Pale Gray for Guilt (12 page)

I awakened on Monday with the impression that I might have to get up and bang my head against the wall to get my heart started. The bedside clock was at seven after eleven. No hangover. Just that leaden heavy contentment of an expenditure so total the account was seriously overdrawn. I plodded my way into the vast shower stall, soaped and then stood swaying, eyes closed under the steaming roar, like a horse sleeping in the rain. Finally out of a sense of duty and character I fixed the heads to needle spray and switched it to cold. As I hopped and gasped, I thought dourly of how inaccurate are all the bridegroom jokes about window shades. A long and private holiday with a sizable, sturdy, vital, demanding and inventive lass leaves you with the impression that you had merely rowed a couple of tons of block across a lake, then ran them up to the top of a mountain with a dozen or so trips with a wheelbarrow, then rolled back down the mountain into the lake and drowned.

As with sad and reminiscent smile I was reaching for my toothbrush, I noticed that hers was gone. Okay. So she had packed early. But while brushing, I reached my free hand up and opened the other cupboard. It was bare. She had taken everything of hers, for the first time in all these months.

I rinsed and spat and wrapped the big damp towel around my waist and went in search of her. Of course there was nothing of hers left aboard. She was gone. She had scotch-taped a note to the side of the coffeepot. It was in her freehand printing, using red ballpoint.

And so, my scruffy darling, cometh an end to all good things. Endeth with a flourish, what? You are the best that could have happened to me. It isn't Killian and it wasn't Seattle, so don't waste time and money. And nothing you said or did. Your saying and your doing are a memorable perfection. I am just not a very constant type, love. For once I wanted to quit when I was ahead. Think kindly of the girl. Because she did love you, does love you, will love you from here on in. Cross my heart. (Say my good-byes to all the good ones.)

Instead of a signature she had drawn a circle with two little almond shapes for eyes, and a great big curved line for a smile. Three tears were dripping down out of each eye.

But, damn it, I wasn't ready yet.

Those were the words in my mind. I read them back and suddenly understood them, and I sat down in the booth suddenly full of self-understanding and self-loathing.

Sure, Puss-baby. We just hadn't reached the cutoff point where McGee would make the break on his terms. Which would have kept you from quitting while you were ahead. The key word is 'Yet.' So all that's hurt is pride, you sorry son of a bitch.

I could have done without that kind of selfrevelation. I felt like a very trivial and tiresome animal, a sluggish animal sitting slumped in its tired slack hide-hide that bore the small and involuntary marks of fang and claw of the otherwise gentle she thing now gone for good. Who is the user, Trav baby, and who is the used? And have you ever given anybody anything worth the having.

I clamped my jaw until my teeth squeaked and my ears buzzed. Why such a big hang-up over another promiscuous broad? Town was full of them. Go whistle up another one. Be the jolly old lover-boy, and be glad the redhead left before she turned into a drag, before she started bugging you about making it something legal and forever, and a-crawl with kids. I like last year's McGee better.

There were two thin sheafs of brokerage house forms, paperclipped together. He sat across from me in the galley booth and said, "That batch is the monthly margin account statements."

The forms were printed in pale blue ink on a thin off-white paper. The name of the firm was but vaguely familiar. Shutts, Gaylor, Stith and Company. 44 Wall Street. New York 10004. Established 1902.

"And these are the confirmations of purchases and sales. The prices are correct for the date of sale. The monthly statement of account checks against the confirmations, of course. The monthly statements cover eleven months, including last month. I put in several where you bought at such and such a figure and then sold after they'd gone up just a few points. They went up further and then dropped like stones.

I gave you two small losses, short term, on the same basis. In effect in eleven months you built a hundred thousand into almost two hundred and ninety thousand, so that according to the summary, right now you could sell two hundred thousand worth, pay a twenty-five percent long-term gain, and pocket a hundred and fifty thousand, leaving almost your original investment in the securities you'd still be holding."

"What about anybody checking it out?"

"Your account number… that number there… oh-three-nine-seven-one-one-oh, that's in legitimate sequence. Somebody started an account eleven months ago, then canceled out. It's a small, conservative, reputable house. I can tell you that there is not one other person in the world they would do this for. I had to make so many solemn oaths I've forgotten half of them. If anybody checks back to the margin clerk he will say it is all legitimate. If anybody tries to go further, they will come upon either Emmet Stith or Whitsett Gaylor, who'll confirm."

"So how did I make payment to them?"

"Always by check on the Bank of Nova Scotia in Nassau."

It was beautiful. There is no way that even a Gary Santo could pry information out of the bank of Nova Scotia. It is a system some call Zurich West.

I leafed through the sheets. I had bought at the right time. I'd done very well.

"So what is wrong with you?" Meyer asked.

"I'm just great. Nifty peachy."

"You are stimulating. Like a dirge. Where's Puss?"

"Gone for good."

"So!"

"So?"

"So I don't think you drove that one off. So it was her choice. So she isn't the kind who says it is for good and then come back all of a sudden. With her, gone is gone. Or worse. So if I were you and one like that was gone for good, I'd miss hell out of her and wonder if maybe I'd handled things a little differently somehow, I could have kept her around permanently."

"That's enough about 'so.' "

He got out of the booth. "When you want to be civilized, I live over there on a boat. The John Maynard Keynes. Fourteen hundred and forty a year, special annual rate, less a discount for paying the year in advance. Ask for Meyer."

"Okay, okay. These sheets are perfect. You did a hell of a job up there. You are intelligent, crafty, loyal, persuasive and diligent. Puss or no Puss, the job goes on. LaFrance showed. I'll play you the tape. It's interesting. He spilled the name of the company. Calitron. Mean anything?"

"A name only. Listed on the big board. A growth issue, going at thirty times earnings. Volatile. I'll check it out. Play the tape and I'll go away and let you sit and chew your hands and moan a little."

"I'm glad I depend on you for sympathy Meyer."

"What sympathy should you get? A little arrangement, wasn't it? A sea urchin arranged the meeting. The urchin didn't wash up, she didn't step on it, what have you lost? Don't answerl Your disposition you've lost. Play the tape before I start to cry."

I put it on. I stretched out on the yellow couch. I closed my eyes. If I opened them quick enough, turned my head quick enough, I would see Puss sitting cross-legged on the floor, scowling as she listened to Preston LaFrance.

When it was through, I turned it off. Meyer sighed. He said, "I think he will have the forty thousand. Even knowing I was hearing nonsense, I could believe you a little. Forty thousand is better than getting poked in the eye with a stick."

"You left something out. Did you find the kind of a company Gary Santo could invest in?"

After the first five sentences I was totally lost. I stopped him and told him to start over again, and give it to me in baby talk.

He sighed; pondered. "Try this. A company has only so many shares of stock issued. The number of shares is called the 'float.' When there aren't many shares, it is called a 'thin float.' Somebody buys ten thousand shares of General Motors, he might move it up an eighth of a point twelve and a half cents a share-just by the effect of his demand on the floating supply. But if he put in an order for ten thousand shares of Peewee incorporated, the demand might shove it right through the roof. It might boost it four or five dollars a share. Are you with me?"

"So far."

"Every day in every newspaper it shows you, with the two zeros left off the end, how many shares of every listed stock were bought and sold. People watch like hawks. Two kinds of people. One guy wants capital gains. He wants to buy something for twenty dollars a share, hold it for six months and a day, sell it for forty a share, pay Uncle twenty-five percent of the profit in capital gains tax, or five dollars, and put fifteen in his pocket. Other characters are traders. They sit in brokerage offices and watch the tape. They want to buy a stock for twenty a share, sell it next week at twenty-five, when it drops down from twenty-six, buy it back at twenty-seven, sell at thirty, buy back at twenty-eight, sell at thirty-five and so on. They pay straight income tax on their net gain. Gary Santo is the first type, the capital gain guy, because all his income is being taxed at the maximum rate already."

"Still with you, Professor."

"Splendid! Now when something good is going to happen to a little company, the number of shares sold and bought every day goes up. It becomes more active. The price of the stock goes up. So it gets noticed. So more people want to get in the act and make a buck. That creates more demand. The demand pushes the price higher. In every trade, Travis, nobody can buy unless somebody is willing to sell. The more people who want to hand on, the fewer shares floating around, and the higher it goes, because the price has to go up to the point where somebody will say: Okay, I've made enough off this stock, so I'll sell it. I'll put in my order to sell it at two-dollars a share higher than it is right now. It is a big snowball rolling up the hill. Okay?"

"One thing. What keeps Santo from making a lot of money too?"

"Nothing, if he gets out in time. But look at the credentials I fixed you up with. All splendid values back at the time you bought them, at the time you apparently bought them. Stock prices go up because the company is making money, and has the look of making more money than before when they make their next earnings report, So the stock I found, Santo will think it has the same beautiful future like these you made the capital gains out of. They are still all hanging up there pretty good. So why should he be nervous? I tell you, he would be nervous if he knows what a terrible lousy stock I found."

"What is it?"

"A dog called Fletcher Industries. I read maybe two hundred balance sheets and operating statements. I started with two hundred and weeded down and down and down, hunting for something that looks okay fine on the surface but is rotten underneath. It could win a prize for the worst stock. It has a thin float. It shows sales and profits going up every year. It has a nice profit margin, nice book value, big words in the annual financial report about a glowing future and so on."

"So what's wrong with it?"

"This I shouldn't even try to explain. Listen, there are maybe eight perfectly ethical and legitimate choices a C.P.A. has when he is figuring profit per share. Each choice makes the profit higher or lower, accordingly. You could find some old conservative companies that make the eight choices so they show the lowest per share profit Most companies make is one choice one way, another, another way, so in general it cancels out. But this little Fletcher outfit, they use every chance they have to make profits look bigger. I reworked their statements. The stock sells right now for fifteen a share. Over the last twelve months the earnings reports say they made ninetysix cents a share. This was up from seventy-seven cents the previous year. Use the most conservative methods and you know what it is? It is a lousy eleven cents the previous year, and it is a four-cent loss this year. Such a statement they publish! The book value is all puffed up. The profit margin is nonsense. Even the cash flow is jiggered up."

"Book value? Cash flow?"

"Forget it. You don't have to know. All you have to know is that no matter how careful Santo is, the published trading volume will go up, the stock will go up, a lot п careless people will jump on the wagon and push it higher. They'll think a big increase in earnings is going on. Or a merger, or a new product. Like with the ones you are supposed to have bought. But this one has no substance. It will go up like penny rockets and when it starts down, it should maybe end up a two-dollar stock where it belongs."

"So we con him into buying it, Meyer. So it goes up and up and he makes a lot of paper profit, and then when it goes down, he sells out and keeps the profit."

"With everybody selling, with. everybody, trying to save out some profit, who will buy it? No buyers and they'll suspend trading, investigate the heavy speculation, and when it opens again, it will open in the cellar. Santo should lose most or all of his bundle."

"So how does Janine make the money you were talking about?"

"With the forty thousand from LaFrance we start her off, pick up three thousand shares. As it moves, I use the increased market value to pick up more for her. I watch it like an eagle, and then I start pulling her out of it very, very gently, and putting her into a nice solid little sleeper I happened to find when I was looking for this Fletcher dog. It should give her a hundred-percent gain in a year, along with a nice dividend yield."

"How much can you make for her if things work out right?"

"If? Did I hear you say if? You get Santo to bite at it, and I'll do the rest. End of the year? Oh, say the original stake plus a quarter million."

"Come on, Meyer!"

"Oh, that's before short-term gains tax on Fletcher. You see, that's what'll lock Santo into it. He'll be hoping to ride the profit for six months. Say a fifty to sixty thousand tax she'll pay."

"You kill me, Meyer,"

"Make sure nobody else kills you. It would be boring around here."

For the first time since I knew Puss would never come back, I felt a faint and reluctant little tremor of excitement and anticipation.

Meyer, frowning, said, "You are going to see 132

LaFrance the day after tomorrow? Does that give us time to do everything we have to do?"

"I was just making him sweaty Meyer. I'll phone him Thursday night and say we'll have to change the arrangement. Don't call us. We'll call you. And I can get a pretty good indication of whether he has the forty all ready."

"You know, you look more like yourself, Travis." "It's the sympathy that does it, every time."

"An obligation of friendship. What do you do first?" "Find that little pipeline."

After a long conference Wednesday morning with Meyer about strategy and tactics, and the documentation he ought to have, I went down to Miami. The offices of Santo Enterprises were in an unimpressive six story office building on North East 26th Terrace, a half block east of Biscayne. Reception was on the sixth floor. A wide corridor, glass doors at the end, and beyond them a paneled room, thick blue rug, and elegant blonde desk-table on a raised dais and, behind it with a look of polite and chilly query a slender princess with white dynel hair, glowing in the drama light of a little ceiling spot, who asked me in the beautiful clarity of the English upper class if she might be of service.

When I said I would like to see Mr. Santo, she looked remotely amused. "Soddy, sir, but he is out of, the citeh. Possibleh someone else could help you?"

"I'm inclined to doubt it."

"Praps if you might tell me the nature of your business, sir?"

"I'd rather not."

"Actually, then, there isn't much that can be done, sir. Mr. Santo only sees one by appointment, and he would certainly not relish having his secretry make an appointment… blind, as it were. You see the problem, do you not?"

"Why don't I talk to his secretary then?"

"But you see, sir, I would have to know the nature of your business to know which secretry you should speak with."

"Does he have a super-special personal private one?

"Oh yes, of course. But, sir, one must have an appointment to speak with her. And to make the appointment I should have to-"

"Know the nature of my business."

"Quite."

"Miss, we're both in trouble."

"I wouldn't really say both of us, sir."