“Well, he annoyed some important people, certainly. But, no, not really. When I was with him he never seemed to need one.”
“Who would,” Jesse said.
1 9 0
42
Ithought I’d ask Sam to sit in with us,” Tom Nolan said.
“If you think you need a lawyer,” Jesse said.
“I’m an entertainment lawyer,” Sam Gates said. “If we were concerned about criminal matters, I wouldn’t be the one.”
“It’s just that I know Walton’s business from one side,”
Nolan said. “And Sam from the other.”
“Sure,” Jesse said. “What’s the future for Walton’s business now?”
“We plan to carry forward with Alan,” Nolan said.
“Hendricks?” Jesse said.
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“Yes. The enterprise will still be called Walton Weeks, but now it will be Walton Weeks, with Alan Hendricks.”
“The market will bear that?” Jesse said.
“Yes. Alan has sat in for Walton in the past. People like him. We’ll market it as the legacy renewed.”
“So the beat goes on,” Jesse said.
“Of course there’s only one Walton Weeks,” Nolan said.
“But yes, the enterprise will continue.”
“And this was predictable?”
Nolan looked at Gates.
“Predictable?” Gates said.
“If I told you last winter that Weeks would die, would you have known that the, ah, enterprise would survive?”
“Well, of course, no one was thinking about that last winter,” Gates said. “Walton was not an old man. He was in good health.”
“But if you had thought about it?” Jesse said.
“I assume we would have concluded that the franchise was still viable,” Gates said.
“That would, of course, have been up to Mrs. Weeks,”
Jesse said.
“Of course,” Gates answered. “She being the sole heir.”
“And she’s in Hendricks’s corner,” I said.
“She thinks Alan would be a suitable replacement,” Gates said.
