone had taken a cram course for the bar and passed, and Eggers had started feeding him cases, the sort that the firm didn’t want to be seen handling. The work from Woodman & Weld amounted to well over half of Stone’s income, and when Eggers called, Stone answered.

Bill Eggers waved him to a chair. “How are you, Stone?”

“Very well, thanks, Bill.”

“I had a call this morning from an old friend of mine who’s a top guy in the biggest law firm in Atlanta,” Eggers said. “It seems you’re representing the ex-wife of an important client of his, and I use the word representing loosely.”

“You would be referring to Carrie Cox, former spouse of the creep Max Long? And I use the word creep expansively.”

“That I would.”

“From what I’ve heard I’m surprised to hear that Mr. Long can afford to retain an attorney who doesn’t advertise on late-night television,” Stone said.

“My friend brought me up to date on Mr. Long’s affairs, so I’ll bring you up to date. After his divorce he went through a bad patch, complicated by the shortage of money from the banks, and he lost a bundle. Shortly after that he acquired copious financing from a Saudi prince who keeps a house in Atlanta, and whose poker buddy he is. He used the money wisely, buying up prime parcels of land that were going at foreclosure prices and selling chunks of it to other investors at a handsome profit. His company is now earning money, and Mr. Long’s personal fortune has been recovered well into eight figures.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Stone said.

“I wanted you to hear it, because I suspect that you’ve been operating on the assumption that Mr. Long did not have the resources to be much of a problem to you.”

“I confess I was operating on that assumption,” Stone said. “I’m also operating on the assumption that Mr. Long is a real and proximate danger to Ms. Cox and that he is obsessive about her.”

“It’s clear,” Eggers said, “that you are relying on the testimony of Ms. Cox.”

“I am. She seems a smart and sensible woman.”

“My friend’s firm in Atlanta represented Mr. Long in his divorce, and he formed a somewhat different opinion of Ms. Cox.”

“That’s not surprising,” Stone said. “Divorce attorneys often adopt the opinions of their clients; they represent clients better, if they believe them.”

“He tells me that, on two occasions, Ms. Cox made attempts on Mr. Long’s life, once with a gun and once with a straight razor, which I thought was a quaint choice of weapon.”

“Then why isn’t she in prison?”

“Because Mr. Long would not bring charges against her and because he managed to keep the police out of it, even to the extent of having his personal physician come to his home and repair the damage from the razor, to the tune of more than a hundred stitches. Mr. Long required a transfusion, as well.”

“If that is true, one would think that Mr. Long would be giving Ms. Cox a wide berth, would one not?”

“Apparently,” Eggers said, “the man still loves her, and we know how that is. He gave her an inordinately generous divorce settlement without complaint, and if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”

“Those things generally arise from necessity, not love,” Stone observed. “It’s my understanding that a judge allotted the marital assets. After all, they had been married for nine years.”

“It was less than three years,” Eggers said. “My friend’s view is that his client, besotted, spent a fortune on Ms. Cox’s training as an actress and dancer, not to mention her wardrobe and jewelry, before and during the marriage, and that she returned the favor by sleeping with her acting teacher, her dancing coach, and whoever else was handy. My friend described her as sexually wanton.”

“A trait I’ve always admired in a woman,” Stone said.

“Though not necessarily in a client,” Eggers pointed out.

“Bill, do you have some suggestion about my course of action in this case?”

“I do, though I know you are unlikely to accept any such suggestion.”

“I’ll try to be broad-minded,” Stone said.

“I suggest that you extricate yourself from this woman’s clutches as quickly as you can politely do so, because if my friend’s opinion is of any consequence, she will eventually turn on you, and she may still own that razor.”

“I must say that I hadn’t noticed that I was in her, as you put it, ‘clutches,’ ” Stone said.

“Perhaps ‘clenches’ would have been a better word,” Eggers said.

“Perhaps, but that is not a bad place to be.”

Eggers sighed. “All right, I suppose the only other thing I can do is to exhort you to be very, very careful in your dealings with her and to keep your physician’s number in your pocket.”

“All right, I’ll do that,” Stone said.

“That said, I have something for you.”

“Oh, good. Wayward wife? Wayward son?” A good deal of Stone’s work for Woodman & Weld had involved one or the other.

“Wayward daughter,” Eggers said.

“Uh-oh.”

“Exactly.” Eggers wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to Stone. “Her name is Hildy Parsons, and this is her address and phone number.”

“What is her particular problem?” Stone asked.

“How much time do you have?”

“I’m at your disposal.”

“All right, it began in high school, when she had an affair with one of her teachers that resulted in his firing and her transferring to an institution operated by nuns. Her father managed to keep this business fairly quiet, and the girl is very bright, so she actually got into Harvard and earned her degree in the usual four years, though she formed a number of other inappropriate attachments along the way.”

“And what sort of inappropriate attachment has she now formed?” Stone asked.

“An artist,” Eggers said, “or so he styles himself. He has a studio downtown somewhere, from which he is alleged to be operating a dealership in drugs. Her father is concerned first that he might persuade her to partake and second that when the authorities finally nail him, she will be charged as an accessory-before, during, and/ or after the fact.”

“Is her father Philip Parsons, the art dealer on East Fifty-seventh Street?”

“He is, and I think it a good idea if you visit with him.” Eggers consulted the eighteenth-century clock in the corner behind his desk. “You won’t need an appointment; he’s expecting you in ten minutes.”

“And what, exactly, does Mr. Parsons expect me to do?”

“I’m sure that will emerge in your chat with him,” Eggers said.

Stone got to his feet. “You did tell him that I don’t do contract killings, didn’t you?”

Eggers shook his hand. “I don’t believe I mentioned that,” he said. “Good day, Stone, and please, please be careful.”

Stone left, still feeling unendangered.