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“Did he mention Barbara?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I’d heard that she might be staying with him while she’s in town.”
“That would be news to me,” Stein said.
“Are you coming to the shareholders’ meeting tomorrow?”
“Since I no longer represent a shareholder, no.”
“Well, if I don’t speak to you again, Harvey, thanks for all your help in getting this sale closed.”
“My pleasure,” Stein replied. They both hung up.
Stone called Rick Barron. “Rick, I just spoke to Harvey Stein, and he says there’s no problem, that Jim Long’s shares now belong to Arrington.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Rick said. “We’re perilously close to the fifty-one percent level, and his stock just puts us over the top.”
“Then we’re okay.” Stone heard noises in the background. “Are you still in the editing suite?”
“Yes, it will be tonight before we finish scoring and tomorrow morning before we have a print.”
“I can’t wait to see it, whatever it is,” Stone said.
“I think you’ll find it entertaining,” Rick said. “Gotta run.”
They hung up. “Everybody’s mysterious today,” he said to Arrington. “First Dino, now Rick Barron. He’s working on some sort of presentation for the meeting tomorrow.”
“I think I know what it is,” Arrington replied, “but I’m not going to tell you.”
47
It occurred to Stone that he had not heard from Jack Schmeltzer, and he wondered why. He called the producer’s office at Centurion, reached his secretary, and gave his name.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Barrington,” the woman said, “but Jack is in a meeting and will be for the entire day. I would expect the earliest he might be able to get back to you would be, perhaps, tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you,” Stone said, and hung up. What had been a feeling of mere uneasiness now grew into a solid knot of anxiety in his stomach. Was Schmeltzer going to renege? They were little more than twenty-four hours from the shareholders’ meeting, and Stone had by now expected to be fully confident of success. Unwillingly he allowed himself to think of the consequences if Rick Barron did not prevail at the meeting. Stone had been operating on a steady wave of mostly good news for the past week, especially his elevation to partner at Woodman amp; Weld, but now what had seemed within grasp-the rescue of a fine, old name in filmmaking-seemed to be slipping away. The fabric of their plan was unraveling.
Arrington had repaired to her rooms to do whatever women did in the morning, and Dino had gone off to do whatever it was he was doing with Rivera, and Stone was uncomfortably alone. His cell phone rang, and he picked it up, not recognizing the number displayed on the screen. “Hello?”
“Mr. Barrington?” a well-modulated female voice said.
“Yes?”
“My name is Eleanor Grosvenor.”
Stone was taken aback. “Yes?”
“Do you know who I am?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Grosvenor,” he replied. This was the woman who had married his friend Ed Eagle, then attempted to steal his accumulated wealth and had, after that, repeatedly tried to murder him, a woman who had escaped from a Los Angeles courtroom, not realizing that she was about to be acquitted; who had escaped from a Mexican prison and somehow wangled a pardon for that and other crimes; who now was one of the richest women in the United States. Stone felt at once overmatched. “You are the former Barbara Eagle, are you not?”
“I am,” she replied, “and since you know that, I hope you will not hold against me whatever you may have heard.”
“Mrs. Grosvenor, so much of what I have heard about you strains credulity, and I hope I may be forgiven for not having had time to formulate an informed opinion.”
She laughed, a pleasing sound. “You must know that we dined in the same garden last evening, but I would not wish you to be overly concerned about my presence there.”
