“Well, it’s nice that you’re a fan; it will give you two something to talk about.”
“All right,” Stone said, getting to his feet, “I’ll give it a shot.”
Eggers rose with him and walked him to the door. “You’d damn well better give this a lot more than a shot, Stone. Harlan Deal spends one hell of a lot of money with this firm, and losing him would impact us in all sorts of ways, including having to trim our expenses, like what we spend on of-counsel attorneys.”
“I get the picture, Bill. No threats, please.”
“Oh, that wasn’t a threat, Stone; that was just a clear picture of what the landscape around here would look like if we should lose Harlan Deal’s account. These offices would look like a nuclear test site.”
“I get it, I get it,” Stone said. He didn’t let the doorknob hit him in the ass on the way out.
24
Stone went back to his office, ordered in a sandwich and had lunch at his desk. He had nearly dozed off on his sofa when Joan buzzed him. “Bob Cantor on line one.”
Stone staggered back to his desk, slapped himself a couple of times to wake up and picked up the phone. “Hi, Bob.”
“Hi, yourself. I thought you might like to know that I had an unexpected call from Charlie Crow.”
“That’s very interesting. What was it about?”
“He wants to have lunch.”
“I thought you had all agreed not ever to contact each other.”
“We did, and I’ve stuck to that. I don’t know about the others.”
“How do you feel about having lunch with Crow, Bob?”
“Nervous.”
“What exactly did he say when he called?”
“He said he thought that enough time had passed that it wouldn’t matter, that he’d always liked me and that he’d like to renew our friendship.”
“Was he lying about liking you?”
“We got along in ’Nam, but that’s about all. Renewing our ‘friend-ship, ’ as he put it, is not all that appealing.”
“Was there anything sinister in his tone?”
“No, he was affable, I guess you’d say. Charlie could always be affable if he felt like it. Some thought he had a lot of charm. It was pretty much lost on me, though.”
“Are you going to see him?”
“I faked another call coming in and said I’d get back to him.”
“I think it might be a good idea to see him, Bob.”
“Why?”
“It might help us help the Colonel.”
“Yeah, I guess it might.”
“You’ve got to play dumb, though. You can’t give him the slightest idea that you know about the Colonel’s problem. Remember, it wasn’t in the papers, so you can’t possibly know about it. If he brings up the Colonel, and I suspect he will, then you can talk about him.”
“All right. I’ll call Charlie back.”