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.Is July okay?""Great.Maybe I'll bring the Flush around and pick you up over there and we'llflip a coin for which direction we go.North or south.""Beautiful.I wouldn't want to stay on a boat too long.I spent too much timeon the Caper with Ellis.There's no place to put anything, and no realprivacy.It was like the walls were closing in.""The bulkheads.""The walls, honey.Walls and floors.Kitchen and bathroom.Upstairs,downstairs.Inside and outside.Ellis was so damn picky about beingseamanlike, I decided after he died that the whole thing is a crock.I livedaboard until it got sold, and I called everything by the civilian name for it,and it made me sort of happy.""I want to ask you something else.You told me Josie called Ellis a couple oftimes.Several times, I believe you said.Early in July.At that time she musthave been terribly concerned and depressed about the condition of herdaughter, Romola.""Oh, she was.Of course.""You said that the phone calls from her made him cross.""I see what you mean.I knew that they weren't about Romola or any change inher condition, because he always told me things like that.And news of hisdaughter would make him either very depressed or very jubilant.Not cross.That's why I think she must have been urging him to buy something for pain,the way Prescott had asked her to do.""Josie was willing to do that in spite of her major worry?"Page 45ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"Look, she couldn't do anything about her major worry.There was Romola allhooked up to a lifesupport system that was even breathing for her, all tubesand wires and things, and nothing to do but wait.She didn't die, legally,until August tenth.I would guess that Josie was very restless.She'd welcomeanything that diverted her from her worry.I would guess that she wanted Ellisto come back to her and stay with her.Maybe she brought that up too.And thatwas what made him cross.He always told me she was a very nice woman, andabsolutely impossible to live with.""I might be going out there.""What for?""Josie Laurant has been financing a motion picture project for Peter Kesner.She's acting in it, I think.""Oh, God, that's terrible!"It was a lot more reaction than I had expected."Terrible?""I should have told you.Ellis, through his banking connections, arranged apersonal report on Peter Kesner.An absolutely, totally unreliable person.Adisaster area.He had the discipline to make those two little films that gotrave reviews and made a lot of money, but it went to his head and he blew thewhole thing.They gave him a big-budget film to produce and direct, and hewent way over budget and it turned out to be a dog.They gave him a chance todo a little picture, like his early two, and it was so completely bad theynever released it at all.By then his money was gone, of course.Taxjudgments, the whole thing.It was clear that Josie was supporting him.Iremember when Ellis dictated a three-page single-spaced letter to her, tellingher to have as little to do with Peter as possible and saying why.KnowingJosie, I knew she'd turn it over to Kesner.I told Ellis I thought that wouldhappen, and he said he wouldn't mind if she did.There was nothing actionablein the letter.It was all fact.He said maybe it would give Kesner a betterlook at himself.When I typed it I softened it a little bit, but he caught itand marked up the original and had me type it all over again.What this reallymeans, I guess, is that the money Josie got from Romola's estate is down thedrain, or soon will be.""Ellis didn't put any strings on it?""He talked about it, but he never got around to doing it.He talked aboutsetting it up as an annuity for Romola, but then when we were both certainRomola was going to die before he did, he put all his attention into refiningthat foundation concept of his.Which never got used.""Important question: Would Kesner know the terms of the will?"She thought for a moment."I would certainly think so.Josie knew, long beforewe moved down here from Stamford, that Romola would get the bulk of it, and ifRomola died first it would go to a foundation.Yes, she asked me and I toldher about it.I think she was wondering what would happen to her support, tothat fifty thousand a year, and I didn't blame her for wondering.I told her Ithought she would get a hundred thousand and that would be the end of it.Yes,I told her that's what she would get [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]