Too late, he reckoned. He was in it now, until it was resolved, and he had a bad feeling about it.
9
The following day, Stone got a call from Herbie Fisher. “Dugan signed,” he said.
“Who says that prayer doesn’t work?”
“You can buy me lunch instead of dinner,” Herbie said.
“You’re on. Today?”
“Good for me.”
“The Four Seasons at one o’clock?”
“That’s entirely satisfactory.”
“See you there.” Stone hung up and asked Joan to book the table.
He left the office early and, it being a nice day, decided to walk to the restaurant. On Park Avenue he looked across the street and saw a sign saying KATE LEE FOR PRESIDENT NYC HEADQUARTERS plastered across the windows of what had been an automobile showroom. Curious, he crossed the street and walked in. The first thing he saw was Ann Keaton disappearing into a glassed-in office.
“Can I help you?” a young man at a desk called to him.
“Ms. Keaton,” he replied, pointing toward her office and not waiting to be announced. The glass was mirrored on the outside—the room had apparently been the manager’s office—but the door was open, and Ann Keaton was at the desk, talking on the phone. She looked up, saw him, and waved him in.
“Look, we’re around until election day, and we’ll be buying a lot of ad time,” she was saying. “You might take that into consideration before you quote me prices like that. I want a volume price.” She listened for a moment. “I’ll get back to you,” she said, then hung up. “Well, look who’s here,” she said cheerfully. “The lawsuit-bedeviled seeker of a campaign job.”
Stone took the chair opposite hers without being asked. “Two things,” he said. “First, the lawsuit that was, as you put it, bedeviling me, was withdrawn before yesterday was out, and second, as I recall, the campaign job was seeking me, not the other way around.”
“Congratulations and touché,” she said. “But I’m afraid the job went to another New York lawyer—campaigns wait for no man.”
“I’m delighted to hear it. Spending my days on the phone begging money from recalcitrant upstate lawyers was never my cup of tea.”
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
“Tell you what, I’ll give your super PAC another hundred thousand dollars if you don’t offer me another job.”
“Done!” she crowed.
Stone whipped out his iPhone, called Joan, and told her to mail the check, attention of Ms. Keaton.
“I love a man who acts decisively,” Ann said.
“Then you’ll join a friend and me for lunch at the Four Seasons right now,” he said.
“Let me touch up my lipstick,” she said, grabbing her handbag and disappearing into an adjoining powder room.
Stone stood up and stretched, then he turned toward the large open room filled with desks and was stopped in his tracks. Standing not twenty feet from him at a desk, talking to a young woman, was none other than the giant, Don Dugan. Stone was looking through the one-way mirror of the office wall and was invisible to him.
“All ready,” Ann said from behind him.
“Close the office door and come here for a moment,” Stone said.
She did so. “What is it?”
“See the very large man talking to your campaign worker?”
“How could I miss him?”
“He’s the guy who filed the spurious lawsuit against me yesterday, then withdrew it. He’s the husband of my client. He’s also trouble. A couple of nights ago at an announcement event of Kate’s, he made an ass of himself and had to be removed from the premises.”
“Just a minute,” she said. She went to her desk, picked up the phone, and dialed a number. The young man at the desk next to the one where Dugan stood picked up his phone.
“You see the large gentleman at the desk next to yours?” She listened for a moment. “Take his address and phone number, tell him we’ll get back to him, then get rid of him, shred his particulars, and don’t, under any circumstances, get back to him.” She hung up. “He came in to volunteer,” she said to Stone, then she joined him and watched as the volunteer took a business card from him and said goodbye. “Good boy,” she muttered under her breath. “Thank you, Stone, for warning us.”
Stone watched as Dugan left the premises, crossed the street, and walked into the Waldorf-Astoria. “I think we can go now,” he said.
—
The headwaiter seated them as soon as they arrived. “We’ll be three,” Stone said to him, and a waiter came with another place setting and a chair.
“Drink?” he asked her.
“Fizzy