Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 21

decided, one way or the other, before he gets any older.”
    “What would we tell them at the school?” Arrington asked Peter.
    “That we’re changing my name from my stepfather’s to my father’s.”
    “I suppose that’s accurate,” she said.
    “I would be a lot more comfortable in myself,” Peter said.
    She looked at her son, then at Stone. “How can I object?”
    “Welcome to the Barrington family, Peter,” Stone said, “such as it is. You and I are the only living members.”
    “Thank you, Dad,” Peter said.
    “He never called Vance that,” Arrington said.
    “He asked me to call him Vance,” Peter said.
    “Yes, he did,” she admitted. “I wondered why he did that.”
    “Because he knew something I didn’t,” Peter said.
    The captain came with menus, and the subject was put aside while they ordered. Then, when the menus had been taken away, Peter said, “Next subject: my new school.”
    “Oh?” Arrington said. “What about it?”
    “I want it to be Knickerbocker Hall.”
    “That has a familiar ring,” she said. “Where is it?”
    “Right here, in New York,” Peter said. “On the Upper East Side.”
    “A boarding school on the Upper East Side?”
    “It’s not a boarding school,” Peter pointed out.
    Stone intervened. “Peter now has a home in New York,” he said.
    Arrington was looking back and forth between them, her brow furrowed.
    “It has a performing arts program, including a film school. I want to do college-level work there and then go to Yale Drama School.”
    “Was this your idea?” she asked Stone.
    “Only the part about his living with me while he’s in school. The rest is entirely his; I didn’t know about Knickerbocker.”
    “Let me think about it,” Arrington said.
    “And I want to be eighteen,” Peter said.
    “You will be, in two years,” his mother pointed out.
    “I mean, when I go to Knickerbocker, I want them to think I’m eighteen. I don’t want to be the only sixteen-year-old among a bunch of eighteen-year-olds.”
    Arrington looked at Stone questioningly.
    “I think he can pull it off,” Stone said. “Look at him; listen to him. I don’t know any eighteen-year-olds that grown up.”
    “But I would miss sixteen and seventeen,” Arrington said, plaintively.
    “I wouldn’t miss them,” Peter said.
    They put all this aside and dined well. When they had finished their entrees and ordered dessert, Arrington sighed deeply. “All right, I agree,” she said.
    “Agree to which things?” Peter asked.
    “All of them. You’re Peter Barrington, you’re eighteen, and you can go to Knickerbocker what’s-its-name.”
    “Hall,” Peter said.
    “And to Yale, too. That’s assuming you can get into these places.”
    “I can,” Peter said.
    “He never lacked confidence,” she said to Stone.
    “Sometimes confidence is justified,” Stone said.
    They had a birthday cake for dessert. It had eighteen candles.

10
    S tone woke the following morning with someone fondling his crotch. “Is that you?” he asked.
    “It had.” better be,” Arrington replied. “And it seems to be working.”
    “I can vouch for that,” he said.
    She climbed onto him and took him inside her.
    “You’re all wet,” he said.
    “Normally, I would take that statement amiss, but on this occasion, you’re perfectly correct.” She moved gently up and down. “I liked the way things went last evening,” she said.
    “So did I, and I like the way things are going now.”
    She laughed, and the contraction was instantly transmitted to Stone. “Keep laughing,” he said. “It feels good.”
    And she did.
     
     
    Joan came into Stone’s office. “I booked Arrington and Peter at Radio City Music Hall for the matinee,” she said.
    “Why not me?”
    “You have to work for a living these days, and your first client of the day is outside, waiting.”
    “Anybody I know?”
    There was a rap at the door, and Herbert Fisher stuck his head in. “Good morning. Got time for me?”
    “Always,” Stone said, without the usual irony.
    Herbie came in and sat down. “You wanted me to sign the documents?”
    Stone handed him the stack, with the signature pages flagged, and a blue-ink pen. “You’ll note that Stephanie has already signed them.”
    Herbie looked at her signature. “Don’t tell me she’s in New York.”
    “Color fax,” Stone said. “Her attorney accepted service.”
    “What are the chances we’ll get the feds to let go of the three