“Done,” Eggers said, making marks on his calendar to block out the time. “And you’ll be there, too.” It wasn’t a question.

“Of course, though please remember that I don’t know a hell of a lot about insurance.”

“Maybe not, but you know how to tap-dance. I’ll get a couple of department heads in on this, too.”

Stone got up to go. “Bill, thanks for handling Arrington’s will with such dispatch. I’m happy not to have been involved in that process.”

“Have you read the will?”

“No, and I don’t intend to.”

“As you wish,” Eggers said. “If you ever get around to it, I think you’ll be pleased with the way we’ve organized her estate.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“How’s the new school for Peter?”

“He’s eating it up. He’s going to screen the rough cut of his film for them next week.”

“I made a call to Yale on the subject of his and Ben’s applications,” Eggers said, “and learned that Eduardo was in ahead of me.”

“Thanks, Bill. Peter wants Yale badly.”

Stone excused himself and walked slowly back to the house, thinking he had had a pretty good day. He walked into his office and found Arrington waiting for him, and she was in tears.

30

Stone sat down on the sofa next to her. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

Arrington grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table and blew her nose. “I just had a call from an old friend of Vance’s, Prunella Wheaton?”

“The gossip queen? What did she want?”

“She said she got wind of somebody looking into you and me.”

“Come on, tell me the whole thing.”

“Someone got ahold of a copy of our marriage license.”

“That’s a public record. What else?”

“Well, they’ve figured out that we were married at Eduardo’s house and about the mayor, too, but they’re afraid of printing anything about that for fear of angering some of Eduardo’s friends.”

“So far, so good. Is there more?”

“They’ve figured out that I’m Vance’s widow and that I have a son.”

“None of this is really a secret,” Stone said. “Nobody could make very much of that.”

“They might, if they can count,” she said.

Stone thought about that. “I think we might have that covered with the change of birth certificate.” He thought some more. “Is Prunella Wheaton a friend of yours, too?”

Arrington shook her head. “No. I met her once, when I was lunching with a group of women in L.A. She and Vance had an affair when they were very young, long before I knew him.”

“And Wheaton didn’t say where she heard all this?”

“No, she said it was just a rumor.”

“Did you get the impression that it was somebody at the Post? Because that’s where Wheaton’s column runs in New York.”

“She didn’t say.”

“Apart from sharing this rumor, did Wheaton ask you any questions?”

“Just girl stuff. She congratulated me on the marriage and asked how Peter is.”

“What did you tell her about Peter?”