27

DOUGLAS HANSEN SMILED INGRATIATINGLY ACROSS THE table at Cora Gebhart, a peppery septuagenarian who was clearly enjoying the scallops over braised endive she had ordered for lunch.

She was a talker, he thought, not like some of the others that he’d had to shower with attention before he could elicit any information from them. Mrs. Gebhart was opening up to him like a sunflower to the sun, and he knew that by the time the espresso was served, he would have a good chance of winning her confidence.

“Everyone’s favorite nephew,” one of these women had called him, and it was just the way he wanted to be perceived: the fondly solicitous thirty-year-old, who extended to them all the little courtesies they hadn’t enjoyed for years.

Intimate, gossipy luncheons at a restaurant that was either upscale gourmet like this one, Bouchard’s, or a place like the Chart House, where great views could be enjoyed over excellent lobster. The lunches were followed up with a box of candy for the ones who ordered sweet desserts, flowers for those who confided stories of their long-ago courtships, and even an arm-in-arm stroll on Ocean Drive for a more recent widow who wistfully confided how she and her late husband used to take long walks every day. He knew just how to do it.

Hansen had great respect for the fact that all of these women were intelligent, and some of them were even shrewd. The stock offerings he touted to them were the kind that even a moderate investor would have to admit had possibilities. In fact, one of them had actually worked out, which in a way had been disastrous for him, but in the end turned out to be a plus. Because now, in order to cap his pitch, he would suggest that a would-be client call Mrs. Alberta Downing in Providence, that she could confirm Hansen’s expertise.

“Mrs. Downing invested one hundred thousand dollars and made a three-hundred-thousand-dollar profit in one week,” he was able to tell prospective clients. It was an honest claim. The fact that the stock had been artificially inflated at the last minute, and that Mrs. Downing had ordered him to sell, going against his own advice, had seemed like a disaster at the time. They had had to raise the money to pay her her profits, but now at least they had a genuine blue-blood reference.

Cora Gebhart daintily finished the last of her meal. “Excellent,” she announced as she sipped at the chardonnay in her glass. Hansen had wanted to order a full bottle, but she had informed him adamantly that one glass at luncheon was her limit.

Douglas laid his knife on the plate and carefully placed the fork beside it with prongs turned down, European style.

Cora Gebhart sighed. “That’s the way my husband always left the silver on his plate. Were you educated in Europe as well?”

“I spent my junior year at the Sorbonne,” Hansen responded with studied nonchalance.

“How delightful!” Mrs. Gebhart exclaimed, and immediately slipped into flawless French, which Douglas desperately tried to follow.

After a few moments, he held up his hand, smiling. “I can read and write French fluently, but it has been eleven years since I was there, and I’m afraid I’m a bit rusty. En anglais, s’il vous plaît.”

They laughed together, but Hansen’s antenna went up. Had Mrs. Gebhart been testing him? he wondered. She had commented on his handsome tweed jacket and his overall distinguished appearance, saying it was unusual in a time when so many young men, her grandson included, looked as though they had just returned from a camping trip. Was she telling him in a subtle way that she could see right through him? That she could sense that he wasn’t really a graduate of Williams and the Wharton School of Business, as he claimed?

He knew that his lean, blond, aristocratic appearance was impressive. It had gotten him entry-level jobs with both Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers, but he hadn’t lasted six months at either place.

Mrs. Gebhart’s next words reassured him, however. “I think I’ve been too conservative,” she complained. “I’ve tied up too much of my money in trusts so my grandchildren can buy more faded jeans. Because of that, I don’t have a lot left for myself. I’ve thought about moving into one of the retirement residences—I even recently toured Latham Manor with that in mind—but I would have to move into one of the smaller units, and I’m just used to more space.” She paused, then looked Hansen squarely in the face. “I’m thinking favorably about putting three hundred thousand dollars in the stock you recommended.”

He tried not to let his emotions register on his face, but it was a struggle. The amount she mentioned was considerably more than he had hoped for.

“My accountant is opposed to it, of course, but I’m beginning to think he’s a fuddy-duddy. Do you know him? His name is Robert Stephens. He lives in Portsmouth.”

Hansen did know the name. Robert Stephens took care of the taxes for Mrs. Arlington, and she had lost a bundle investing in a high-tech company he had recommended.

“But I pay him to do my taxes, not to run my life,” Mrs. Gebhart continued, “so without discussing it with him, I’m going to cash in my bonds and let you make me a killing, too. Now that the decision is made, maybe I will have that second glass of wine.”

As the midafternoon sun bathed the restaurant in golden warmth, they toasted each other.