“The option expires soon, so time is of the essence.”
“Got it. Bye.” Eggers hung up.
“Okay,” Stone said to Dino. “Let’s have some lunch and then run down to Parker Center and see this guy in jail.”
23
Stone signed in at Metro Jail and sat down to wait to be called. The waiting room was jammed, mostly lawyers and women, many with children. Half an hour later Stone was shown to a lawyers’ meeting room, apparently a courtesy that Harvey Stein had requested.
James Long was shown into the room by a guard and had his handcuffs removed. He was a tall, slender man in his fifties with graying hair and the start of a beard. He was wearing the standard orange jumpsuit. They shook hands.
“Mr. Barrington? Harvey Stein said you were coming to talk to me. I’m glad to see you; it’s good to talk to anybody besides my cellmate.”
“I understand,” Stone replied. “I hope you’re being treated well.”
“Not especially,” Long said. “I’m in here, not because I’ve committed a crime, but because they want me to rat out my friend Barbara Eagle. Funny thing is, I don’t have any knowledge of what they say she did. All I did was meet her in Mexico and fly her to Yuma, where she left us. In the process, she, of course, met my pilot, and it’s that introduction that they’re holding me on as an accessory. Somebody murdered him in his home, so he can’t back me up.”
“I hear Barbara escaped from jail down there,” Stone said.
“I didn’t know that. She called and asked me to meet her in Acapulco, and I did. We spent a couple of days there, then came back to this country. I don’t even know where she went after Yuma. In any case, she’s managed to get herself a pardon in Mexico, so she’s not wanted for anything. The LAPD has gone nuts over this business, and she’s not even in L.A.; she’s in San Francisco.”
“Has your attorney explained all this to the D.A.?”
“Of course he has, but they don’t want to listen to the truth; they just want a witness against Barbara. Harvey is filing for a writ of habeas corpus to get me out.”
“Well, good luck. In the meantime I have some good news. A client of mine is interested in buying your shares in Centurion Studios.”
“What is he offering?”
“It’s a she, and she’s offering twenty-five hundred dollars a share.”
“Yeah, I heard about Terry Prince’s takeover attempt of the studio. I’ll bet he’d give me more than twenty- five hundred.”
“Twenty-five hundred is his current offer, and I have some reason to believe that the deal is not going to work out for him, and if that happens, then his current offer disappears, so your shares might be worth quite a lot less.”
“Yeah, so you say.”
“It’s up to you, Mr. Long: you can accept my client’s offer or stick with Prince and take a chance of losing a lot of money on your shares. It’s up to you.”
Long fidgeted in his seat. “Oh, hell, all right; I’d rather be on Rick Barron’s side in all this, anyway.”
“Rick has asked me to give you his regards and to thank you for selling to us. This way, you’ll still have a studio to go back to when you get out of here. If Prince got his hands on the property, it would have made it impossible for Centurion to continue as they have.”
“All right, how do we go about this?”
“Where are your share certificates?”
“In my office safe at Centurion.”
“Does your attorney have the combination?”
“I’ll give it to him when I see him; he’s coming tomorrow.”
“I’ll see that he gets the sales documents to sign, so he can bring them with him. He asked me to tell you to call him as soon as you can.”
“I’ll try to call him this afternoon, if I can get to the phone. There’s always a line.”
“I’ll have the documents faxed to him from New York first thing tomorrow morning. They’re already closed for the day.”
“I’m sure that will be fine. When will I get the money?”
“As soon as Harvey sends me the signed documents, I’ll have it wired to your bank account. We might be able to manage it tomorrow, certainly the day after.”
“Good.” Long stood up and rapped on the door. The guard came in and cuffed him. “Nice to meet you,” Long said.
“I hope you get your writ,” Stone said.
Dino was waiting on the front steps when Stone emerged from the building. “How’d it go?”
“Long has agreed to sell us his shares. With the five thousand from the other guy, Baird, we should have a majority ownership in a day or two.”
“I’ve got some news, too: Alexei what’s-his-name, Prince’s driver, has turned up dead. Somebody dumped his body at the La Brea Tar Pits, where they found all those prehistoric bones of animals that went down to the water for a drink, got stuck in the tar, and sank. Luckily, they found Alexei’s body before it could sink. Want to take a guess on cause of death?”
“Tell me.”
“Ice pick to the back of the neck, like Jennifer Harris.”
“I guess it would be easy to make that happen if you’re being driven by Alexei, sitting behind him.”
“Prince has an alibi, of course.”
“Of course. Man, I’ll be glad when this business is over,” Stone said. “And I hope it’s over before somebody else gets ice-picked.”
“You can hope,” Dino said.
Arrington was at the Calder house when they got back, and she was very excited about her airplane.
“It’s beautiful, Stone, just exactly what I wanted. It’s already got a crew and everything, and they’re willing to move east.”
“Sounds perfect,” Stone said. “Mike is working on getting you an early closing, and a tax attorney at Woodman amp; Weld is setting up the corporate structure.”
“Corporate structure?”
“Jet airplanes are usually owned by corporations, for liability and tax purposes. You’ll own the corporation. And I have other news.”
“Good news, I hope?”
“It looks like Rick has found us the shares we need to gain control of Centurion. They should be transferred in the next day or two.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I hope Mr. Prince doesn’t hear about it before we get it done. I’m not sure how much more of his personal charm I can stand.”
“We’ll have a lot of paperwork for you to sign tomorrow, on the Centurion thing, Champion Farms, the Bel-Air property options, and the airplane. You should be able to fly out of here in your new airplane in a couple of days, with any luck at all.”
“I’m anxious to get back and go to work with the architect on the new house,” Arrington said.
“You’ll be back by the weekend,” Stone said, “unless there’s a snag.” Please, he thought, no snags.
24
