The Stallion (1996) (33 page)

She had not told Marcus. He visited a surgeon in an office on Park Avenue South and submitted to a vasectomy. He told her about the vasectomy before she could tell him about the ligation. She decided not to tell him what he had done had not been necessary—not for them, anyway.

Trish Warner did not check into a hotel or motel in Greenwich. She had rented a car at LaGuardia and driven to Stouffer’s Inn on the Cross-Westchester Expressway. She and Len had agreed that it would be better for her to explore Greenwich alone. She could change her appearance to some extent. He could not.

She had run a shaver over her head, reducing her hair to about a quarter of an inch. That way, her handsome, expensive dark brown wig fit her perfectly and was much less likely to be observed as a hairpiece. Perino had of course never seen what his thug’s blackjack had done to her face, so her disguise was probably perfect.

Her rental car was an inconspicuous Ford. She carried with her a Nikon camera with a compact mirror telephoto lens. She mailed her film cartridges to Len in Detroit, from a post office in Rye, New York.

In the course of four days she had photographed the Perino house from several angles and had good shots of people going in and out. She had identified the wife. And the children. She had an excellent idea of the lay of the land.

The job could be done with a rifle. Whenever Hardeman said go.

Herbert Froelich was sixty-seven years old. His hair was white, as was his bushy mustache. The flesh of his face sagged and was furrowed with deep wrinkles. He wore little round horn-rimmed glasses and carried himself with the air of a man who was right and honest but had to guard at all times against slanders and attacks.

“I have often dealt,” he said in sober, pontifical tones, “with the heirs of men who built empires. Their work was so challenging, so sustaining, so satisfying that they wanted nothing more in their lives. But for their heirs … well, the task of maintaining what their ancestors built is not so challenging, is not something they are willing to dedicate their lives to at the cost of all else. They are entitled to some security and comfort.”

Loren, Roberta, and Froelich sat over dinner at the Hardeman home in Detroit. Loren had revisited the bar and poured from the Scotch bottle after Roberta had ceased to pour for him, and he was a little fuzzy.

“My husband inherited control of a company that was in deep trouble,” said Roberta. “The Sundancer was losing market share. The first Mr. Hardeman had lost touch with reality in his later years.”

Froelich nodded and lifted a glass of wine in salute to Loren. “And Mr. Hardeman had the perspicacity to employ Angelo Perino as his automotive engineer and form a partnership with Shizoka to build the XB Stallion, thus snatching the company back from the brink.”

“That’s exactly right,” Loren mumbled.

Froelich nodded and lifted his glass higher. He wore a gray three-piece suit marred by a pack of Marlboros conspicuously bulging his vest pocket. “My associates and I have meticulously analyzed your company,” he said. “Since the stock is only privately traded, it is difficult to fix a value. At one time we were prepared to offer eight hundred and fifty dollars a share for it. We contacted you about that. I
need hardly tell you, though, that the market collapse of nineteen eighty-seven radically altered all stock values. At this time I am thinking more in terms of six hundred dollars a share. I might be able to convince my associates to offer six hundred and fifty dollars.”

“That’s quite a comedown, Mr. Froelich,” said Roberta gravely.

Froelich nodded. “Money is tight, Mrs. Hardeman,” he said. “I doubt you could find another buyer who would pay more than five hundred and fifty dollars. Although the company is paying it off, it is heavily laden with debt.”

“What that damned Perino had us borrow to build the fancy new plant,” grumbled Loren.

“Which is today your best asset,” said Froelich.

Roberta shook her head. “The new figure is a disappointment,” she said.

“Look at it from my point of view,” said Froelich. “In a situation where money is difficult to come by. If I offer six hundred and fifty dollars a share, I have to offer it to all the shareholders. If all of them accept, I have to raise six hundred and fifty million dollars. And then look at it from your point of view. At six hundred and fifty dollars a share you will be worth a hundred and sixty-two million, five hundred thousand dollars. Granted that at eight hundred and fifty dollars a share you would have been worth fifty million dollars more, you will still be very wealthy people. And freed of the cares of managing the corporation.”

Loren nodded. “I guess after all the taxes I’ll still be able to buy a first class place in Paris and keep a yacht at St. Tropez.”

“Are you going to give us a written offer?” asked Roberta.

“Exactly,” said Froelich. “I have to impose some terms. I have to buy control—which means I must have the Hardeman Foundation stock as well as your own. Then, of course, you can’t expect me to come up with six hundred and fifty million dollars in cash—a hundred and sixty-two million, five hundred thousand dollars to you. My associates and I will offer a deal, paying part cash, part notes, and part warrants in our own corporate stock. The latter will be
priced so as to afford you a substantial profit when you sell the warrants or exercise them. As I said, you can’t help but come out of the deal as exceptionally wealthy people. The Paris flat and the St. Tropez yacht will come out of small change for you.”

Loren smiled lazily. “I have to see the documents and let my lawyers and accountants review them,” he said. “But I think you’ve got a deal.”

“I think you don’t have any deal at all,” said Roberta when Froelich had left the house.

She sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Loren, stark naked, rinsed dishes and loaded the dishwasher. Lately, he begged her not to beat him, saying he couldn’t take the pain anymore. Sometimes, even so, she flicked him with the whip. It lay on the table now, and twice since he had begun clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, she had snapped him on his buns and made him jump and shriek.

“Come here.” He approached her and knelt before her. “First it was eight hundred and fifty dollars a share,” she said. “Now it’s six hundred and fifty dollars—and not in cash, in funny money. It’ll go lower.”

“I’m going to be sixty years old this year,” he said. “If all we get is
twenty
million, we can retire and live—It doesn’t have to be in Paris.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I want to have some kind of
life,
Roberta. I want to go where I don’t ever again have to hear the name Angelo Perino. He’ll take the ultimate screwing on this deal. Number One didn’t screw him any better.”

“It’s your decision,” she said.

He lifted his face and looked into her eyes. He nodded. “I’m cashing out,” he said.

Roberta sat on the couch in Angelo’s suite in the Hyatt Regency in Houston. The hour was 10
A.M.
She had spotted him in the lobby bar when she checked in last night.
He had been with a woman, and she had not called his room until she could feel confident that the woman, whoever she was, was gone. She mentioned her, and Angelo had laughed and told her the redhead was a computer guru who might be able to contribute something to the design of the electric car. Then they had begun to talk about the car and the company.

“Why kid around?” she asked. “I don’t know where my loyalties ought to lie. I’m past that. I can’t figure it out.”

“Where does Loren think you are?”

“He thinks I’m right here. He thinks I’m down here exploring Houston as a possible place to retire.”

“What happened to Paris?”

“They speak French in Paris. I suspect he thinks he’ll never learn it.”

“He’ll never learn to speak Texas either,” said Angelo.

She shook her head. “He’s not as bad a guy as you think.” She sipped from the cup of coffee Angelo had poured for her from the pot on his room-service breakfast tray. “In some ways he’s even worse,” she added.

“In some ways, I’m more nearly the heir of Number One than he is,” said Angelo. “I won’t let him destroy the company.”

“Can you stop him, really?” she asked.

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies. Since you don’t know where your loyalties should be, it’s better not to talk about it.”

Roberta shook her head. “I saved one company, and who gives a shit? My first husband died and—”

“People do give a shit,” Angelo interrupted. “There are families in Detroit who’ve worked for Bethlehem Motors, now XB Motors, for more than fifty years. There are people who’ve been driving Sundancers and now Stallions for as many years—and wouldn’t have any other kind of car.”

Roberta reached for his hand. “We gonna fuck?” she asked.

He smiled wryly. “You do know where your loyalties lie.”

“Don’t make fun of me, Angelo,” she said quietly. She bent over and kissed him on the neck just below the ear.
“Betsy and I share a tragedy. She couldn’t marry you, and neither could I.”

“I didn’t know you’d thought about it.”

“I haven’t thought about it. Not really. And my tragedy, really, is not that I couldn’t marry you but that I couldn’t marry a man
like
you. I’ve dominated two husbands. I had to. If I hadn’t—”

“Don’t tell me too much,” Angelo interrupted.

She put the coffee cup aside. “What’d I’d really like is a Scotch,” she said. “That says something about me, doesn’t it? A Scotch before noon.”

“How ‘bout a martini? Ice cold. A clean taste that doesn’t linger. I’ll join you in one.”

She nodded, and he went to the little bar. “Shall I undress?” she asked.

“We can’t fuck if you don’t.”

“What I plan to do first, lover, we can do without taking off a stitch. Bring it here. Let’s see what it feels like when a woman has ice-cold martini on her lips.”

The Viscountess Neville had ways of getting what she wanted. She wanted her first child, Loren van Ludwige—by now universally known as Van—to be educated at Harvard. He was admitted, to begin in the fall of 1989.

She called Cindy and asked for a favor. Could Van come to the States in June and live with the Perinos until he moved to Cambridge? He had never been in the States, and it was important for him to acclimate himself before he settled into a dormitory in Harvard Yard.

Cindy made a suggestion. Betsy should
bring
Van to the States, not send him, and she should bring John, who could meet his half brothers and sisters.

So it was arranged. They would arrive on June 3: Betsy with her two sons, Van, seventeen, and John, six. Three guests would overflow the house, so Betsy and John would stay with Alicia. Only Van would move into the Perino
house, where he would live all summer and, it was hoped, be at least halfway Americanized before he went to Cambridge.

Len Bragg wore his best suit, dark blue with a pinstripe. He wore a white shirt with button-down collar and a dark blue tie with tiny white dots. It was a warm spring evening, and he did not need a topcoat or raincoat. Trish wore a burgundy linen suit.

She would drive. She knew the area. Besides, he was a little nervous and did not want to risk making a driving mistake that might attract the attention of the police.

They were sharing a room in a Courtyard Inn in Westchester County: Mr. and Mrs. David Englehardt of Boston. Paying with cash would make a desk clerk remember him, so Len had applied for and received a Visa card in the name Englehardt. He would use it only this once and would pay it off and never use it again. Trish had rented a Chevrolet with the credit card of their agency in Detroit. But that was at LaGuardia, where thousands of cars were rented every day.

Len had bought the rifle in Indiana a year ago. For cash. It was a bolt-action Remington, mounted with a fine telescopic sight. He could drop his man from a hundred yards away. He wouldn’t have to come closer. What was more, he could get two or three shots into him within ten or twelve seconds. Once the man fell, he would be an easier target than he’d been when he was standing and probably moving. From a hundred yards away. It would not be necessary to approach closer.

Trish had surveyed the land well. In this part of Greenwich, Connecticut, people tended to build stone walls in front of their houses. That meant that Perino’s neighbors were unlikely to spot this car pulled over to the edge of the road.

The way they were going to handle the job was simple. From the parking lot at Westchester Airport they would be able to identify the XB corporate jet as it landed. It had the logo on the tail. They would watch for Perino to come out of
the general-aviation building—the facility for nonairline flights—and go to his car. Shooting him was an alternative Trish had suggested they consider. But there would be too many people around. And police, as they discovered when they parked. No, the better way was to shoot him when he got out of the car at home.

Trish had observed that Cindy Perino parked her Porsche inside the garage. The Perino daughter drove a Stallion, which was usually in there, too. Perino parked his own Stallion on the driveway.

All Trish had to do was get ahead of Perino on the road—which she could do by leaving the airport parking lot before he did—and stay far enough ahead of him that he didn’t catch up and pass. She didn’t want to reach the road in front of the house too soon, either. If they sat on the edge of the road more than two or three minutes, they might attract attention. What was more, Greenwich was a town with a heavy police presence. They patrolled the roads constantly.

This was Thursday evening. If Perino followed his usual schedule, he would arrive at Westchester just about sunset. If he didn’t, they would have to watch for him again tomorrow night. He was at home most weekends.

Luck wasn’t with them. The XB jet did not land. They waited until ten o’clock.

Len and Trish were not lovers. Placed in the same room, in the same king-size bed, they gratified each other, without much thought or enthusiasm. Any partner would have suited either of them as well.