King Con (40 page)

“To begin with, I just found out about this three hours ago, so I’ve had almost no time to research,” Cordosian complained. “I’ve tried pulling the Ten-K’s off the computer for this outfit, but they haven’t filed any recently. They’re on the Vancouver Exchange, which has very lax listing requirements. They’ve been quite inactive as far as trading. Four years ago they were a penny stock and now they’re almost up to nine and a half.”

“Who the fuck cares?” Tommy said, as he fished in the mini-bar for some Scotch and ice.

“Well, sir, the float on the stock is very thin. Only four or five hundred thousand shares outstanding. You start buying it up in quantity and the stock is going to go up like a Chinese rocket. You’ll be chasing it… paying more for each new share because of the pressure your own buying is putting on the stock. Furthermore, they haven’t filed a Ten-K for years. It could even be a shell company that somebody has been buying back and forth to push the price up.”

“Shell company?” Beano piped up from over by the window. “It’s not a shell. What are you talking about? It’s a closely held company, that’s all. I worked there
for six years. They own a pile of land in Fentress County. Here, look at this,” he said and pulled some papers out of his briefcase.

“The fuck is that?” Tommy demanded.

“Stock analysts’ reports,” he said, handing them to Alex and reeling off the big brokerages’ names. “Morgan Stanley; here’s the Goldman Sachs report.” The reports were all counterfeit on stolen letterhead. They all said the company was for real, but had been doing poorly of late. “The principal stockholders have taken the major position in the stock,” Beano continued. “They control all of the Class-A Preferred so they don’t have’ to file Ten-K’s.” He looked over at Tommy. “Where’d you get this guy? Gee, it’s always like this. I get something really good and then attorneys come in and screw everything up.”

“I’m just saying there’s some due-diligence stuff to do here. We don’t want to throw five million dollars around without looking at this company a lot more carefully.”

“Is it currently active on the Vancouver Exchange?” Beano challenged.

“Yes,” the narrow-shouldered attorney answered.

“Are the outstanding shares registered?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.”

“Why don’t we just let Dr. Sutton and his partners have it? Let the whole deal just slide away,” Beano said, sarcastically. “Let’s just waste time asking a million dumb questions and let the other guys have the oil and billions of dollars of profit.”

“I’ve been hired by Mr. Rina to analyze this transaction. That’s what I intend to do,” Alex said hotly.

“‘Cept I agree with him,” Tommy said, pointing at Beano. “Attorneys fuck everything up.” He filled his mouth with Scotch and bar ice. “I got you here to document the transaction … okay? Nothing else. You start
asking all these dumb fucking questions about S.E.C.’s and Ten-K’s or whatever, and I’m gonna jam all this paperwork so far up your ass you’ll need fucking Roto-Rooter to take a shit.”

Alex Cordosian looked at Tommy, shocked.
What kind of talk is this?
he wondered. He had done legal work for Joseph Rina in San Francisco and Las Vegas. Joe was a refined and astute businessman. Alex never had to deal with Tommy before. Tommy had already told him downstairs that if he let anyone know what he was doing, including Joe, he’d kill him.
Kill him!
It was absurd … like a bad movie. But Alex didn’t like the look of Fentress County Petroleum and Gas. Something was strange about it, and he needed time to do the due diligence. Yet this little thug across the room from him was threatening his life for trying to do his job! Even so, he was determined to protect his client. He would do the best he could to dissuade the ugly mobster from making an expensive impulse buy.

They talked for almost an hour. Beano answered Alex Cordosian’s questions slowly, claiming ignorance on most of them because, after all, he was just a geologist. He frequently interrupted the lawyer, repeating, “There’s a huge pay-zone under the Oak Crest field. End of story.” He insisted they buy Fentress County in the morning, before Dr. Sutton could make a competing move. Alex kept explaining it was going to be very hard, if not impossible, to get his due-diligence answers in such short order. Beano sure the hell hoped Alex was right. Luckily, during the hour or so of questioning, Tommy was getting more frustrated and angry.

“Are you fucking through yet?” he asked the harried little lawyer more than once.

At midnight, Tommy threw Alex out with instructions to meet him on the twenty-fifth floor of the Penn Mutual Building tomorrow at eight
A.M.

Tommy had decided not to let Beano out of his sight. He told the geologist he would have to stay in the same room with him. He said he didn’t want Dr. Clark to take a powder like Dr. Sutton. Tommy moved into the bedroom, kicked off his loafers, and turned on the TV. “Whatta you wanna watch?” he asked politely, “
Goldilocks and the Three Chicago Bears
, with Ashley Lynn, or
Video Cum Shots
, with Donna Dare and Toluca Lake?”

“Tough choice,” Beano said dryly. “Maybe you oughta pick.”

Tommy pushed in his selection and flopped down on the bed. Beano went into the other room and lay on the sofa. He looked up at the ceiling and tried to run through the sting one last time, while the sound of Donna Dare’s moaning and sighing came in from the bedroom. When he glanced over at Tommy in the next room, the mobster had his zipper open and his hands down in his pants.

“Another opening, another show,” Beano mused to himself. He closed his eyes to shut out the ghastly sight. He was stuck with Tommy till morning.

A
T EIGHT A.M.
, THEY PARKED IN THE SIDE LOT NEXT TO the Perm Mutual Building. Tommy locked the two suitcases full of cash in the trunk and walked briskly from the car, not waiting for Beano. He headed directly to the front of the building.

Tommy hurried through the double glass doors as Beano followed.

“When’s this stockholders’ meeting?” Tommy demanded as they rode up in the elevator.

“It’s supposed to be at eight-fifteen,” Beano said.

The doors opened on twenty-five to a bustle of activity. A young man with an armful of folders dove into the elevator before they could get out. He was chased in by a young woman, who held the door but didn’t enter. “Tell Mr. Munroe the stock just ticked down an eighth of a point to five and seven-eighths,” he said desperately to the girl, who looked harried and confused.

“I can’t bust in there with that kinda news,” she said. “You go run the Eastern and Southeastern fields’ B.P.D. reports for Miss Luna like she wanted. I’ll see if I can get Mr. Hatcher to slip a note to Mr. Munroe.”

“Barrels per day,” Beano told Tommy, who looked angrily at him for a translation as they got out of the
elevator. The doors closed, whisking the young man away.

Beano wondered who the hell Miss Luna was. He knew the sharpers were trying to send him a message, a warning. He was on full alert, but he didn’t know what had happened yet as they moved into the main secretarial area of the executive floor.

There was bustling activity everywhere: Bates family sharpers, dressed conservatively, were working on their computers or running folders of oil reports back and forth. Phones were ringing; there were pages over the sound system. Beano heard his own name: “Beano Bates, line two.” He looked at Tommy, who, he hoped, didn’t know who Beano Bates was. Tommy was devoting his limited powers of concentration to all the frenzied activity. He seemed impressed by the expensive art and the multitudes of scurrying, well-dressed yuppies.

Beano stepped away from him, picked up the phone, and hit extension two. “Go,” he said.

“We got problems,” Steve Bates said. “We got a mess here. Victoria is trying to set—” Suddenly, a hand reached in and disconnected the phone. Beano looked up and saw Tommy standing there, glaring at him.

“The fuck you doing?” Tommy demanded.

“I was going to page Dr. Sutton, see if perhaps he was here. I thought it would be nice to know what he’s up to, since he might scuttle the whole deal,” Beano said, his voice dripping snotty sarcasm. He was taking a chance that Tommy wouldn’t backhand him here, and though Tommy’s eyes flashed crazy, Beano got away with it.

“Get the President a’this outfit, this Chip Lacy prick,” Tommy said, flipping open the brochure and pointing to Paper Collar John’s picture, under which was the name
LINWOOD “CHIP” LACY.
Let’s go brace this motherfucker.”

Tommy grabbed one of the sharpers who was flying past and spun him around roughly by the arm. “Wanna see Chip Lacy,” he said.

“Mr. Lacy isn’t here.”

“Isn’t here?” Beano asked, startled.

“No. He had … Mr. Lacy had a slight coronary last evening. He’s in the hospital.”

“Who the fuck’s runnin’ this show?” Tommy growled.

“That would be Miss Luna.”

“Miss who?” Beano said, his mind reeling. He couldn’t figure out what was going on.

“Miss Luna, the Chief Financial Officer from the Knoxville home office. She flew in for the stockholders’ meeting. Excuse me, I’ve got to get these wildcat-well asset sheets for Mr. Stuart,” and the grifter pulled away.

Beano called after him, “Where’s Miss Luna?”

“In Mr. Lacy’s office, getting ready for the stockholders’ meeting,” the yuppie said as he turned the corner down the hallway and disappeared.

Tommy looked at Beano and then at the flurry of activity, phones ringing, people running here and there …

“I’ve only been here once,” Beano said, “but I think Mr. Lacy’s office is in the corner, over there.” He pointed and headed off.

“Wonder where the fuck Alex is?” Tommy growled, looking around for his attorney. “We don’t need him,” Beano said, moving off toward the corner office, glad the hairy Armenian hadn’t shown.

Seated in the President’s outer office was Ellen X. Bates, Steven’s wife. Beano knew from the dinner they’d had in Oak Crest that before she married Steve, she’d been an experienced telephone yak and had worked bucket shops from New York to L.A. She had a good gift of gab and a breezy intelligence. He and John had picked her to be a point-out stockholder. It
surprised him that she was playing the lesser role of the President’s secretary. Something was definitely up.

“We’d like to have a moment to talk to Miss Luna,” Beano said.

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question,” Ellen snapped and continued dialing her computer phone.

Tommy reached over and depressed the switch-hook. “Nothing is out of the question. Is she in there?”

“She is preparing for a very important stockholders’ meeting,” Ellen said huffily, pulling his hand off the phone.

“That’s gonna work out fine, because I just happen to be a very important stockholder,” Tommy growled.

“I… I… I’m still…”

“Who fucking cares?” Tommy said, and walked right past her and into the office without knocking. Beano followed.

Standing in the center of the room, holding a large sheaf of papers, her back to them, was Miss Laura Luna. She was talking on a speaker phone when they burst in: “… no other explanation, Alan? One of our major stockholders must be selling for it to drop like this.” And then she stopped and turned around.

Beano had never seen her before. She was a middle-aged, overweight, Janet Reno-sized woman, about five foot eight. Miss Luna was wearing a black pant suit that failed to disguise her immense girth. She had a double chin, and her half glasses were hanging from a chain around her neck. Her stout legs bulged in the loose-fitting pant suit. Beano wondered who the hell she was; then she spoke again and he recognized her. His heart sank.
There’s no way we ‘re ever going to pull this off.

“Get out of this office,” she said. “I’m preparing for a shareholders’ meeting. You can’t be in here.”

“I’m the only fucking meeting you got that counts,” Tommy said and he closed the door behind him, cutting
off the noise of the busy office outside. Then he moved to her desk and disconnected the phone.

After John had left to go home to be with Cora, Victoria called the number he had given her. It belonged to a family member named Smart Bates, no X. He was in Los Angeles working on a TV show. Stuart Bates, like Carol Sesnick, was one of the few Bates family members who wasn’t on the bubble. Stuart did special-effects makeup for a Space Odyssey television show that was being made on a soundstage in Hollywood. When Victoria told him what she wanted, he had said it was impossible. He needed to make body molds and cure them; he needed to get the correct skin tone to do the makeup. “Two days, working round-the-clock at the very least,” he told her… besides, he had a TV show to do. “What time does this have to happen?” he finally asked.

“Eight-fifteen, tomorrow morning,” she said. “Beano Bates is running the sting.”

“King Con?” Smart said; his voice seemed to hesitate, slightly in awe.

“That’s who’s running it. We could sure use the help. One of our main inside men just went down.”

“Okay, I’ll do the best I can,” he’d said.

He phoned in sick and chartered a plane, which she said she’d reimburse him for. Stuart had flown up to San Francisco with all of the equipment he could carry. Victoria had next phoned the FBI. “Let me talk to Grady Hunt,” she said, and in a minute he was on.

“So far so good,” Grady bragged. “Everybody’s in town, Tommy and your boyfriend are at the Ritz. Whatta you want?”

“You said I had to call, so I’m calling.”

“Then gimme something I don’t know, like where’s the old duck with the gray hair going? He got on a plane
for New Jersey. I got a team set to pick him up in Atlantic City.”

“John Bates is going home. Don’t follow him, his wife is dying. He’s out of the play.”

“Boo-hoo and whoop-de-do,” Grady said.

“Don’t follow him, okay? He’s just going to sit at the hospital with his wife. I’m meeting a guy tonight named Stuart Bates. He doesn’t know what’s going on either. He’s doing me a favor, so don’t jam him up. He’s not part of it.”