hundred fifty a head.”
“Sounds profitable. Any likely women?”
“Yes, a number.”
“So why did you decide to get off before the yacht reached the dock?”
“There was an altercation,” Herbie said.
“What started it?”
“There were these two guys, dressed well, but kind of beefy. They had knives.”
“For this they charge two-fifty a head?” Stone asked.
“I don’t know what they were doing there. Well, no, that’s wrong; I have a very good idea what they were doing there.”
“Which was?”
“Stephanie.”
Stephanie was Herbie’s sort of ex-wife. She and her brother had, according to news reports, stolen nearly a billion dollars from their father’s asset management firm and skipped to a Pacific island nation with no extradition treaty.
“She sent me some divorce papers a couple of times, but I just threw them away,” Herbie said.
“Never a good idea to throw away legal documents,” Stone pointed out. “Then what?”
“I was standing near the rear of the yacht’s saloon, talking to a girl, and these two guys appeared and said they needed to talk to me. They shoved me out on the afterdeck, and one of them said, ‘You should have signed the papers.’ Then both of them produced switchblades.”
“And how did you handle that?” Stone asked, fascinated now.
“I thought about it for about a nanosecond,” Herbie said, “and then I decided that there was no way to handle it that didn’t involve a lot of spilled blood, and it was my blood in question, so I ran for the rail. I jumped on a rear cockpit seat running, then just took a long leap.”
“And where was the yacht at this time?”
“Out near the Statue of Liberty,” Herbie replied.
“I suppose the two guys didn’t follow you into the water?”
“No, it was really, really cold. I made for Lady Liberty.”
“Wearing an overcoat?”
“I thought it would get even colder if I took it off. I swam like hell, and I was beginning to get pretty tired when my feet touched bottom. I waded the rest of the way. There was a dock with a ladder, so I climbed up that. I found a men’s room and turned on the heated hand-dryer thing, you know?”
“Yes, I’ve met many of them.”
“I dried my clothes a little and got warm, then I went back outside and mingled with the tourists, who were boarding the ferry for the return trip. Nobody asked me for a ticket.”
“I guess they’re unaccustomed to selling tickets to patrons who arrived at the statue under their own steam.”
“Yeah. When I got ashore I took a cab here.”
“Why, Herbie? What would you like me to do?”
“I would like to be divorced,” Herbie replied. “Will you handle that for me?”
Herbie had won the lottery a couple of years before, and he had paid Stone a million-dollar retainer to handle all his legal affairs, and not a few of his personal problems.
“Of course,” Stone said. “Maybe the best way to start would be to send me the papers Stephanie asked you to sign. Do you still have them?”
“Yeah, they’re somewhere in my apartment.”
“Well, grab a cab, go home, get out of those clothes, take a nice hot bath with a glass of brandy floating in it, and when the brandy is all gone, get out of the tub and fax me the papers.”
“That’s the best advice I’ve had all day,” Herbie said. With some difficulty he got into the sodden overcoat, and Stone walked him to the door.
“And, Herbie,” Stone said, “don’t let anybody you don’t know into your apartment. Tell the doorman to be on the lookout for strangers who want to see you, and don’t hesitate to call the police if the two guys show up.”
Herbie nodded and ran for a cab.
Stone stepped into Joan’s office. “Herbie just took a dip in New York Harbor,” he said.
“He told me.”
“How much of Herbie’s retainer is left?”
“About half a million dollars,” she said.
“I don’t suppose we can just write him a check.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“He’s faxing over some divorce papers from Stephanie.”
“I’ll bring them to you when they come.”
Stone nodded and went to his desk. He returned some phone calls, and then Joan buzzed him.
“Herbie’s on the phone,” she said. “I’ll bring in the papers.”
Stone picked up the phone. “The fax just arrived, Herbie.”
“I know, I just sent it.”
Stone took the papers from Joan. “Hang on while I take a quick look through them.” He did so. “Okay, they’re pretty standard. She wants you to admit to adultery and agree to a divorce.”
“Adultery? I didn’t do any adultery.”
“It doesn’t matter. New York is the last state with no-fault divorce; it has to be for cause, the usual choices being adultery, cruelty, or mental cruelty. There’s a move afoot in the state legislature to change that, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
“How about stealing a billion dollars and running?” Herbie asked. “Is that a good enough cause?”
Stone thought about it. “Well, it wasn’t your billion dollars, was it? I’m not sure if stealing somebody else’s billion dollars is grounds for divorce.”
“It’s gotta be,” Herbie said. “I mean, if she had stuck up a liquor store and had gone to prison for it, wouldn’t that be grounds?”
“Yes, I suppose so, but, Herbie, if you want the quick way out of this, it’s to just sign the papers, and it will soon be over.”
“I’m not having it said in the papers that I committed adultery.”
“All right, how about this? I’ll draw up a petition for divorce claiming that she’s the adulterer. You can sue her, instead of the other way around.”
“I like that better,” Herbie said.
“Wait a minute, she’s still on the Pacific island, isn’t she?”
“As far as I know.”
“Then it would be very difficult to serve her with the papers. Let me call her lawyer and see if we can work out something.”
“Stone, what about the division of property?”
“Well, you’re both entitled to equitable division of your assets, but you were only married for a couple of months before she left, the property you each owned before the marriage is exempt, and neither of you would have had time to accumulate much in the way of assets during the marriage.”
“How about the billion dollars she stole? That was accumulated during the marriage, so isn’t it a marital asset?”
“Well, now I’m stumped, Herbie. I think there would be a lot of problems with that. First of all, she’s obviously put the money out of reach of the government or anybody else, so even if we won the case, you’d never be able to seize the assets.”
“Maybe not, but it would be fun to win it.”
“It would be an expensive process, Herbie.”
“I still have a big credit with you, don’t I?”
“It would be throwing good money after bad.”
“But satisfying.”
