Bel-Air dead sb-20

by Stuart Woods

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Not really, I sort of slept in this morning. I’m sorry I got you when you were so tired last night.”

  “I’ve recovered now, and I want you to explain to me why you need the money from the sale of your studio stock.”

  “Oh, Stone, this is going to sound crazy to you, but I learned yesterday that I have an opportunity to buy a neighboring horse farm and business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Breeding and racing thoroughbreds,” she replied. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it; it’s called Virginia Champion Farms.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it; it’s just about the biggest racing farm in the country, isn’t it?”

  “The biggest outside Kentucky, anyway. The owner, Rex Champion, who’s a friend of mine, is getting on in years and is ready to sell. Horse farms are down in price right now, along with everything else, and this is a wonderful opportunity.”

  “How much?”

  “I got him down to fifty million dollars.”

  Stone was struck dumb.

  “Hello? Are you still there?”

  “I’m still here; I’m just stunned.”

  “My financial adviser says it’s worth sixty million, and that’s what he was asking, but I got him down to fifty. I can’t sell stocks right now, what with the market being the way it is, and my biggest asset is Centurion. This buyer has come along at just the right time.”

  “And that’s all you can sell to raise the fifty million?”

  “I’m afraid so. Oh, I’m sentimental about the studio, Stone, but I’ve always wanted to be in racing.”

  “I thought your only interest in horses was hunting and dressage.”

  “Those things cost money; racing horses makes money.”

  “Arrington, you’re not a businesswoman, and that’s a big business.”

  “The beauty of it is that I get the whole thing intact, with a staff, a board of directors, and all the real estate and stock. In a better year, it would cost seventy-five million!”

  “Arrington, let me look into all this. I’m having dinner with Rick Barron tonight, and I want to hear what he has to say, and I can look into Virginia Champion for you, too.”

  “Oh, all right, but I’m not going to change my mind about this, Stone. Remember, you’re working for me, not yourself.”

  “I’ll speak with you in a day or two,” Stone said, and hung up.

  4

  Stone got dressed and called Bill Eggers. Eggers was the managing director of the law firm to which Stone was of counsel-meaning he handled the cases the firm did not wish to be seen to handle. This association gave him advice and backup when he needed it, and he needed it now.

  Eggers came on the line. “Morning, Stone; what can I do you for?”

  “You can do me some advice, Bill, and some other help.”

  “What have you got yourself into now?”

  “Two very large business deals,” Stone replied.

  “That’s a little out of your line, isn’t it?”

  “Bill, why do you think I’m calling you?”

  “Oh, all right; what do you need?”

  “I need these two deals looked at objectively,” Stone said. “The first is the possible sale of Centurion Studios to some real estate developer. I know you have the contacts out here to put an ear to the ground. I want to know what’s being said about the deal.”

  “I can do that; what’s the other one?”

  “Arrington Calder wants to buy Virginia Champion Farms for fifty million dollars. You know the company?”

  “I do, and I know Rex Champion. He’s a gentleman, but with a sharp edge.”

  “I want to know what the farms are worth in today’s dollars-land, horses, other assets-and I want to know about the quality of the current management, and see the profit-and-loss statements for the past ten years or so.”

  “To find out all that I’m going to have to send a business appraiser outfit down there to rake the books and talk to the people. We can’t do this surreptitiously.”

  “Of course not.”

  “And Arrington is going to pay for the assessment?”

  “She will.”

  “I need a direct statement from her about that, not your opinion of what she’ll do. This is going to cost in the low six figures and take a couple of weeks.”

  “I’ll get her permission today.”

  “I’ll make the call as soon as I hear from you. In the meantime, I’ll make some calls about the Centurion deal. Are you in L.A.?”

  “Yes, I’m here to vote Arrington’s shares in Centurion.”

  “Okay. See you.” Eggers hung up.

  Stone called Arrington. “We have to send somebody to Virginia Champion to look the company over.”

  “Why? I trust Rex Champion.”

  “This is just due diligence, Arrington; it has to be done to protect you, and it’s going to cost in the low six figures. Champion will understand; call him and tell him these people will be there tomorrow.”

  “Oh, all right, but this is embarrassing.”

  “It’s business; Champion will understand that, and you have to learn not to be embarrassed about proper business requests.”

  Arrington hung up, and Stone called Eggers back to report the conversation. He was done for now, until he saw Rick Barron, anyway.

  Stone and Dino were in the living room of the main house when Manolo ushered in Rick and Glenna Barron. They rose to greet their guests, and Stone introduced them to Dino.

  “Our other guest will be along shortly,” Rick said, as they shook hands. His handshake was dry and firm, and his movements were not those of a very old man. Glenna, amazingly, looked a healthy sixty. Everyone ordered drinks.

  “When did you arrive, Stone?” Rick asked as they sat down.

  “Yesterday afternoon, late. I flew us out.”

  “Oh, in what?”

  “A Cessna Citation Mustang, recently acquired.”

  “Beautiful little airplane,” Rick said.

  “I know that you flew off carriers in World War II,” Stone said.

  “Yes, but I flew a lot more than that. My father owned a little FBO at Santa Monica Airport, and I flew charter flights for him for years. I still own the FBO. I’ve also been type rated in every jet Centurion has owned, including the current Citation Ten, though I haven’t been pilot-in-command for years. I still have my medical certificate, too.”

  “I didn’t know all that, Rick; you’ll have to come and fly my airplane.”

  “I’ve already flown one, thanks. We’re thinking of buying a smaller, shorter-range airplane for flying around the West.”

  The doorbell rang, and Manolo escorted in a tall, striking blonde. It took Stone a moment to recognize her.

  “Stone!” she said, rushing toward him and planting a tender, juicy kiss on his lips.

  Stone dabbed at his lips with a handkerchief, and it came away red. “Charlene, it’s so good to see you,” he said, then introduced her to Dino, who was flabbergasted to meet a bona fide movie star. Stone had had a brief fling with Charlene Joiner on a previous visit to L.A., just as she had had flings with numerous men, including a president.

  They all sat down again, and Manolo served their drinks.

  “Rick was telling us about his flying career,” Stone said.

  “I’ve flown with Rick, and he’s a marvelous pilot,” Charlene said.

  Rick warmed to the conversation. “Stone, do you remember the movie actor Clete Barrow?”

  “Of course,” Stone said. “He swashed a lot of buckles in his time. Died in the war, didn’t he?”

  “That’s right, he did. In September of 1939 I flew Clete, David Niven, and Clark Gable up to Oregon for some steelhead fishing on the Rogue River. We were up there when we heard Neville Chamberlain on the shortwave radio, announcing that a state of war existed between Britain and Germany. We returned to L.A. immediately, and before you knew it, Clete and Niven had left for England,
where they joined their old regiments. Niven had a splendid war record, and Clete died at Dunkirk, getting his men onto boats. After Clark’s wife, Carole Lombard, was killed in an airplane crash while returning from a bond tour, Clark enlisted, too. So did I, but for a different reason.”

  “That was quite a moment in history,” Stone said.

  “Glenna got into it, too,” Rick said. “I was serving aboard the aircraft carrier Saratoga when she came aboard with Artie Shaw’s band for a show, and we got to have a very brief meeting.”

  “It was a remarkable experience,” Glenna said. “Artie, the band, and I were lowered from the main deck into a huge area hangar belowdecks on an aircraft elevator, and three thousand sailors went wild. I’ve never heard such a sound, before or since.”

  Manolo came into the room. “Dinner is served,” he said, and everyone followed him into the dining room.

  Rick walked arm in arm with Stone and whispered, “We’ll get down to business over coffee.”

  5

  When the dishes had been taken away, Manolo approached the table. “Would you like to have coffee in the study, Mr. Stone?”

  “Thank you, yes, Manolo,” Stone replied, and stood.

  Glenna looked across the table at Dino. “Dino, would you like to take a look at the gardens while they talk business?”

  “Of course,” Dino said, standing and offering her his arm.

  Stone, Rick Barron, and Charlene Joiner settled in the comfortable library/study with coffee and brandy.

  “Now, Stone,” Rick said, “I want to tell you what’s going on and where we stand.”

  “Thank you,” Stone said.

  “A private hedge fund called Prince Investments has made us two offers, both of which we rejected, the most recent one over the objections of nearly half our stockholders. Now they’re coming back with a final offer, and I’m going to need fifty-one percent of the voting shares to keep us in business.”

  “What was the last offer?” Stone asked.

  “Twenty-five hundred dollars a share,” Rick said. “My sense of the other stockholders is that they’ll sell at something near three thousand.”

  “How many stockholders?”

  “Fifty-five. Arrington is the largest shareholder, with three hundred thirty-three thousand shares, I’ve got a hundred thousand shares-I’ve sold various blocks over the years to studio executives, to keep them-and Charlene has fifty thousand shares.”

  “How many shares extant?”

  “One million. With Arrington’s shares we’ve got four hundred thirty-three thousand, and I know of one other stockholder who will very likely vote with us-Eddie Harris, who was running the studio when I joined them, in 1938, had two daughters, one of whom died in her thirties. The other is Jennifer, who is in her midseventies now, and she holds twenty-five thousand shares, which can put us over the top.”

  “Tell me what will happen to the studio if the sale takes place.”

  “The studio was originally on two hundred acres, and we sold off fifty in the 1960s to build Centurion City, a mixed commercial/ residential development. That money got us out of debt, and we’ve stayed that way. Prince’s offer is for one hundred ten of the remaining one hundred fifty acres. That would consist of all of the back lot-our standing sets-our Western town, our small-town square sets, and numerous street sets, including our New York streets. It would rob us of five of our six soundstages, two of our three audio recording studios, and our set storage buildings. We would become, in essence, a small office park, including our admin buildings and the offices we rent to a couple of dozen independent producers who use our production facilities.”

  “And what would that do to your ability to make pictures and TV shows?”

  “It would devastate us,” Rick replied. “We would have to rent soundstages for our movie and TV productions, which would dramatically increase our production costs and cut our profits. Our hallmark has always been to make quality pictures and TV shows on moderate budgets. We simply could not continue our present production schedule, much less expand it. Centurion would become a shell, like too many of the remaining studios. I didn’t spend two-thirds of my life in this business in order to see that happen to it.”

  “Who are the people who want to sell?”

  “They’re all studio employees or independent producers on the lot. They own, generally speaking, from as little as fifty shares to twenty thousand shares. Some of them are nearing retirement age, and they can sell us back their stock at a price determined by a formula, which would net them, maybe a third of what selling the studio would.”

  “So, some of them stand to make forty million to sixty million dollars if the studio is sold.”

  “Yes, and as you can see, that is a strong motive for selling.”

  “Yes, I can understand that. Any hope of getting some of them on your side?”

  Rick shook his head. “I’ve been working on this for two months; we’ve boiled the list down to the four of us: Arrington, myself, Charlene, and Jennifer Harris.”

  “Rick, if you win this fight, how long will you be able to hang on to the studio?”

  “I’m leaving my shares to my two grandchildren, and if Arrington hangs on to hers, then we can keep it going as it is for many years.”

  “I see,” Stone said.

  “Stone, do you understand the importance of keeping Centurion as a working film studio? Not just to the stockholders, but to people everywhere who enjoy intelligent, quality entertainment?”

  “I can certainly see why you feel that way,” Stone said. “If I were a stockholder, that’s what I’d want, too.”

  “Now we come to the crux of things, Stone,” Rick said. “Jennifer Harris, Charlene, and I are on board. Everything depends on Arrington now. What is she going to do?”

  “Has she expressed her intentions to you, Rick?”

  “At first, she seemed to be with us, but the last couple of days I’ve sensed that she’s wavering.”

  “She has to make some important business decisions not associated with the studio,” Stone explained. “She won’t be able to make a final decision until those have been resolved.”

  Rick suddenly looked closer to his age.

  “I believe her heart is with you,” Stone said, “and I will do everything I can to swing her shares to you. I’m afraid that’s all I can say, at the moment.”

  “I see,” Rick replied.

  “Please don’t be disheartened,” Stone said. “This could still work out. When is the new offer expected?”

  “Early next week.”

  “So we have a week or so to make it work.”

  “Yes, I suppose we do.”

  “Charlene, are you acquainted with any of the stockholders whom you might be able to swing our way?”

  “I’ve pretty much done what I can,” Charlene replied.

  Somebody’s cell phone rang. Rick Barron looked at his phone and stood up. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, then left the room.

  Charlene turned her attention to Stone. “It’s good to see you,” she said. “I hope we can get together while you’re here. It’s been too long.”

  Stone knew from experience exactly what “get together” meant to Charlene, and he hoped his health was up to it. “It certainly has been too long,” he said. “I’d like that.”

  Rick returned to the study and sat down heavily in his chair. “Jennifer Harris is dead,” he said.

  Stone and Charlene looked at him.

  “How?” Charlene asked.

  “I don’t know; the police are at her house.”

  “Do you know what her will says about the stock?”

  “No,” Rick replied. “She seemed in perfect health.”

  Stone rose. “I think we’d better talk again, when you have more information. I hope we can get a grip on this.”

  Everybody went home, and Stone returned to the guesthouse, where Dino was watching television.

  “Nothing’s on at the right time out her
e,” he said. “The TV schedule is crazy.”

  “That’s not all that’s crazy,” Stone said.

  6

  Stone awoke to the hum of his cell phone on the bedside table. He tried to turn over to pick it up, but he was impeded by an arm across his chest. He looked that way to see a tousled head of blonde hair on the pillow next to him.

  His memories of the night before were hazy, involving arms, legs, and various other body parts in interesting, sometimes contorted positions and some loud noises. He lifted the arm and grabbed the phone.

  “Hello,” he croaked.

  “God, you sound awful,” Bill Eggers said.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s after nine… oh, I forgot, it’s three hours earlier out there, isn’t it?”

  “Forgot, my ass,” Stone said.

  “Well, as long as you’re up, want some news?”

  “If you insist,” Stone sighed, struggling to prop himself up with a pillow, in spite of the weight of Charlene’s arm.

  “I’ve had chats with a couple of people who are acquainted with Rex Champion’s situation,” Eggers said.

  “Which is?”

  “Depends on whom you believe. One of them says that Rex is flush with cash, but is old and tired and wants out; the other says he has bad cash-flow problems and that the stables are losing money hand over fist.”

  “And which one do you believe?”

  “I’m stumped,” Eggers said.

  “You’re a big help, Bill. You want to call me back when you have some indication of which way the truth lies?”

  “Okay, go back to sleep.” Eggers hung up.

  Stone put down his phone and suddenly realized that Charlene’s hand had migrated to his crotch. She gave a little squeeze.

  “Oh,” she said, “nice response.”

  “What did you expect?” Stone asked. He made to get out of bed, but she held on tightly.

  “You appear to have me by the…”

  “Yes, I do, don’t I?”

  “Charlene, I’m going to be here for at least a week; do you want to kill me the first day?”

  “I know you better than that, Stone,” she said, hoisting herself astride of him and slipping him inside her.