“Or your anger.”
Stone turned off the pressure cooker and let it cool, but he kept stirring the risotto and adding the stock. Finally, when all the liquid had been absorbed, he folded in half a container of creme fraiche and a couple of fistfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, then raked the rice into a platter and made a wall of it around the rim. He opened the pressure cooker, spooned out four slabs of the veal, and poured the sauce over it. “Voila,” he said, setting the platter on the table. And seating her.
“Why so much?” she asked. “Are we expecting someone else?”
Stone tasted the wine and poured them each a glass. “Nope, but I’ll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow and maybe for dinner tomorrow night, too.”
“How long ago did your wife die?”
“A year ago Christmas.”
“And how long have you been dating?”
“You’re the first woman I’ve asked out in New York,” Stone said.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
Stone raised his wineglass. “You have convinced me I’m ready.”
“I’m flattered.”
“I’m flattered that you’re flattered. Try your food.”
She forked a piece of the veal into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, then tried the risotto. “You’re hired,” she said. “Can you come to the theater and make lunch every day?”
“I work every day,” he replied, “but I appreciate the offer.”
“Your offices are in the Seagram Building, aren’t they?”
“That’s right, but my office is right through that door and through a couple of rooms. It used to be a dentist’s offices, but when I inherited the house, I made it into my workplace. It houses my secretary, an associate, and me.”
“You inherited all this?”
“Yes, from a great-aunt, but it wasn’t in this good a shape. Took a lot of work.”
“I want to see the whole place,” she said.
“After dinner. Besides, I haven’t heard your life story yet.”
“Born in a small town in Georgia called Delano,” she said. “Learned to tap dance at four-a regular Shirley Temple-started ballet at six, and danced my way through school and college. Came to New York, auditioned for thirty-seven shows, finally got one, and I haven’t been at liberty since.”
“That was concise,” Stone said.
“Well, I skipped the early husband, who turned out to be gay, and a few unsatisfactory love affairs. Something I don’t understand about you: how did you make the leap from the NYPD to Woodman and Weld?”
“I graduated from NYU Law before becoming a cop. Then I was wounded and invalided off the force. An old law school friend, who was at Woodman and Weld, took me to lunch and convinced me I should take a cram course for the bar exam and get myself a license. He promised me work.”
“So Woodman and Weld was your first job?”
“Not exactly a job. I was ‘of counsel,’ which meant, in my case, that I handled the cases the firm didn’t want to be seen to handle.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, a client’s wife is involved in a hit-and-run, a client’s son is accused of date rape, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds sordid.”
“Actually, it was very interesting indeed. I had more fun than anybody over at the Seagram Building.”
“Is that what you still do for them?”
“No, I became a partner last year, after I made some rain.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I brought in some serious business.”
“What sort of business?”
“A large corporate security business called Strategic Services, Centurion Studios, the Steele insurance group, and a new hotel being built now in Bel-Air, California.”
“Sounds like a great list. Did you and your wife have any children?”
“A son, Peter, who’s at the Yale School of Drama now.”
“Studying acting?”
“Studying everything. He wants to direct. In fact, his first film is being released this fall.”
“An indie, of course.”
“Yes, but it got picked up by Centurion.”
“You have anything to do with that?”
“I introduced Peter to the CEO. He did the rest.”
“Sounds like a very bright boy.”
“You have no idea.”
They lingered over their wine, then he showed her the house. Just before eleven, she made her way back across the garden to her own place, unmolested.
Stone couldn’t remember ever having let that happen before.
17
Herbie slept his usual six hours and made it into work at seven-thirty a.m.. He walked into his office, which was oddly dark, and felt for the light switch. He was in the wrong office.
“What do you think?” Cookie asked from behind him.
Herbie looked at her, then turned back to the strange room. It was now lit by lamps in the four corners and one behind an Eames lounge chair, with a matching ottoman, which seemed to have replaced the desk. A glass coffee table sat next to that, and a leather sofa on the opposite side, with matching armchairs on the other two sides of the table. A beautiful oriental rug glowed golden in the light from the lamps. Sunlight was shut out by venetian blinds that matched the wood in the floor.
“Do I work here?” Herbie asked.
“You do, if you want to,” Cookie said. “I can send it all back, if you don’t like it.”
Herbie went and sat in the beautiful chair and put his feet on the ottoman. His back didn’t hurt. “I like it,” he said. “No, I love it. Where’s all my stuff?”
“In the credenza at your right hand,” she replied. “There are four file drawers and eight ordinary ones.”
Herbie reached to his right and his hand fell on the phone. Next to that was a marble pencil box. He looked around and saw handsomely framed pictures on the walls and a Chinese terra-cotta horse in the center of the coffee table.
“It’s T’ang dynasty,” she said, “about eleven hundred years old.” She handed him a sheet of paper. “Here’s the bill for everything.”
Herbie looked at it: $54,540. “You’re nearly five grand over budget.”
“Tell me what you’d like to send back,” she said.
Herbie looked around. “Absolutely nothing. How’d you get this done so fast?”
“ABC has people who are accustomed to putting together whole rooms for movies and TV commercials in short order. I know one of them.”
“Cookie,” Herbie said, “how’d you like to redo my apartment in your spare time?”
“What’s my budget?”
“You can go to half a million, if you have to, but that won’t include art-I like the art I have.”
“My fee is five percent of what I spend,” she said.
“You’re hired.”
