Sex, Lies & Serious Money

1

Stone Barrington landed at Teterboro Airport, having flown nonstop from Santa Fe, with a good tailwind. He and Bob, his Labrador retriever, were met by Fred Flicker, his factotum, at the airport. Bob threw himself at Fred. After a moment’s happy reunion, they were transferred to Stone’s car.

Stone had spent most of the flight trying to put Gala Wilde out of his mind after their breakup. He had not succeeded.

They arrived at Stone’s house in Turtle Bay and Fred pulled into the garage. Stone got out of the car to be greeted by his secretary, Joan Robertson, but Bob got there first and did his happy dance.

“There’s somebody waiting to see you,” Joan said.

“Anybody I know?”

“Apparently a friend of somebody you know in Palm Beach.”

Stone’s circle of acquaintances in Palm Beach was not wide. “Dicky Chalmers?”

“Right.”

“Give me a minute, then send him in.” Stone went into his office, rummaged among the mail and messages on his desk and found a pink message slip.

Stone looked up to see a young man standing in his doorway: late twenties or early thirties, unkempt hair, scraggly beard, dressed in a current style Stone thought of as “adolescent lumberjack” — checkered shirt, tail out, greasy jeans, sneakers, hoodie, top down.

“Mr. Barrington?”

“Come in,” Stone said, “and have a seat.”

“Your friend Richard Chalmers suggested I should see you.”

“How are the Chalmerses?”

“Dicky and Vanessa are very well.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Sorry. I’m Laurence Hayward.” He spelled both names.

“Larry, to your friends?”

“Laurence, if you please.” He sounded vaguely English when he said that.

“Laurence, it is. I’m Stone, and this is Bob.” Bob came over and sniffed the young man, accepted a scratching of the ears, then went to his bed and lay down. “How can I help you, Laurence?”

“I’m being pursued,” Laurence replied.

“Pursued by whom?”

“Everybody.”

Oh, God, Stone thought, not one of those. He took a deep breath. “Well, Laurence, why don’t we start with your telling me about yourself?”

“What would you like to know?”

“Sixty-second bio.”

“All right. I’m thirty years old. I was born in West Palm Beach, Florida. When I was eight, my mother, who was the manager of a small hotel in our community, was swept off her feet by an Englishman, who was an investor in the hotel. She subsequently divorced my father, married the Brit, and he took the two of us to live in England, where, except for summers, when I visited my father, I grew up. In fact, I became, for all practical purposes, English, including my accent.”

“I thought I caught a bit of that.”

“My American accent comes back when I’m here.”

“Go on.”

“I was educated at my stepfather’s old schools, Eton and Oxford, and after I graduated, I became a tutor at Eton, later an assistant master, teaching English and art history. My stepfather has a successful advertising agency, and I had no interest in a career in his company or any other business.”

Fred knocked on the door and stepped in. “Shall I take your bags up, sir?”

“Please, Fred. Oh, and this is Mr. Laurence Hayward.”

“How do you do?” Laurence said, becoming English, and they shook hands.

“Fred, what is Laurence’s accent?” Stone asked.

“Eton and Oxford, I should think,” Fred replied.

“Thank you, Fred. You can take the bags up. I’ll be here for a while.”

Fred departed.

“That was remarkable, the way Fred picked up on my accent.”

“Fred is very good at speaking and recognizing British accents of all sorts,” Stone said. “On with your bio.”

“I took a leave of absence from Eton and came home to Palm Beach a couple of months ago, after my father fell ill. He had moved to the island from West Palm some years ago as his legal practice grew.”

“What sort of legal practice?”

“Real estate. He spent most of his day closing sales and mortgages. Did quite well at it, and used the job to find good investment opportunities in real estate. He died three weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. He was good friends with the Chalmerses, who were his neighbors until they bought the big house on the beach, and they visited him often during his illness. I’ve known them most of my life.”

“All right, let’s get to the pursuit part.”

“A week or so ago, I bought a lottery ticket, then forgot about it. Then I saw the winning number in the local paper, and I remembered I had one. I checked the numbers, and they matched. I called in at the lottery office in West Palm Beach, and this morning, after some days for them to investigate and see that I was who I said I was, I received the check. I also learned that, in Florida, there’s a state law against concealing the identity of the winner. I’ve quickly learned that a great many people have an untoward interest in lottery winners, thus the pursuit. They released my name early this morning, and when I left their office, I was surrounded by media people and others who had come to beg for money. I got out of there as quickly as I could, and when I turned on the car radio, I heard my name on the air. I drove to Palm Beach International Airport, where I had taken flying lessons, and somebody I know there found me a seat on an executive charter flight to Teterboro, for only five thousand dollars.”

“What kind of airplane?”

“A Gulfstream 450.”

“How did you do in the lottery?”

Laurence reached into a pocket and handed Stone a crumpled envelope. “There were two other winners, in Texas and Washington state, so I got only a third after they took out the taxes.”

Stone opened the envelope wide enough to read the sum. “Very nice,” he said. “What are you going to do with it?”

“There are some things I’d like to buy, and Dicky thought you might advise me on how to invest the rest of it.”

“What do you want to buy?”

“Well, I think I’ll need some clothes.”

“Good idea,” Stone said drily.

“Oh, I know I’m not appropriately dressed for the Upper East Side of New York. My good clothes are all in England and Palm Beach. I’ll need some suits and jackets, I think.”

“Anything else?”

“Perhaps a car?”

“What sort of car?”

“A Porsche, perhaps.”

“Good choice.”

“Oh, and I’d like to buy a New York apartment.”

“That seems within your means, depending on the neighborhood,” Stone observed. “What sort of apartment did you have in mind?”

Laurence produced a folded newspaper page and handed it to Stone. It was half a page from the real estate section of the previous Sunday’s New York Times. “This one,” he said.

“Oh, yes, I saw this. It’s the penthouse of an old hotel on Park Avenue that has been remodeled and gone condo. Problem is, Laurence, the asking price for the apartment is twenty-two million dollars, but your check is for six hundred and twelve thousand. Do you have other means I’m not aware of?”

“Perhaps you’d better have another look at the check.”

Stone removed the check from the envelope, read it, and gulped. “Six hundred and twelve million dollars?”

“You missed a few zeros the first time,” Laurence said.

“And this is a third of the prize?”

“It was the biggest Powerball ever.”