Law.” She hadn’t needed a second breath.
“You look like all of those,” Stone said.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, sounding defensive.
“I meant it to be a compliment,” Stone replied.
“Oh. What, exactly, do you expect from me?”
“For a start, I want you to read all the corporate paper that comes into this office from Strategic Services and, starting soon, from Steele Security, our new client, and brief me on the high points. In short, I want to be able to appear that I know about everything financial in both firms, without actually having to read the documents.”
“I get the picture.”
“I believe they’ll be sorting out the files as they arrive from the client’s previous firm, so you won’t have to do that.”
“What else?”
“I’ll let you know when it comes up.”
“Is your secretary my secretary, too?”
“Did you have a secretary in the Seagram Building?”
“Just somebody to handle the phones.”
“Joan will do that for you here. We have a line that runs through the main switchboard, so you should probably route your calls through them; Joan will give you an extension number. My advice to you is, make friends with Joan.”
“Why?”
“First, common courtesy; second, she’s a very nice lady and extremely capable; third, she makes a bad enemy.”
“All good reasons,” Allison said.
“And if you’re unhappy working in Turtle Bay, you can work from your own desk at W amp;W, but don’t let your distance make more work for Joan, like calling her to come get a file. If you become friends, she’ll go out of her way to help you.”
“Okay.”
“Allison, you seem to have some sort of chip on your shoulder. You want to tell me about it?”
“It’s nothing to do with you, in spite of what I’ve heard. I just thought that by this time, I’d be doing more important work.”
“What sort of work?”
“More client contact.”
“You’ve been with the firm for what, a year?”
“Yes.”
“There are people over there who’ve been associates for twenty years or more and have rarely seen a client, and they’re doing important work. My experience of Bill Eggers is that he likes to see people succeed, and if you impress him, you’ll be given all the responsibility you can handle.”
“I’ve heard that,” she said.
“Did you expect that you’d make partner by now?”
“No, of course not.”
“Why do you think Bill sent you to me?”
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“Have you been having problems with people in Seagram?”
“A little, maybe.”
“Well, there are fewer people to get along with here; maybe Bill thought it would be good practice for you to start small, before you go back to the offices.”
“You haven’t asked what I’ve heard about you,” she said.
“I’m not interested in gossip. If you’ve heard something that concerns you, then bring it up now or later, and we can talk about it.”
“All right. I’ve heard that you will screw anything that moves, and I’m not up for that.”
Stone laughed. “Perhaps you haven’t heard that I’m recently married.”
“No, I hadn’t.”
“She’s in Virginia, moving into a new house that she started a year ago, and she’ll be gone the better part of a month, but your virtue is not in jeopardy. And we have a son who’s in school at Knickerbocker Hall, on the Upper East Side. His name is Peter, and you’ll meet him in due course. You’ll find that he’s smarter than you, just as he’s smarter than I. It can be a little unsettling at first, but he’s a good kid.”
“I’ll look forward to meeting him.”
“One other thing: a gossip-type journalist has been sniffing around since our wedding, so be on your guard, and let me know immediately if somebody sidles up to you and starts asking questions. Our privacy is important to us.”
“Of course.”
“Any other questions?”
“I expect I’ll have some soon.”
“Try Joan first, then me. Go see her, and she’ll get you settled. You’d be smart to take her to lunch one day soon.”
“I’ll do that.” Allison got up and left Stone’s office.
36
K elli Keane got out of a taxi a couple of doors down the street from Stone Barrington’s house, and stood opposite, stamping her feet in her boots and wrapping her long coat around her legs, trying to keep warm. It was seven a.m., and she was just going to wait until the kid went to school.
She was fortunate that Peter left the house only a few minutes later and walked up to Third Avenue, while Kelli kept pace with him on the opposite side of the street. He waited for a bus while she hailed a cab and got in. “Just wait here until the bus comes,” she told the driver, “and when it does, follow it and don’t get ahead of it.”
“Follow a bus?” the driver said. “Whatever happened to follow that car?”
“Times are hard,” Kelli replied. “More people are taking the bus.”
The bus arrived, Peter got aboard, and the two vehicles moved in tandem up Third Avenue. Finally Peter got off and walked toward Second Avenue, and Kelli told the driver to turn right and stop. She watched as Peter ran up the steps of a large building and disappeared inside.
“Go down to that building and stop,” she said to the driver, who did so. “What’s the name of this place?” she asked.
“Knickerbocker Hall,” the driver replied. “It’s chiseled in stone over the front door.”
“Oh, yeah.” She gave him the address of the Post.
“You work at the Post? I thought you were a private eye,” the driver said.
“You’re a romantic, aren’t you?”
“Sure; you want a demonstration?”
“Just drive.”
Peter walked upstairs in the nearly empty building. It was only seven-thirty. As he was about to turn into the film department, he heard piano music coming from the opposite direction. He turned right instead of left, into the music department, and the music got louder. Like a cross between Chopin and Rachmaninoff, he thought, if that was possible. He looked through a window in a door marked “Recital Hall” and saw a very pretty girl seated at a nine-foot grand piano, playing with enthusiasm and precision. He pushed open the door, tiptoed in, and took a seat at the rear of the little hall.
She finished the piece with a flourish and, without looking up from the keyboard, said, “Come on down front;
