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It’s two hours later that Lips Louie calls on his cell phone to announce mission accomplished.
He must be quite the cock tease if he kept Jack on the edge for such a lengthy interval... doubt if the Park scenery brought delay.
I descend to the lobby, stepping to the sidewalk. Lips Louie and I must talk, but I am not going to have him in my apartment. When he returns Jack’s leash I guide my pet to the front passenger door.
“Ride with the driver, I need a private conversation with Mr. Lips.”
I enter the rear compartment, sealed from Jack and the driver and take a seat opposite Lips Louie.
“I assume he got off for you,” I smirk.
“Like a cannon. He’s exquisite, quite the hunk. Quivers nicely in being handled by a man.”
I mentally question his gender reference but remain silent. I want information not a confrontation.
“So, Mrs. Lipton...” I prompt as the driver pulls from the curb.
Louie downloads.
“What I am going to say breeches the tenet of attorney client confidentiality. But one can only be disbarred once,” Louis begins with a sheepish grin.
“Working on Mr. Lipton’s estate had some curious quirks. The first being that the will was specific that Jack, his biological but illegitimate son, was bequeathed nothing... not a cent. His wife was to receive the bulk of the estate, quite sizable, in the low nine figure range. Yet another quirk, if his wife predeceased him, the estate again was still not to go to his son, but instead to some large prominent charities... American Cancer Society... United Way... all that stuff.
“Again very specific concerning parsimony for Jack. It became evident to me in working with Mrs. Lipton that she had great disdain for Mr. Lipton’s son, an object of scorn in being conceived by a woman of ill repute during their marriage. The possibility dawned that the will’s unusual aspects were drafted under duress. Estate lawyers normally suggest leaving some token amount to undesired heirs to counter an argument of oversight in drafting the will. Instead for the son, second to the wife in having any potential estate claim, there was nothing.
“I envisioned an undisclosed confrontation, Mr. Lipton most likely wanting to leave something to his son, but the scorned Mrs. Lipton opposing, in her mind such a provision giving the son the legitimacy she forever wanted denied to him. Apparently marital bliss trumped standard will drafting. Mr. Lipton obliged. Illegitimate son denied all.
Why would he so willingly concede, I kept asking myself? With his money he had influence; surely there was something to placate the wife’s wrath.
“And then it dawned. The will left his estate to his wife... not to Mrs. Lipton by name. A clue! And so I did some research... research of which I am rather proud. It seems for Mrs. Lipton there had been a prior marriage. She was a show girl. From what I could deduce some ostensibly wealthy patron of a Las Vegas casino proposed marriage, possibly in the midst of a drunken binge. I’m sure he hinted at riches, offering a life of luxury and full luxurious attire rather than the skimpy Las Vegas garb of silk and feathers.
“Well it was a ruse... who conned whom sort of thing. He got laid, Mrs. Lipton got nothing. The man was broke. Presumably there was a quick divorce but I could find no record of it.
“So with curiosity piqued, I tracked down the con artist first husband, rather easy with his subsequent criminal record. I suggested I needed to contact his wife. On the phone he was brusk, stating that the marriage was short and over, and he thus had no knowledge of her whereabouts. But he offered a clue.
‘That’s long over. Ended in Ciudad Juarez years ago.’
“Ah, a Mexican divorce. At the time fast, simple, cheap... and later disregarded under the United States law. And so I checked. Yes, Mrs. Lipton, under her maiden name, was divorced under Mexican law in Ciudad Juarez, the presiding justice part time, his main trade cutting hair, the decree signed in a barber shop!”
I sit back in astonishment. With no legal divorce, Mrs. Lipton’s subsequent marriage to Jack’s father becomes quite murky.
“You see the implications? Mrs. Lipton is not the prime beneficiary... the will specifies it’s the wife of Mr. Lipton. Did he know of the Mexican divorce? Did he cleverly counter her insistence on cutting out Jack?”
Wow!
“Can the will still be contested?” I hastily query.
“I’m not a lawyer,” Lips Louie informs with self ridicule. “It would be illegal for me to give advice. For that, they could put me in jail. But I do believe that in probating a will, all sorts of representations are made to the surrogate. One of which being that a beneficiary is indeed the person so named in the l
ast will and testament.”
With that the limousine pulls back to my apartment building.
“It’s Saturday night, Miss Kelly. I’m headed to Soho. Perhaps Jack could once again entertain us there. The boys were quite impressed...”
As I step from the car, I ask myself, was Mrs. Lipton legally the wife of Mr. Lipton?
And in cutting out Jack, the denial appears emotional, not well thought out, the will obviously drawn under the influence of Mrs. Lipton. And Mr. Lipton conveniently let the emotions rule.
