Stone noticed that Finger had turned a peculiar shade of red. “Not at all, Sam. Take your time.” He walked outside, took a seat in the waiting room, picked up a copy of the Times, turned to the Arts section and started working on the crossword puzzle. He was a little more than halfway through when the conference room door opened and Sam Teich walked toward him, a sheet of paper in his hand. Stone stood to meet him.

Teich handed him the paper, on which there was a handwritten list. “Is this everything you asked for?”

Stone read the list carefully. “Everything except one hundred percent of Mrs. Finger’s legal costs,” he said.

“And what do you estimate those will be?”

“Thirty percent of her settlement.”

A tiny grimace of pain crossed Teich’s face. “She signed a contingency agreement? How did you get her to do that?”

“It was her expressed wish, with no suggestion from me.”

“We’ll give you everything on the list and ten percent. It’s not as though you’ll have put in a lot of hours.”

“Fifteen percent, if we have a signed agreement before the end of the business day.”

Teich sighed. “Done. Send me your draft.”

“It won’t be a draft,” Stone said, “it’ll be final, and it will include a provision for hidden assets that may be uncovered at some later date.”

“Bernie will sign an agreement for the real estate and half of the assets contained in the file you showed us,” Teich said.

“And half what’s in the Caymans account. I’ll want to see a bank statement.”

“It’s not the kind of account that produces a monthly statement, and for legal reasons, Bernie does not want any document to exist that mentions a balance. We’ll add a million dollars to the settlement to cover the Caymans account and any assets not mentioned in the files.”

“Oh, then there are unnamed assets?”

“All right, two million.”

“Five million.”

“Three million, and no more.”

“Bernie signs the agreement first.”

“All right. We have an agreement.” Teich offered his hand.

Stone shook it. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Sam; you gave Bernie good advice.”

“I know,” Teich said, then he turned and walked back into the conference room.

Stone left the law firm in a rosy daze of elation. He forced himself to breathe normally as he hailed a cab and went back to his own office.

“So?” Joan said, as he walked into the office.

“Come in and bring your pad,” Stone said. “I want to get this thing wrapped up today.”

He called Bernice Finger and gave her the news.

“He agreed to everything?” she asked incredulously.

“Everything, plus your legal costs. I cut my contingency from thirty to fifteen percent.”

“If he agreed so quickly, he must be hiding a lot of money,” she said. “We should ask for more.”