Scandalous Behavior

21

Stone was at his desk the following morning when Dino called. “I’m messengering something to you,” he said. “I want you to read it immediately, then messenger it back to me.”

“All right.” Joan walked in with a package. “I think it’s already here.” Stone unwrapped it and found an FBI file about an inch thick, with the name Donald Beverly Calhoun on it.

“Read it and call me back,” Dino said.

Stone started to read.

It was nearly lunchtime when he finished and called Dino. “Thank you,” he said.

“You read it all?”

“Yes. How did you get it?”

“I called the director at home, and he had it copied and sent to me.”

“Do you mind if I copy it?”

“No, but keep quiet about it. What were your impressions?”

“I’m amazed at the guy’s ability to skate on thin ice without ever falling through. I mean, once in a while the ice cracks, and he dips a leg into the water, but then he manages to get up and skate on.”

“What I can’t figure out,” Dino said, “is what he wants. I mean, if he just wants to make money, he’s doing that with his books and ‘documentaries,’ for which he’s getting forty bucks a pop and not splitting the take with an agent or publisher. The guy’s printing money.”

“And he’s doing it all under the radar,” Stone pointed out. “You hardly ever see anything about him in the papers and TV programs I watch.”

“Except when he has a magazine writer murdered, or somebody makes a movie about somebody a lot like him.”

“He’s trying hard to find Peter and Ben, and he’s having me followed by armed men,” Stone said, and told Dino about his experiences over the weekend.

“You did the right thing, calling Dan Brady,” Dino said. “Maybe if you keep getting his people arrested, he’ll back off.”

“I hope you’re right. We’ll lose them when Susan and I leave for England later in the week. I hope I’m right about that, too.”

“Me, too, since Viv is going with you.”

“I’ll have Joan send the file back to you right away,” Stone said. They said goodbye, and he buzzed Joan, who came in. He handed her the file. “Please copy this — the whole thing — then messenger it back to Dino.”

Joan weighed it in her hands. “The whole thing, huh?”

“All of it, and make two copies.”

“Okay, boss.” She left, then he heard the Xerox machine laboring away.

Susan was working on Margo Eggers’s house, so he had Helene send lunch up to her, then made a date with Mike Freeman at the Four Seasons Grill Room.

Over lunch, Stone told Mike about what was going on. “Have you ever heard of this guy Calhoun?”

“Here and there over the years, but you’re right, he skates on thin ice remarkably well.”

Stone pulled a wrapped package from under the table and handed it to him. “This is his FBI file. Don’t ask how I got it. Read it, then send it back to me.”

Mike accepted the package. “You know what I find most remarkable about Calhoun?”

“What?”

“Most of these — let’s call them tribal leaders — live somewhere like on a mountaintop in Idaho, or some lost ranch in the Mojave Desert, but Dr. Don’s business and his people are based in a major American metropolis.”

“Hiding in plain sight.”

“Exactly. I wonder if his neighbors even know he’s there.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want him in my neighborhood.”

“I think you ought to let me put some people on your house,” Mike said. “I don’t like people in black SUVs running around with loaded illegal weapons.”

“Well, nobody took a shot at me. In fact, I accosted the first guy when he asked for Peter at the front desk of the Mayflower. He didn’t think he was stepping on my toes, he just thought Peter was there.”

“Why did he think Peter was there?”

“Because he followed me there from New York. I’d already told him on the phone that Peter was on vacation at a resort, so I guess he thought I was going to see him, not selling my house to Bill Eggers.”

“You know, I would have bought your house, if I’d known it was on the market.”

“I’m flattered, but I never put it on the market. I just told Eggers about it, and he bit — or, at least, his wife did.”

They shook hands and parted. In the late afternoon, Stone’s second copy of Dr. Don’s FBI file came back to him from Mike Freeman.