“Wise. But it also means that your enthusiasm is not great enough to lead you to destruction.”
“Then …?”
“I will do some research and analysis. In the meanwhile, why don’t we enjoy an evening, Mr. Shea? Dinner. Maybe a show. Do you fancy naked girls?”
Dave did not fancy the usual places where naked girls were on display. They would try to sit with him and beguile him into buying expensive champagne. He could afford the champagne, even at nightclub prices, but it galled him to be cheated out of it.
Axel Schnyder, as it happened, felt exactly the same way. He took Dave to a private club—in fact, a luxurious bawdy house—where they dined on fine roast beef from cattle grazed on Dutch polders, drank wine from Bordeaux, and watched a show in which shapely girls, none of them older than eighteen, did not strip but danced naked.
“You see,” said Axel Schnyder, “it is well to spend money. It is better to get value for it.”
V
He returned to Houston. Alexandra went with him this time.
They talked on the plane. “The more I think about the idea of separating Sphere’s computer operations from what’s apparently going to become a manufacturer of microprocessors, the better I like it,” Dave said. “From all I can find out, the Sphere is a superior desktop computer and potentially a major player in a line of business that’s got nowhere to go but up.”
“I had a friend once who used a Radio Shack computer. It was a good machine apparently, but it had the same problem your Sphere has; it was based on its own operating software and couldn’t run things like VisiCalc and WordStar. It’s not a major player anymore.”
They were in Houston on a Wednesday, and there was no barbecue party. They were guests at the Malloys’ house and spent late afternoon on the pool deck, where Tom poured drinks, not beer, and where a black cook set up a buffet of fried chicken, potato salad, and sliced red tomatoes. Alexandra would have dived, but the little blue bikini provided for her would not have withstood it.
Laura was not there and was not mentioned.
“The Coopers are not pleased with your idea of splitting the company,” said Tom.
“What are they buying?” Dave asked. “In the long run, what is it they want?”
“They want to put the Sphere name on their microprocessors.”
“They’re buying the name—and may ruin it,” said Dave.
“It wouldn’t be the first name that’s been bought and put on something the proprietor of the name never intended,” said Alexandra.
“They assure me they’ll fund Sphere IV, which is what we’ll call it. It will combine the design elegance of Sphere with the practicality of, say, IBM.”
“The decision is yours, I suppose,” said Dave.
“At the moment, you have the role of white knight for me,” said Tom. “With the kind of funding you tell me you can raise, I can fend off these raiders and keep my business and my baby.”
“Let that be our goal,” said Dave.
VI
The report from Axel Schnyder was explicit:
I have to suggest to you that a major commitment to Sphere, Incorporated, may entail unacceptable risks.
To begin with, the company carries a heavy load of debt, incurred by Mr. Malloy as his sales diminished. Mr. Malloy depends on family money of which no more seems to be available.
I must also advise that putting one’s self in opposition to the Cooper family may not be the most judicious posture one could take. To begin with, their somewhat eccentric line of business has proved extremely profitable, and they have cash resources sufficient to outbid nearly anyone who might be interested in Sphere. More than that, they are possessed of a faintly unsavory reputation, involving friendships with men who are associated with what in America is called the Mob, the Mafia, Cosa Nostra, etc.
In brief, I cannot advise your proceeding with this idea. Money can be much better placed.
VII
Summoned—there was no word but summoned—to the office of Leonard Cooper, where he found himself facing, not Len, the son, but Jerry Cooper, the father. Dave sat watching the gaudy tropical fish swimming in the big aquarium, while Cooper completed a telephone call.
“So …” Cooper said when he put down the phone. He was a man in his late sixties, wearing black slacks and a white golf shirt. He was brusque. “You propose to separate Sphere’s desktop computer business from the rest of it, using financing you will get from other sources.”
“The idea appeals to Tom Malloy.”
“Dave …just what is it you want out of this?”
“The same thing you want, out of anything you undertake. I want to make money.”
“The difficulty, Dave, is that this is our deal. As we might say, my company has dibs. We found it first.”
“There’s enough for everybody.”
“Is there? What you’re saying, Dave, is that you want a share of what my son and I found and have big plans for. Why should we give you a share?”
“Because Tom Malloy may not go for anything if you don’t. He’s in love with his computer.”
“We’ve assured him that we will help him redesign and sell his computer.”
“To be brutally frank with you, Mr. Cooper, he is not entirely confident that you really will.”
“And you, of course, have not discouraged him from thinking that way.”
“I can’t believe you are interested in redesigning a computer. I may have investors who are.”
“Still, the whole deal is to make an opening for you to be a player in our plans.”
“You can’t do anything without Tom,” said Dave. “Debt or no debt, he still owns a controlling interest in the company.”
Jerry Cooper smiled and glanced around the room, at his son’s swimming fish, his potted shrubs. “You impress me as a smart young fellow. I could like you. I could do business with you sometime, maybe. But don’t try to muscle into a deal we’ve already got primed.”
“How do you plan to cut me out?” Dave asked aggressively.
“Suppose I tell you,” Jerry Cooper said, “that I am in a position to cut your fuckin’ throat.”
“Really?”
“Really. Your New Jersey lawyer went down to Houston and wound up in bed with our vice president for technology. You went down to Houston and wound up in bed with Laura, who incidentally works for me. Liz talked too much, but she didn’t tell you anything, really. You were too smart to tell Laura anything. You like her pierced nipple? Anyway—”
“What are you gonna do?” Dave asked. “Tell my wife I fucked your girl?”
“No. No, no, no, no, no. Your wife is too smart to be influenced by that. I don’t know who you could fuck that would turn her off on you, but it’s not for sure our little Oilers cheerleader. You should appreciate your wife.”
“So you’re gonna cut my fuckin’ throat.”
Jerry Cooper rubbed his hands, one against the other. “Well,” he said, “you are an investment banker with Harcourt Barnham. Do I understand that Harcourt is going to underwrite the financing to redesign the Sphere and market it?”
Dave drew a deep breath. “There are others,” he said.
“Yes, I suppose so. But does Harcourt know about them? Is it not a fact, Dave, that you are working independently of your bank? And is it not a fact that you are functioning entirely outside the rules long established by banks like yours? Tell me something, Dave. Do you or do you not have an overseas securities account? Do you report your transactions in that account—those accounts, maybe—to the Internal Revenue Service? Far be it from me to snitch. But bug out of my business, Dave. Just bug out, sonny. When I want you, I’ll let you know.”
VIII
“ … like a fuckin’ schoolboy!”
“Well. You can’t do to him what you did to Miley,” said Alexandra calmly. “You’ve come up against your equal, Dave. Worse than your equal—”
“My goddamned superior!”
She pushed his ma
rtini across the table toward him. “It had to happen. You can’t win ’em all.”
“But—”
“Dave … The fact that the guy who did it to you is, in your judgment, beneath your dignity counts for nothing. Emotion defeats you in business.”
“But I—”
“Forget Sphere! Forget Malloy. You shouldn’t have gotten involved in it in the first place. Listen to Axel Schnyder. He’s what you want to be. And don’t forget, Dave … You’re vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable …”
“Cheer up, hon. What the hell? You’re doing okay. You got shot down in flames on this one, but there’ll be other deals.”
“I have to acknowledge to Cole that I—”
“I can’t think of anybody who could be more sympathetic. Anyway, he got an expense-paid trip to Texas out of it. And he got fucked, you now tell me, with a heavyweight broad. I couldn’t believe he’d do that to Emily.”
“He—”
“Let’s don’t kid ourselves, honey babe. You’d do it to me. I never imagined you wouldn’t.”
“Alexandra …”
“How’d you like a consolation prize?” she asked. “You asked me about getting a nipple pierced and a ring put in. I don’t know where you got that idea, but it doesn’t turn me off. I asked around. I know a doctor who will do it. Both nipples! But only if you buy platinum rings, with maybe diamonds, maybe emeralds. And … hey, listen! Rings can be put in a girl’s … private parts, too. And they hang weights on them to stretch their—”
“I wouldn’t want you stretched, Alexandra. You’re goddamned perfect the way you are.”
THIRTEEN
I
JANUARY, 1991
Cole asked once about the Sphere deal and got a look from Dave that told him not to raise the subject again. He had learned more about the Coopers and their Gazelle Corporation, and he realized Dave had been playing with fire. The Coopers had a strange assortment of friends, and the elder Cooper, Jerry, was rumored to be capable of violence.
Two weeks after Christmas Cole and Emily had dinner with the Sheas in their Manhattan apartment. They sat over drinks in the living room and stared out at the East River. This time Alexandra suggested that they not take off their clothes, as they often did, but that the two women just strip to the waist. Emily, who alone had been hesitant about this kind of thing, was hesitant no longer.
She and Cole had talked after the evening of Cats. It was an erotic thrill for both of them. It had not damaged their relationship and Emily had always been curious about what it would be like to be with a woman. And they also knew that they couldn’t or wouldn’t say no.
So, she bared her little, creamy-skin, pear-shaped breasts and relished Dave’s compliment, prosaic though it was—
“I don’t know when I’ve ever seen a nicer pair of boobs—except of course Alexandra’s.”
But Alexandra had a surprise for her, and for Cole. She was, as usual, wearing no bra, and when she pulled her pink cashmere sweater over her head, she exposed pierced nipples with gleaming rings hanging from them. They were platinum rings, Dave explained. He didn’t say how much he had paid for them, but the implication was that they had been expensive. Each one had a dazzling emerald set in it. She was conspicuously proud of her rings and thrust her breasts forward to flaunt them.
“We didn’t have this kind of thing in Kiev,” she said.
“We didn’t have things like that in Wyckoff, New Jersey,” said Cole dryly.
“And still don’t,” Emily added.
“Maybe we can remedy that,” said Dave.
He pushed a gift-wrapped box across the coffee table. It was for Emily, and she opened it. Inside, in a satin lining, lay a pair of white-gold nipple rings—these with screw-adjustable clamps so they could be attached without piercing.
“Training bra, that pair,” said Alexandra. “On and off whenever you want.”
“Yours … ?” asked Emily timidly.
“Welded together with epoxy cement. The joints are just behind the emeralds and so out of sight. But I can’t take them off—that is, without cutting them.”
She pulled on her rings, gently, so that she stretched her nipples a little. She grinned.
To fasten the clamp rings on Emily, Cole did as Alexandra instructed—that is, he kneaded each nipple between his fingers until it was erect, and then he opened the clamps and closed them on each turgid bud. Emily flinched as he tightened each clamp enough so that the ring would not fall off.
“I didn’t like the clamp ones much myself,” said Alexandra. “They pinch. There’s a little pain when the anesthetic wears off after the piercing, but in a few days that goes away and you forget all about it. Now, they’re perfectly comfortable. It’s something like learning to wear contact lenses. At first they irritate your eyes, but pretty soon you don’t even know they’re in.”
“You think I should—?”
“Up to you. But, uh, hey, Cole. You find them sexy? The truth now. Don’t they give you a hard-on?”
II
MARCH, 1991
Amy supposed Dave might come to New Jersey to visit his son on the occasion of his twelfth birthday, but she was not surprised when he didn’t. He sent a gift: a collection of fifty toy soldiers from England, gaudy in the uniforms of the Household Brigade, mounted on horses and carrying lances. The little boy was overjoyed and pretended at least that he did not notice that his father had not appeared and had not so much as sent a note along with the soldiers, which were impersonally delivered by UPS from FAO Schwarz.
His checks came regularly, from a New York law firm that was the only return address on the envelopes. She could have contacted him maybe but not without effort.
She sat with Cole Jennings over lunch. Unsympathetic as Cole was—and Emily would be—toward David Shea for his treatment of his first wife and his two children, Cole could not help but see the contrast between Amy Sclafani Shea and Alexandra Krylov Shea. Alexandra was fun. Amy didn’t know how to be. She was fleshy. She was bland. The marriage had been a mistake.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” she said to Cole. “It’s over. There’s nothing left between us.”
“He’s worth a lot of money, Amy. A lot of money.”
“Nothing surprising in that.”
“Uh … I’ve represented him in a business matter and collected a nice fee. I can’t represent you anymore. I’ll give you a word of advice, off the record. You should go after his ass. When we settled, it was on the basis of what he was then worth.”
“I can’t reopen—”
“Maybe you can. If I were you, I’d talk to another lawyer and see what can be done.”
Five weeks later a New York lawyer named Robert Bailey sat in Dave’s office at Harcourt Barnham.
“I see no reason to be anything but straightforward about this,” he said to Dave.
The lawyer was boldly unimpressed by the bank and Dave’s office in it. Though not at all sold on feng shui, Dave had arranged his office with some reference to the office of the men who had beaten him on the Sphere deal. He had never liked desks anyway. He sat at a big round table, facing Bailey at some distance. Two screens sat at convenient distances: one with the latest market numbers running across, the other the monitor for a Hewlett-Packard computer.
Bailey was a big, tall man of maybe forty or forty-five years, squinting from behind oval brown spectacles and wearing a very well-tailored suit.
“The fact we have to address, Mr. Shea, is that you obtained your divorce—”
“Termination of marriage,” Dave interrupted.
“Very well. Termination of marriage. You obtained it without disclosing to Mrs. Shea the extent of your assets.”
“I don’t think so,” said Dave coldly. “In any event, I don’t think you could prove any such thing.”
“I wouldn’t be entirely confident of that, if I were you. Do you recall that you used to call Mrs. Shea your partner, to whom you entrusted everything?”
&n
bsp; Dave shrugged.
“Do you remember Jack Silver? Do you remember that you and he were so close that you encouraged Mrs. Shea to nurse your son in his presence? And do you recall what you discussed as Mrs. Shea sat and listened?”
“What is she thinking of doing, blackmailing me?”
“Oh, come, Dave. We don’t want to use words like that.”
That this lawyer now began to call him Dave was ominous. “What does she want?” he asked.
Bailey drew and released a deep breath. “How long has it been since you’ve seen Mr. Silver?”
“Some years, I guess.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“I guess I don’t.”
“Well … he is in the federal prison at Danbury, Connecticut, where he is going to be for another five or six years.” The lawyer shrugged. “Which is immaterial.”
“Jack …?”
“Jack. Securities fraud. Now. Let’s talk about Mrs. Shea’s alimony and child support.”
“What’s she want?”
“Only what’s fair. Nothing more.”
“Which is … how much?” The telephone rang. Dave picked it up. “I’ll have to get back to him. In half an hour, tell him. *** What? All right then. *** Don? What’s up? *** The hell you say! *** No, we won’t buy any more, for God’s sake! *** No, and we can’t sell either, right now. Just hang in there, Don. I’ll be in touch.” He put down the phone and spoke to Bailey. “General Rommel is supposed to have said, when he heard of the Normandy landings, ‘Wie dumb von mir!’ Well … it’s not easy to make a living in this business. Now … What are we talking about?”
“What do you offer?” asked the lawyer coldly.
“An ironclad agreement,” said Dave, equally coldly. “She’s never to come back on me again.”
“For which you will pay?”
“Half a million dollars.”
“No. One million.”
“Jesus Christ, man!”
“I don’t think you would like to sit down in a courtroom and have to testify about your assets,” Bailey suggested. “How much they are, where they are …”
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