Black Dog

Nine

Stone got back to his office and put the file folders on the Charleses into his safe.

Joan came in. “So, now do you know everything there is to know about my family?”

“The files are in my safe. If you know everything, it won’t hurt you to read them, but if you know nothing, my advice is to let them lie.”

“Aunt Annetta just called. She wants you to come and see her.”

“When does she want me to come?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

“Okay, alert Fred.”

“He’s waiting in the garage.”

“All right,” he said, getting back into his jacket. “I’ll be back when I’m back.”

“Nicely put.”

Stone got out of the car a door or two off Fifth Avenue in the Sixties. It was not an apartment building but a house. Stone rang the bell, and a moment later, a uniformed butler let him into a large, marbled foyer. “Good afternoon, Mr. Barrington. You are expected. Elevator or stairs?”

“Elevator,” Stone said.

The butler showed him into the car and pressed eight. A moment later, he was in another foyer, and a uniformed maid greeted him and led him to the living room, which featured an expansive view of Central Park through broad windows. He was alone in the room. After taking in the view, he took one of the chairs in front of the fireplace, where logs crackled.

Another ten minutes passed before he heard the tap of high heels on marble, and Annetta Charles swept into the room, wearing a tightly fitting tailored tweed suit. “Good afternoon, Stone,” she said, shaking his hand and giving him a momentary glimpse at what the suit had been designed to display. “Take a seat.” She indicated the sofa and sat there, too.

“Thank you, Annetta,” he replied and sat down.

“I understand that you are interested in the background of my family.”

“Yes, but no more than of any other new client.”

“You like to know whom you’re dealing with, do you?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“I think you’ll find that we are pretty much run-of-the-mill, among wealthy Upper East Siders.”

Stone was amused that she had started with a lie but tried not to show it.

“Edwin was a product of Greenwich, Yale, and MIT,” she said. “I am a product of Miss Porter’s School and a finishing school in Switzerland.”

Stone nodded, as if all that were to be expected.

“What more would you like to know?” she asked.

“Whatever you’d like to tell me; no more.”

She turned toward him, breasts first, and rested a hand on his thigh. “Your reputation with women precedes you,” Annetta said, stroking the thigh.

“I wasn’t aware that I had such a reputation,” Stone replied, though he was.

“Do you appreciate directness in a woman?” she asked.

He placed a hand on her hand, to stop its progress. “To an extent,” he said. “Within the limitations of the code of ethics of the New York State Bar Association.”

“Does the bar association look down on intimacy?”

“It discourages too much intimacy between attorney and client and bans carnal relationships.”

“Carnal,” she said, licking her lips. “Such an attractive word. Do you think we could overlook their rule for, say, an afternoon?”

“Not until we have fundamentally changed the nature of our current relationship.”

“Then what can we do?”

“Anything that I can explain to my board of partners at Woodman & Weld without blushing.”

“Lie to them,” she said, reaching for his zipper.

“I find lying to be a bad practice,” Stone said, “that becomes worse with time.”

“Well, why don’t you just sit there and contemplate the rules, while I take a tour of your body. And at least one part of it appears to be growing.”

“How could it not,” Stone asked, “in such inviting circumstances?” He rezipped. “But I think I should keep it in check, in our present circumstances.”

“You appear to be trying to get yourself fired,” she said.

“That would be unfortunate for both of us,” Stone replied. “I would lose a valued client, and you would lose the best legal representation available.”

“Oh?” She squeezed.

Stone played his final card. “And you would have to deal with Eddie Jr. again.”

Her face fell, and she pushed away from him on the sofa. “I won’t ask how he’s doing, because I don’t want to know.”

“I think that’s wise,” Stone said.

She stood up and brushed away imaginary wrinkles on her skirt. “Well, thank you for coming, Stone. Please continue to keep me in the dark about Junior.”

“Certainly,” Stone said, shaking her hand. “And good afternoon to you.”

He made his way out of the living room and down in the elevator without encountering either the maid or the butler. He left the Charles residence and got into the car, breaking a light sweat in his haste. He rode downtown trying to make his breathing regular and his thoughts somewhere other than Annetta Charles’s sofa. He reflected that Dino was right. He had been too long without a woman, and resisting Annetta’s advances had been difficult to do.