“Just barely. I, ah, did a little unauthorized snooping last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“I drove up to Greenwich, got into his house, and had a look through his financial records, which his secretary had neatly filed away.”

“Bob, you should check with me before you do things like that.”

“If I had checked with you, you wouldn’t have let me do it.”

“You’re right about that. So what did you find out?”

“When he got a check he would pay off the three banks, and there would be only a few thousand left, not enough to get him to the next publisher’s payment. Right before he set off on the transatlantic voyage, he got two checks at once from two contracts, and that squared him for a while. But he borrowed while he was away, and now the banks are lined up, waiting for the will to be probated.”

“Well, I guess that’s going to cut into Allison’s insurance money.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Cantor came back. “Manning had twelve million bucks in life insurance.”

“Twelve million bucks? Nobody has that much insurance.”

“You’d be surprised how many people do. He was paying something like fifteen thousand bucks a month in premiums, which is one of the reasons, along with his lifestyle, that he was having to go to the banks to get by. And get this, he also had mortgage life insurance to cover both the house and the boat loans. When Allison pays all the outstanding bills, she’s going to have at least eleven million bucks in cash, tax free, plus the house, the boat, the cars—everything—free and clear. Her biggest expense is going to be property taxes, and she won’t have those long, because she’s already put the Greenwich property on the market. I told you I have a buddy up there in the property business.”

“Have you seen the New York Times piece on Allison’s plight down here?”

“Yep, and you can be sure that the insurance company has seen it, too.”

“That means they won’t pay unless she’s acquitted.”

“Wrong; they’ve already paid. They’d have to sue her to get it back, and they’ll have a very hard time doing that.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s already transferred nearly the whole amount to an account in the Cayman Islands. I found the receipt for the wire transfer.”

“Holy shit!” Stone breathed. “Either Allison has some very sharp advice from her lawyer and accountant, or I’ve underestimated her by a long shot. I’ve never even seen her so much as make a phone call from down here.”

“Well, somebody is, shall we say, acting in her best interests.”

“Somebody sure is, and it isn’t me.”