2 7 9
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
“You’re the reason my daughter took all her money out of the bank.”
“She did it for me, Mr. Stark,” Eric said. “And I plan to pay her back within six months.”
“What about my influence?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“I put pressure on the governor’s office for this reprieve.
What will you give me for that?”
“What do you want?” Eric asked.
Stark looked closely at Eric and then at his brother.
“Why don’t you two boys come and work for me?” he said. “Work off the debt you owe.”
“Sure,” Eric said without hesitation. “But I thought that Mikey said that you didn’t even have an office, that you just sit at a table in the Cape Hotel all day having meetings.”
“Things change,” Kronin said with a shrug. “I’ve recently been made the CEO of an investment organization — the Drumm Investment Group.”
“Okay,” Eric said. “But we have to figure out how much work we need to do to pay you back.”
“What about you, son?” Stark asked Thomas.
“I didn’t ask you to help me,” Thomas said. He found himself squinting at Stark as if the huge billionaire was the sun.
“That’s a bit ungrateful, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know about that. As a matter of fact I don’t know much at all. I sure couldn’t be a businessman or a doctor or nuthin’, so how could I work for you an’ pay off gettin’ the governor to let me free? You think I could sweep enough floors to do sumpin’ like that?”
“I’ll work for you, Mr. Stark,” Eric said. “I’ll do the work for the two of us.”
2 8 0
F o r t u n a t e S o n
“I wanted both of you,” Stark said, eyeing the lame Thomas.
“But why?” Thomas asked. “Why’d you do it in the first place?”
“Raela wouldn’t eat until I obtained your clemency.”
“Is she eatin’ now?”
“Yes.”
“Then you been paid,” Thomas stated bluntly.
Eric was perplexed by his brother’s tough attitude.
“Don’t you feel at all indebted to me?” Kronin asked, still addressing Thomas.
“Why should I? I don’t even know you.”
Stark cocked his head like a man who has just heard a threat being issued.
“I was the one who engineered your clemency.”
“I think it was Raela did that,” Thomas said. “You just did what she made you do.”
It was obvious to both young men that Stark expected to get his way easily. The impediment of Thomas’s refusal was beginning to humor Eric.
“Why don’t you let us talk about it?” Eric suggested. “I’ll talk to Tommy alone.”
“Why don’t we discuss it on the ride back?” Stark suggested.
“We didn’t know that you were coming, Mr. Stark,” Eric said. “So we called my dad. He’s coming to get us.”
Stark glared at Thomas, who in turn squinted as if the bright light of an inquisitor was shining into his eyes.
“ H ow ’d you boys like New York?” Minas Nolan asked on the ride back to Beverly Hills.
2 8 1
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
“I really liked it, Dad,” Eric said. He felt outgoing and effu-sive with his father for the first time that he could remember.
“Tommy spent every day in the museum, and I was down on Wall Street. We’d get together every night for dinner though.”
“How did you like it, Tommy?” Minas asked, turning momentarily toward the backseat.
“It was pretty good,” the smaller boy said. “The museum was great, and we met some nice people. A lotta people talked about the World Trade Center. I think they’re worried about it happening again.”
“That was a terrible event,” Dr. Nolan agreed.
“Yeah. There’s people live in the subways, you know.”
