“Well, all right, then, but I want to know if he tries to poach you away from me.”
“But then I’d be violating Hackett’s confidence.”
“Goddamn it, Stone…”
“Bill, you’re going to have a stroke if you’re not careful.”
“Don’t you accept any work of any kind from Hackett, without my agreement.”
“Bill, I’m not trying to screw you. You’ve been very good to me, from the beginning. I just want to tap Hackett’s brain for my other client.”
“All right, all right, but you call me after lunch.”
“I will, but I don’t know how much I can tell you.”
Eggers hung up without another word.
27
Michael’s was a restaurant on West Fifty-fifth Street that catered to the publishing and media crowd, and Stone wondered why Hackett had chosen it. It was a wide-open room with contemporary furniture and good art on the walls. Michael Mc-Carty, the owner, had opened his first Michael’s in Santa Monica, California, in the late 1970s and the New York place not long afterward.
Hackett was already seated at a prime table when Stone arrived on time. They shook hands, and Stone took a seat. “This is a publishing hangout,” Stone said. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s close to my office, and the food is great,” Hackett replied.
“That’s about all I demand of a restaurant, except for fine wines, good service, attractive decor and beautiful women to look at.”
“Who could ask for more?” Stone said.
Hackett had already ordered a bottle of wine and poured Stone a glass. “One of my favorite chardonnays,” he said. “Far Niente.”
“One of mine, too,” Stone said, sipping the delicious wine.
Menus were brought, and Hackett, with Stone’s permission, ordered sweetbreads with morel mushrooms for both of them.
“I wasn’t kidding yesterday,” Hackett said.
“That’s what I’d like Bill Eggers to think,” Stone said.
Hackett laughed. “You can use me as a ploy, if you like, but I’m serious.”
“And I’m seriously appreciative,” Stone said, “but I’m very happy with my arrangement with Woodman and Weld. It gives me a lot of freedom.”
“What sort of freedom?”
“I can travel pretty much when I like: I enjoy Maine and the Florida Keys. I fly myself around.”
“What do you fly?”
“Something called a JetProp. It’s a Piper Malibu that’s had the piston engine replaced with a turbine. Does two hundred sixty knots at twenty-seven thousand feet.”
“I fly myself, too,” Hackett said, “except I have a new Cessna Citation Mustang. I just got type-rated last month.”
“What did that require?”
“The usual program is two awful weeks in a simulator in Wichita with a lot of classes and an FAA check ride at the end, but I couldn’t take that big a chunk of time off, so I hired an instructor and learned everything over about a six-week period, then took the check ride. Who’s your tailor?” Hackett asked, suddenly changing the subject.
“Doug Hayward, in London,” Stone said. “Doug died last year, but his cutter, Les, is still there, and the shop’s open.”