Jack popped the cracker in his mouth and wiped his fingers on a napkin while he munched. “I think it’s great. I mean, maybe he won’t want the money. If he’s such a good Christian, maybe he’ll opt for the spiritual over the materialistic.”
Bennet snorted with annoyance. “His being a Christian has nothing to do with it. He’s penniless. You heard her. He’s got nothing. He’s flat broke.”
“I don’t know that he’s broke. I never said that,” I interjected.
Now it was Bennet’s turn to stare. “You seriously think he’s going to turn down a great big whack of dough?
Donovan looked at me. “Good question,” he said. “What’s your feeling on the subject?”
“He never asked about the money. At the time I think he was more interested in the idea that you’d hired someone to find him. He seemed touched at first and then embarrassed when he realized he’d misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood what?” Christie said.
“He thought I’d been asked to locate him because of family interest or concern. It became obvious pretty quickly that the point of the visit was to notify him of his father’s death and advise him he was a possible beneficiary under the terms of Bader’s will.”
“Maybe if he thinks we’re all kissy-kissy, he’ll give up the money and opt for love instead,” Jack suggested.
Donovan ignored him. “Did he say anything about talking to an attorney?”
“Not really. I told him to get in touch with Tasha, but she’s the attorney for the estate and she’s not going to advise him about that aspect of the situation. If he calls her, she’ll refer him to a lawyer unless he already has one.”
Donovan said, “In other words, what you’re saying is we don’t have any idea what he’ll do.”
Bennet spoke up. “Of course we do. There’s no mystery. He wants the money. He’s not a fool.”
“How do you know what Guy wants?” Christie responded with a flash of irritation.
Bennet went right on. “Kinsey should have asked for his signature on a quitclaim. Get him signed off. Make a settlement before he has a chance to think too much.”
Donovan said, “I asked Tasha about that. I suggested we draw up a disclaimer, thinking Kinsey could take it with her. Tasha nixed that. She said a disclaimer would be meaningless because he could always maintain later he wasn’t properly represented or he was unduly influenced, overcome by the emotions of the moment, shit like that, which would make it useless. I thought her point was well taken. Tell the man his father’s dead and then whip out a quitclaim? It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
Christie spoke up again, saying, “Kinsey had a good idea. She pointed out that since the two wills were drawn up just three years apart the witnesses for the second will might have been the same as the ones for the first. If we can track down the witnesses, it’s always possible one of them was aware of the provisions.”
“Like a secretary or a paralegal?” Donovan asked.
“It’s possible. Or maybe the clerk/typist acted as a witness. Somebody had to be involved in the preparation of that document,” I said.
“If there was one,” Jack said.
Donovan’s mouth pulled down as he considered the point. “Worth a try.”
“To what end?” Jack asked. “I’m no, saying we shouldn’t make the effort, but it probably won’t do any good. You can be a witness to a will without being aware of what’s in it. Besides, what if the second will left everything to Guy? Then we’d really be screwed.”
Bennet was impatient. “Oh come on, Jack. Whose side are you on? At least the witnesses could testify the second will was signed. I heard Dad say half a dozen times Guy wasn’t getting a thing-we all heard him say that-so wouldn’t that make a difference?”
“Why should it? Dad had the will. He kept it in a file right upstairs. How do you know he didn’t revoke it in the end? Suppose he tore it up before he died? He had notice enough. He knew his days were numbered.”
“He would have told us,” Bennet said.
“Not necessarily.”
“Jesus, Jack. I’m telling you, he said Guy would get nothing. We’ve been over this a hundred times and he was adamant.”
“It doesn’t matter what he said. You know how he was when it came to Guy. He never stuck to his guns. We might have been forced to toe the mark, but not him.”
Donovan cleared his throat and set his glass down with a sharp tap. “All right. Knock it off, you two. This is getting us nowhere. We’ve been through enough of this. Let’s just see what Guy does. We might not have a problem. We don’t know at this point. Tasha said she’d contact him if he doesn’t get in touch with her first. I might drop him a note myself and we’ll take it from there.”
Bennet sat up straight. “Wait a minute. Who put you in charge? Why can’t we discuss this? It concerns all of us.”
“You want to discuss this? Fine. Go ahead,” Donovan said. “We all know your opinion. You think Guy’s a slime ball. You’re completely antagonistic and with that attitude, you’ll be pushing him right to the wall.”
“You don’t know any more about him than I do,” Bennet said.
“I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about you. What makes you so sure he wants the money?”
“Because he hated us. That’s why he left in the first place, isn’t it? He’d do anything to get back at us and what better way than this?”
“You don’t know that,” Donovan said. “You don’t know what went on back then. He may not harbor any ill will toward us at all. You go in there punching and he’s going to go on the offensive.”
“I never did anything to Guy. Why would he hate me?” Jack said blithely. He seemed amused at the fireworks between his two brothers anti I wondered if he didn’t habitually goad them.
Bennet snorted again and he and Jack locked eyes. Something flashed between them but I wasn’t sure what.
Donovan intervened again with a warning look at both. “Could we stick to the subject? Anybody have something new to contribute?”
“Donovan runs the family. He’s the king,” Bennet said. He looked at me with the slightly liquid eyes of someone who’s had too much to drink. I’d seen him suck down two martinis in less than fifteen minutes and who knew what he’d consumed before he entered the room? “The man thinks I’m a dick. He may pretend to be supportive, but he doesn’t mean a word of it. He and my father never actually gave me enough money to succeed at anything. And then when I failed-when a business went under-they were quick to point out how I’d mismanaged it. Dad always undercut me and the notion that Guy can come along now and insist on his share is just more of the same as far as I’m concerned. Who’s looking out for our interests? It ain’t him,” he said, jerking a thumb at Donovan.
“Wait a minute. Hold it! Where’s that coming from?”
“I’ve never really stood up and asked for what’s mine,” Bennet said. “I should have insisted a long time ago, but I bought into the program, the story you and Dad cooked up. ‘Here, Bennet, you can have this pittance. Do the best you can with this pathetic sum of money. Make something of yourself and there’ll be more where that came from. You can’t expect us to underwrite the whole venture.’ Blab blah blab. That’s all I ever heard.”
Donovan squinted at him, shaking his head. “I don’t believe this. Dad gave you hundreds of thousands of dollars and you pissed it all away. How many chances do you think you get? There isn’t a bank in this town that would have given you the first dime-”
“Bullshit! That’s bullshit. I’ve worked like a dog and you know it. Hell, Dad had a lot of business failures and so have you. Now suddenly I have to sit here and fuckin’ justify every move I make-just to get a little seed money.”
Donovan looked at him with disbelief. “Where’s all the money your partners put in? You blew that, too. You’re so busy playing big shot, you’re not tending to business. Half of what you do is outright fraudulent and you know it. Or if you don’t, mores the pity because you’ll end up in jail.”
Bennet pointed a finger, poking the air repeatedly as if it were an elevator button. “Hey, I’m the one taking risks. I’m the one with my ass on the line. You never put yourself out there on the filing line. You played it safe. You were Daddy’s little boy, the little piggy who stayed home and did exactly what Daddy said. And now you want credit for being such an all-fired success. Well, fuck that. To hell with you.”