The Protégé (6 page)

His cell phone rang. Probably Wright, he figured. The young MD had promised to stop by and shoot a few games. During the match, Gillette was going to tell him he wouldn’t be going to Los Angeles to open the office, but that he’d be promoted to managing partner. However, Wright had already left when Gillette buzzed a few hours ago, which was strange. Wright rarely missed a chance at face time.

“Hello.”

“Christian?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Allison Wallace.”

“Oh, hi. Where are you?” he asked.

“Still in New York. I’m staying at the Parker Meridien.”

“I thought you and Gordon were flying back to Chicago this afternoon.”

“Gordon did,” she answered, “but I decided to stay the weekend to see some friends.”

“How did you get this number?” Gillette asked. He hadn’t given her the number, and Debbie would never give it out without permission.

“I’m Allison Wallace,” she answered.

Not smugly, he noticed, just matter-of-factly. He could tell by her tone she wasn’t going to say anything more about it, either. The same way he wouldn’t. “Look, I—”

“Let’s have lunch Monday,” she suggested.

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m having lunch with the commissioner of the NFL. We got the new Las Vegas franchise today, and he wants to go over a few things.”

“Fantastic,” she said breathlessly. “That’s really exciting. You better make that investment with Everest Eight, the fund I’m going to be in.”

Gillette hesitated. He was planning to make the franchise purchase out of Seven, then issue Everest-guaranteed bonds to finance stadium construction. There wouldn’t be any need to use Eight for this deal. “I’m not sure how we’re going to fund it yet. We still have two billion left in Seven.”

“Well, I think—”

“How about breakfast,” he interrupted. He could hear her tone flexing, and he didn’t want to get into it now. He could understand why she’d want the NFL opportunity for the fund she was investing in—there was so much upside—but he had to be fair to all his investors. The best way to do that was to invest sequentially—use all of Seven, then go to Eight. Of course, he didn’t know Allison well, and she might turn out to be emotional. She might pull the Wallace Family investment if she thought he was jerking her around so soon after committing five billion.

He took a deep breath. Conflict, always conflict in this world.

“I have a breakfast,” Allison answered. “How about dinner? I could stay another night.”

Gillette couldn’t remember if he already had a dinner scheduled, but if he did and he couldn’t remember, then it couldn’t be important. “Okay.”

“Great,” she said, her voice turning pleasant again. “Come get me around seven at the Parker.”

As he slid the phone back in his pocket, there was a knock on the hallway door. “Yes?”

“Open up!”

Gillette’s gaze snapped toward the door. He knew that voice: Quentin Stiles. He hurried over and yanked on the knob. Suddenly, Stiles was standing before him.

Quentin Stiles was African American: handsome, lighter skinned, six four, and normally a rock-hard 240 pounds. He was from Harlem, a self-made man who’d never been to college but now owned a fast-growing security firm with fifty agents.

Gillette embraced him immediately, unable to remember the last time he’d been so glad to see someone.

“Hey,” Stiles said, stepping back. “What are you doing?”

“I’m . . . I’m welcoming you back.”

“Don’t get so emotional.”

“I just . . . well, I just—”

Stiles broke into a loud, good-natured laugh and wrapped his arms around Gillette. “Hey, brother, I’m just playing. It’s good to be back.”

“You look great,” Gillette said. “A lot better than you did in the hospital bed last time I visited.”

“I don’t look great,” Stiles answered irritably, “I look terrible. I’m down thirty pounds from my normal weight. I probably can’t even bench-press three hundred at this point. Christ, none of my clothes fit. Look at me,” he said, holding out his arms. The black blazer hung loosely from his frame.

“We’ll fatten you up fast.” Gillette moved toward two comfortable chairs in front of a plasma television screen hanging from the wall. “Sit down,” he said, pointing at one of the chairs as he sat in the other, “and tell me what the hell you’re doing out of the hospital. Saturday, the nurses told me it was going to be at least another two weeks before you’d be released.” He watched Stiles wince as he lowered himself slowly into the chair.

“If I’d stayed in the hospital another two weeks, I’d have gone crazy,” he answered. “Hell, if I’d stayed there another
ten minutes,
I’d have gone crazy. The mattress was like cement, the nurses were even harder, I hate the way hospitals smell, and the food was awful. Let me tell you something, what I need is a big fat juicy steak. How about Monday lunch?”

“I can’t, I—” Gillette interrupted himself. Lunch with the commissioner was at noon and would go no later than one-thirty. Landry’s executive assistant had told Debbie that he had to catch a four o’clock flight to the West Coast and couldn’t stay longer than that. “Can we do it later on? Say, one forty-five? Can you hold out till then?”

“Sure.”

“How’d you know I was here?” Gillette asked, relaxing.

“I called the main number about an hour ago and Faraday picked up. He said you were going to be here for a while. He let me know where to find you,” Stiles explained, looking around. “Hey, this is quite a place.”

Gillette had built the pool room last spring—it had originally been O’Brien’s office, but Gillette had kicked him out to get the space. Stiles had already been in the hospital several months at that point and hadn’t seen it. “Thanks.”

“You lost a match in here yet?” Stiles asked.

“Of course not.”

“Well, what you need,” Stiles declared, starting to get up, “is a good old-fashioned ass whipping on your home court.”

Gillette reached over and caught Stiles, forcing him gently back into the chair. “Not now.”

“Why not?”

“We need to talk.”

Stiles cocked his head to the side, recognizing Gillette’s serious tone. “What is it?”

“Last week I told you about a meeting I was going to have this morning with a man from Washington, remember?”

“Yeah.”

During hospital visits with Stiles, Gillette had kept him up to speed with everything at Everest. Since last fall, Stiles had become as much a partner as Faraday, not just the man in charge of Gillette’s personal protection.

“So how’d it go?” Stiles asked.

“It was strange; he didn’t really tell me anything. I don’t know much more about him or the people he represents than I did before the meeting, but I’m still going to Washington next week to meet with them.”

Stiles’s face contorted into a curious expression. “Sounds like he’s a waste of time. Why would you bother?”

“Senator Clark arranged the meeting. I trust his judgment.” Gillette hesitated. “More important, the guy I met with this morning mentioned my father’s plane crash.”

Gillette had told Stiles about Clayton’s plane crash many times. How Gillette had been cut off from the family money immediately afterward, how he’d been born out of wedlock, and how he desperately wanted answers to so many questions surrounding all of that. “Now I get it.”

“The guy also said he didn’t buy the official explanation for the crash,” Gillette continued. “Said pilot error seemed ‘thin’ to him.”

“Christian, be care—”

“To others as well.”

“They want something,” Stiles warned.

“Everyone always does.”

“I guess that’s true,” Stiles agreed quietly, “at least in your world.”

Gillette nodded, then closed his eyes and pushed the thoughts away. “So, how are you?” he asked. “Really, shouldn’t you still be in the hospital?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Well, when can you go a hundred percent? The guys you’ve had with me have done a great job, but I want you back full time as soon as possible.” Gillette tapped the arm of the chair. “And Nigel’s really raised his game. Like I told you, I’m surprised how dedicated he’s gotten. This time last year, he was in at nine and gone by six, the latest. Now he’s in early and here most nights until ten. I depend on him.” Gillette hesitated. “But Nigel isn’t you. Like I said, I need you here full time as soon as possible—but I don’t want you coming back too soon, either,” he added quickly. “No relapses, or worse.”

“I’m fine,” Stiles replied firmly. “We’ll need to keep your current security detail with you because I won’t be back to full speed for a few months, but they’d have had to stick around anyway. You need three to four men around you constantly.”

“Amen,” Gillette agreed. He’d stared down the barrel of an assassin’s gun last fall, and he didn’t want to do it again. “Monday at lunch we’ll talk about your role at Everest. Debbie can arrange temporary space for you. It won’t be great, but we’ll get you into a big office quick.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Stiles said, holding up both hands. “Not so fast, Christian. I’ve got QS Security to run.”

“It’s done fine the last ten months without you.”

“Without me?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been running it from the hospital. I’ve still been hands-on.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“We’re almost ten million in revenues at this point.”

The number caught Gillette’s attention, and he started going through his options. But there was only one that made sense. “Okay, I’ll buy it.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I’ll use McGuire and Company, the security company we already own. How much do you want?”

“Jesus, Christian, is this how you negotiate? I thought you were supposed to be a hard-assed motherfucker when it came to buying and selling.”

“This is different.”

“Why?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Stiles shook his head, fighting back a grin. “I’m not ready to sell.”

Gillette did a few quick calculations. At ten million in revenues, QS Security probably netted around half a million dollars. “Any debt on the business?” he asked.

“Three hundred grand.”

“Okay, I’ll give you five million for it.”

“Five million,”
Stiles repeated incredulously.

Gillette chuckled. “Now who’s the bad negotiator?”

“I just didn’t . . . well, I . . . I just thought—”

“Take it, Quentin,” Gillette advised. “It’s the best deal you’re going to get, at least anytime soon. In the morning I’ll call Craig West and tell him what we’re doing, that we’re buying you out. And I’m going to pay you a million a year here at Everest, plus bonus, plus ups.”

“Christ. That’s incredible, but why?” Stiles asked. “I don’t know anything about finance.”

“I trust you more than anyone else on the planet. From where I sit, that’s worth every penny I just offered. Plus, you know a lot about running companies. You just grew one and sold it for five million dollars.”

“What exactly will I do here?”

“For starters, you’ll get me everything on the guy I met with this morning and the people he reports to. And you’ll go with me to Washington next week.”

“Why don’t you have Craig West get the info and go with you?”

“Craig’s a good man, but I don’t trust him like I trust you. It’s not the same. And something tells me I’m going to need to be
very
careful with these people.” Gillette took a deep breath. “There’s something else, Quentin.”

“What?”

“Faraday thought he saw Tom McGuire on Park Avenue this morning.”

Stiles’s eyes shot to Gillette’s. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

Stiles looked down and was silent for a moment. Finally he glanced up. “Chris, I don’t think a million bucks is going to cut it.”

DAVID WRIGHT
rose up on one elbow and ran his fingers gently through his wife’s hair as she slept on the bed beside him. A half hour ago, Peggy had wanted to make love, but it hadn’t happened. He was too distracted, expecting detectives from the New York Police Department to pound on their apartment door at any moment. Salivating to arrest him for the murder of the woman at the sex shop.

A half hour ago he couldn’t perform; now he couldn’t sleep. He kept replaying that awful scene in the bondage chamber in his mind. His foot hitting the block of wood, the awful sound of her neck snapping like a brand-new Ticonderoga pencil between two thumbs. A quick crack, then her body going limp. God, if he could only have those few seconds back.

Wright groaned and reclined slowly on the mattress until his head settled onto the pillow, listening to Peggy’s heavy breathing, staring at the ceiling through the gloom. She’d tried hard to arouse him, going down on him for a full five minutes—which she didn’t really like to do—but nothing. He’d blamed it on work, on Gillette being a slave driver, and she’d bought it, at least for tonight. But she wouldn’t buy it for long. Typically, he couldn’t go a day without sex. Soon she’d figure out something else, something more important, was wrong. Maybe the cops would have already led him off in shackles by then.

He tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t. It was as if he had something heavy constantly pressing on his chest now. “Shit!” he hissed, rolling away from Peggy and grabbing the sheet. When he’d run into Gillette in the hallway at Everest this morning and talked about Hush-Hush, it was as if the older man had seen right through him. As if he’d known something was wrong. Wright still had that question ringing in his ears: “You okay?” And that look in Gillette’s eyes was etched into his memory: like a spinning drill bit coming at him, ready to splay him wide open for everyone to see.

It was the damnedest thing about Gillette. It was as if he could tell exactly what you were thinking—or what you’d done. Probably one of the reasons he was chairman of Everest Capital at just thirty-seven. He was different. He had an edge others didn’t. As if he were ten steps ahead of you all the time.

Well, Wright thought, forcing his eyes shut. He was going to get away for the weekend and take Monday off. He was going to avoid the apartment and Everest just in case the police decided to visit. What he’d do if he found out they’d come by either place looking for him, he wasn’t sure. But there was one thing he knew: He wasn’t going to jail. At least not for a few days.