The Piranhas (15 page)

Reed leaned back. “Okay, let’s go on with it. How much time will it take?”

“The procedure won’t take very long, but we have to keep you here for at least three hours in case you have any reactions to the tetanus shots.”

“Do I have to?” Reed asked. “I have some very important meetings this morning.”

“If you’re not carefully watched you could wind up with some very bad consequences. Possibly even a seizure.”

Reed thought for a moment. “I’ll arrange to hold off on the meetings until later in the day.”

“That makes sense, Mr. Jarvis,” the doctor said.

“I’ll have to use your telephone,” Jarvis said. “I’ll have to get in touch with a number of people.”

“You can use my private office.” Dr. Maubusson nodded. “No one will interrupt you.”

*   *   *

IT WAS SIX
o’clock in the morning and Daniel was having his morning coffee and getting ready for his usual morning call to the East Coast when the telephone rang. He picked it up. “Peachtree.”

Jarvis’s voice was harsh. He dispensed with greetings: “I’ll be a little bit late; I should be able to make it by noon.”

Daniel was worried. “Is there anything wrong?”

“Not with the deal,” Jarvis said. “I have a personal problem that I can’t delay.”

“Any way I can help?” Daniel asked.

“No,” Jarvis said abruptly, then quickly changed his mind. “Can you get in touch with that nigger?”

“Thyme?” Peachtree asked.

“What other nigger did we talk about last night?” Jarvis said, annoyed. “I want to talk to her.”

“I’ll get her to call you,” Daniel said.

“No,” Jarvis said. “Just give me her number and I’ll talk to her.”

“Hang on,” Daniel said, putting him on hold while he searched his computer file for the number. A moment later he was back on the line. “Here it is. If she doesn’t answer, call me back and I’ll chase her down.”

“Okay,” Jarvis said shortly.

Peachtree paused, then spoke with concern. “Look, if there is a real problem, I can straighten her out.”

“It’s my problem,” Jarvis said.

“What if Shepherd is pissed off when you’re late? We’ve pushed him into the meeting for this morning,” Peachtree said.

“Tell him nothing. They can just wait for me,” Jarvis snapped. “I’m only being polite to him about this deal. If he gives me any trouble I’ll cut his balls off. He’s out of money, no one else to go to except us.”

“I’ll be in the office by eight o’clock if you want to reach me,” Peachtree said.

“Good,” Jarvis said and put down the telephone without a parting word.

Daniel continued to hold the phone long after Jarvis had hung up. This was not going to be easy. Reestablishing a dial tone, he called Thyme’s number.

Her husky voice echoed in the receiver. “Hello.”

“It’s Daniel,” he said. “Did Jarvis call you?”

“I just spoke to him,” she said angrily. “That man’s crazy.”

“What happened?”

“He started to beat up on me when I didn’t want to fuck him.”

“Then what did you do?”

“What the hell do you think I did?” she said. Then she began to laugh. “You should have seen his fucking face when I bit his goddamn cock.”

“Jesus!” Daniel exclaimed. “You hurt him?”

“Just a little,” she said, still laughing. “I think I bit his foreskin off. He was bleeding like a pig when he left.”

“Now we’re both in trouble,” Daniel said. “He’s going to blow off your contract.”

“I won’t be in any trouble,” she said. “I already called Jimmy Blue Eyes. He told me if the asshole bothers me, he’ll take care of him.”

“Just keep everything cool,” Daniel said placatingly. “I’ll get things straightened out.”

“You better,” she said flatly and hung up.

5

IT WAS 1 P.M.
and the sleeting rain slammed against the penthouse thermopane windows in the World Resort and Casino in Atlantic City. In the large living room an old man leaned back, comfortably wrapped in his blankets, in a specially built Barcalounger. Around him were several assistants. The old man looked at his watch and then up at them. “Get my nephew in California.”

“Yes, Don Rocco,” answered his secretary from her desk.

Jed was on the line in less than a minute. “Weren’t they supposed to close the deal by now?” Rocco growled, glancing at his wristwatch again. “It’s after ten o’clock in the morning there.”

“We’ve heard no word,” Jed said.

The old man sounded annoyed. “The fucking Canadian is screwing us.”

“How can he, Uncle Rocco?” Jed asked. “Without our money he can’t swing the deal.”

“I heard that Milken got him four hundred million from the Japs,” Rocco said.

“Want me to talk to Jarvis?” Jed asked.

“No. If he’s trying to screw us there’s only one thing to do,” the old man said. “We screw him first.”

Jed held the telephone without speaking.

“I knew we should have put a blanket on the son of a bitch,” said Rocco. “The way this deal was set up, we don’t know what the hell he’s been doing; we might have four hundred million vanish into this goddamn thing before we know it.”

“Who do you want me to talk to?” Jed asked.

“They’re having a directors’ meeting at noon at the studio. I want you to talk to Shepherd; don’t talk to Jarvis. Shepherd has to come up with eighty-five million for a production fund. If he doesn’t make it, Jarvis has the right to pay him off in full. You tell Shepherd that you’ll back him.”

“What makes you think that he’ll believe me?” Jed asked. “He doesn’t know enough about me to be willing to trust my word.”

“He knows money,” Uncle Rocco said. “You bring a bank check for the eighty-five million. He’ll believe money.”

“Then where do we go after that?”

“We screw Jarvis. You talk to Milken. He’ll listen to you. After all, you’re a good customer. You’ve already placed four billion in bonds through him.”

“And what are you going to do?” Jed asked.

“I’ll get my money back from him. After all, it’s my bank who loaned him the money,” Rocco said.

“But you gave the money to a Canadian company.”

“It was the Canadian bank that gave him the loan,” Rocco countered. “We’ll work it out or he’ll lose his ass.”

“Okay,” Jed said. “I’ll get over to the meeting. Anything else?”

“Yes,” Rocco said. “You tell Shepherd that under no circumstances does he make any further deals with Jarvis. We’ll stay behind him all the way.”

“All right, Uncle Rocco,” Jed said.

Rocco suddenly changed the subject. “What’s the weather like out there?”

“Beautiful,” Jed said. “Sunny and warm.”

“Damn,” Rocco complained. He got out of the Barcalounger, walked over to the thermopane windows, and looked down through the sleeting rain toward the boardwalk and the ocean. He still had the telephone in his hand. He mumbled complainingly to his nephew, “There’s no fucking luck. Here I am freezing my ass in the East while you’re out there in sunshine and orange country getting fat and happy. We Sicilians have no luck.”

“You can move out here, Uncle Rocco,” Jed said. “You can live like a king.”

“No,” Rocco said. “I made my deal. I agreed to stay here. I move out there and it would be like Bonanno. Everybody agreed that he could move out there. His business would be protected. He’d have no problems. Then a few years later, he started his car in his driveway and that was all. Boom! I feel safer in my own territory. At least I know what’s going on here.”

*   *   *

THE FOURTEENTH STORY
of the high-rise building just inside the studio gate was known as the Gates of Heaven. The top floor was reserved exclusively for Bradley Shepherd. The other executives were placed on the floors below in accordance with their importance—the higher the position, the higher the floor. But everyone knew that below the ninth floor there were flunkies with titles instead of money and power, even though their large windows looked down on the sound stages and other offices of Millennium Films.

It was already eleven-thirty in the morning. Jed parked his customized Chevy Blazer where the guard at the studio gate had indicated. Somehow it didn’t look out of place among the splendors of the stretch limos, the Rollses, Mercedeses, European sports cars, and their American cousins, the Cadillacs and Lincolns.

The guard, sitting importantly behind the massive desk in the large pink marble lobby, looked at him with a surly expression. He asked Jed’s business, then whispered into the telephone, and finally pointed to the first bank of elevators. “First door, Mr. Stevens. That’s the private elevator express to Mr. Shepherd’s office.”

Jed stepped into the elevator. There were no buttons to press. The doors closed automatically, and the touch of his weight on the elevator floor sped it up to the fourteenth floor. He stepped out of the elevator. A receptionist, who could have been a clone of Meryl Streep, nodded to him coolly. “Mr. Stevens?”

He nodded.

She pointed an elegantly manicured finger. “Door one.”

“Thank you.” He walked to door one and opened it. Behind the door, three secretaries sat at their desks. One rose from her chair and came toward him. “Mr. Stevens?”

He nodded.

“I’m Sherry,” she said in a soft voice. “I’m Mr. Shepherd’s personal secretary. He’s in the directors’ meeting at the moment, but he asked if you would make yourself comfortable in his office until he returns. In the meantime, may I offer you some coffee, tea?”

“Nothing, thank you,” he said. “I have time, I can wait.” When she left the office, he walked over to the window. To the south and west he could look out over the studio, and to the north and east were the seventy acres of bleak land beyond the marina that were planned for Fantasy Land. He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. “Shit,” he said to himself, thinking about the eighty-five-million-dollar cashier’s check in his pocket. “There has to be a lot of money out there somehow.”

He turned from the windows and looked down at Shepherd’s desk. It was completely bare: not a piece of paper, not even a telephone. He wondered how the man got his telephone calls. Maybe he had an Austin hearing aid stuck into his earlobe with a button dial stuck in his pocket. Then he laughed aloud. “Sherry,” he called out to the empty room.

The secretary’s voice came from hidden speakers in the ceiling and walls. “Yes, Mr. Stevens?”

“Could you come in for a moment?” he asked.

She appeared immediately. “What can I do for you?”

“Is there any way you can get Mr. Shepherd out of his meeting for a few minutes?”

“It’s an important meeting,” she answered.

“Then it’s even more important that you have him speak to me.”

She hesitated. “How important?”

“I have an eighty-five-million-dollar cashier’s check made out in his name,” he answered.

Sherry was bright. “I’ll get the message to him.”

“Thank you. And meanwhile, could you have one of your assistants bring me a cup of black coffee with two sugars?”

*   *   *

BRADLEY SAT AT
the head of the large oval director’s table. Silently he glanced around the group. The only director absent was Jarvis. Brad spoke to Siddely, Jarvis’s attorney. “Where the hell is Jarvis?”

Siddely was nervous. “I don’t know,” he said anxiously. “I’ve called everywhere I thought I might be able to reach him but no answer. The last I saw of him was when he left the party. That was about two in the morning.”

“Reed said he would have a check for me,” Brad said. He turned to Daniel Peachtree. “Have you heard from him, Daniel?”

“Reed has never been late to an appointment,” Peachtree answered. “Maybe he had a problem with his car.”

Sherry came into the boardroom and pressed a note into Bradley’s hand. She waited a moment until he had scanned it. “Any answer, sir?”

Bradley nodded to her silently. After she had left the room, he turned to Judge Gitlin, who was seated beside him. “Guess we might wait a bit more,” he said. “Gentlemen, the bar will be open in the dining room next door for coffee and drinks. Judge Gitlin and I will be in my office. Just give me a call as soon as Jarvis shows up,” he said, addressing the table at large.

6

THE GIANT SIGN
spread across the two-lane entranceway. Between the lanes was a two-man guard shack, above it a sign that read
MILLENNIUM FILMS CORP. INC.

Reed Jarvis gazed at the sign as he sat back in his white, bulletproof, specially built stretch limousine, complete with blackout windows in the rear-seat compartment. He spoke softly into his scrambler telephone to Peachtree. “I’m on the way,” he said.

Despite his physical discomfort, he felt good. The company he was just entering represented three billion dollars of newly invested American money. It was not only the film company—it was twelve television stations, thirty radio stations, and real estate that already consisted of thirty-four high-rise office buildings, apartments, and hotels. There were also the cable company and the video film rental and sales, sold in more than twenty thousand retail stores across the country. And he had control of all of it for only 200 million of his own and 800 million of syndicate money. All he had left to do was to spin off the real estate, and he would have more than enough to take the syndicate out, and Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert had agreed to guarantee his money.

They were all assholes, he thought to himself. It was not important to him that they had lost more than a half billion dollars in the last two years. There were assets to make all that back and even more. Little did they know what was on the horizon. He would show them how to make this business work. He glanced toward his chauffeur’s compartment as the driver spoke to the uniformed guard who had come out from the guard shack to check them. Reed smiled to himself. This was only the first day—after today they would all know his car.

The guard nodded at the chauffeur, and, holding a plastic card in his hand, went behind the car and placed the card under the rear axle of the limousine. He nodded back to the chauffeur, and waved to him to proceed.

The guard stood outside the small shack until the limousine turned and then stepped back into the guard shack and looked down at the two guards he had tied securely on the floor. Coolly he removed his gun from his holster and carefully attached the silencer to his automatic; then he shot each of the guards in the forehead. Calmly he walked out of the guard shack and onto the street outside the studio gate.