AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You will, in due course,” Stone said. “But now some steps have to be taken to regularize his life.”
“Regularize?”
“He’s been in a prep school in Virginia for a few months, and is now way ahead of not just his peers, but the seniors. He’s also saddled with Vance Calder’s name, and he doesn’t like the treatment he receives because of it.”
“And what’s your solution for handling it?”
“Not my solution, entirely, but Peter’s, and his mother has fully bought into it.”
“Go on.”
“Peter wants to attend a performing-arts prep school on the Upper East Side called Knickerbocker Hall, doing college-level work and attending their film school.”
“Sounds good.”
“And he wants to change his name to Barrington before he applies.”
“I see.”
“And he wants them to think he’s eighteen.”
Eggers blinked. “And how does he plan to do that?”
“Just by telling the school that he’s eighteen. When you’ve met him you’ll see that nobody will doubt him.”
“He’s currently a resident of Virginia?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll have an associated firm in Virginia do a straightforward change of name in the courts down there. They can also notify his school of the change and request that all his records there be changed to Barrington.”
“This has to be done in such a way that no one in the media catches it.”
“Legally, it will have to be advertised locally, but there are always obscure publications that can satisfy that requirement. We have to have a reason stated for the change of name in the petition to the court. What do you want to say?”
Stone thought about it. “Damned if I know.”
“How about: ‘Petitioner wishes his surname to be that of his natural father’?”
“He’s too young to be a petitioner; I suppose Arrington will have to fill that role.”
“I thought he was going to be eighteen.”
“Well, to all intents and purposes-except for legal ones, of course.”
Eggers tilted back in his chair, rested his feet on his desk, and pressed his fingertips together in a thoughtful pose. “Where was he born?”
“In Los Angeles.”
“How about we get his birth certificate reissued and his old one removed? That should solve the problem.”
“How the hell are you going to do that? You can’t just hire some clerk to steal a public record and replace it with a forgery.”
“Well, I suppose you could, but that’s messy. All we need is a judge to order a reissuing of the certificate, for the same reason as we give in Virginia, and along the way, to correct a typographical error with regard to birth date. We should still do the name change in Virginia, because of his school.”
“And what kind of judge are you going to get to do that?”
“One that you and I went to law school with. Remember Carling Steadman?”
