24 – The Hunt For Red November – Chapter 10

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Chapter 10

ARNOLD STONE sat in his offices at Graystone Tower going over the specifics of his latest contract with NBC.

A single season of his hit show, The Entrepreneur would net him as much as a year’s worth of rent on one of his Tribeca apartments. He had pen in hand about to sign when Missy, his tall, shapely, blonde blue eyed, Swedish born, secretary buzzed in with news of an unexpected visitor.

“Mr. Stone, I have Senator Jackson ‘Ready’ McRae is here to see you,” she announced over the intercom.

“Was I expecting him?”

Missy was about to respond, to her boss and sometimes lover, when Ready leaned in and answered.

“No, you old son of a bitch, you weren’t expecting me. But you’ll be a damn fool if you don’t let me in.”

“Missy, when was the last time someone called me a damn fool?”

“I believe it was Mr. Soren, sir, just before you leveraged his company.”

“Thank you, Missy.”

Arnold Stone, entrepreneur, real estate development magnate, billionaire, and loudly self-proclaimed self-made man was raised by a German immigrant father who was as shrewd a businessman as any Wall-Streeter, left his son two very important things that contributed to his meteoric rise to fame and fortune. Number one, was an already established and financially secure company. And secondly, the ability to spot a potential profitable deal when he heard one.

Arnold was immediately on his feet dashing purposely across the imported Macassar Ebony wood floor and opened the door.

“Ready. You old Klaner, what have you been up to?”

“Everything that’s not fit to print in the morning Newspaper, you old bastard” answered Ready, putting on his best smile and at the same time grabbing and pumping Arnold’s hand like one of those old in-ground water pumps that has to be primed before water sprouted out.

“Don’t just stand here shaking my hand like you expect money to come pouring out my mouth. Come on in.”

Ready eased into Stone’s inner sanctum like a snake easing through the garden grass.

“Have a seat,” Stone invited, pointing to a pair of vintage leather club chairs costing about four thousand dollars each.

“Arnold, Ready began, how long have we known each?”

“Stone, who, by rearing, was not normally a skittish man, was smelling the tell-tale signs of a baited trap.

“Long enough to know when you’re about to ask for the shirt off my back,” Stone answered, stiffening his jaw and jutting out his lower lip.

“Not the shirt, Arnold, just your skin this time,” smiled Ready.

When Ready smiled like that, it sent a shiver down his back. Surely, he’d need some fortification for this conversation, thought Stone. “Drink?” Stone asked, without showing any emotion at all to Ready’s remark.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Stone casually walked over to the bar in his office that was always stocked and pulled from a shelf, what he knew was the Senator’s favorite whiskey.

“Johnny Walker?”

“That’ll do just fine.”

“Water? Ice?”

“Oh no, son. Like sex, it’s best straight.”

Stone poured two glasses of the whiskey and handed one to Ready. Both men took a sip of their drinks and eased back into their chairs.

“Since 2001 just after the Twin Towers collapsed and I went to Washington seeking funding for a rebuilding project.”

“Pardon,” asked Ready.

“You asked how long we’ve known each other? I believe you were the head of one of those Appropriations sub-committee looking into Pork Barrel Spending at the time.”

“Yes, yes, smiled Ready thinking of his summer house on Lake Tahoe that he’d had built from the ground up with the interest made on that sub-committee’s lush fund.

“So, are we talking pay-back here,” asked Stone, leaning forward and squaring his jaw.

“Arnold, I have an offer that may sound preposterous, but I assure it’s a genuine one. And I’m hoping that you’ll accept it in the spirit that it’s offered.”

“What is it?”

“I, no, make that, we want you to run for President.”

“President of what,” Stone asked with a twisted up brow.

“Why, President of the United States, of course.”