“It’s blackmail!”
“You can’t be blackmailed if you’ve nothing to hide,” he said, looking over his glasses. “Anyway, I guarantee you that if you transfer one million dollars to her, it will be her last demand.”
“You personally guarantee it?”
Bailey smiled and shrugged. “I’m a lawyer. I’m representing my client. When she’s satisfied, I’m satisfied. Let’s do justice by Mrs. Shea. She is an honest woman.”
III
“It’s the second goddamned time I’ve been blackmailed,” Dave groused. “I didn’t realize I was so fuckin’ vulnerable!”
“Have you considered the possibility that you’re not vulnerable?” Alexandra asked. “Cooper was just guessing. That’s all: just guessing. And Bailey—”
“Knew too much,” Dave finished her sentence. “Amy knows about Windsor Nassau.”
They sat in their living room, over crackers, a wedge of brie, and drinks: a martini for him, single-malt Scotch for her. Alexandra was wearing black panty hose, spike-heeled black shoes, and nothing more. She so much admired her rings that she kept her breasts bare most of the time when they were at home alone.
“Think …”she said. “Is your first wife going to snitch on you about Windsor Nassau? Or anything else? She may want a million, or whatever, but she’s not going to get it if she shoots you down. Think! If she damages you, where’s her million going to come from? Where’s her child support going to come from? She’s on our side! She has to be. Dear little Amy—and I’d sure like to meet her—has no options.”
“Still … the million. It’s a hell of a setback. Goddamn it. I’m going to need a coup!”
Alexandra shook her head. “Not a coup. We’re not broke. We just need to pour some money in the till.”
“Harcourt will finish its accounting and pay the bonuses soon. Mine won’t be peanuts.”
“I am still a partner in Fairchild, Douglas & Jones. And I hear things. You’ve refused to risk using my information. Now let’s see.”
“It can be traced,” he said.
“You think I’m stupid? You worked it out so you could copy documents from Eye-Vee’s briefcase. You rifled Miley’s desk. You don’t lack guts or smarts, my husband. So why don’t we cut the pity party and get to work?”
“I suppose you have something in mind.”
“Let’s start by liquidating Windsor Nassau. It was a peanuts deal to start with. Amy knows about it. Now Bailey knows about it. Axel Schnyder will know a way to close it and make it disappear.”
“And transfer everything into—? All eggs in one basket, in Deutsche Bank?”
“Not necessarily,” she said. “Pictet is a useful ally. Axel Schnyder will agree on a way to establish a new account. Your Austrian name is, as I recall, Reinhard Brüning. Of Vienna. Brüning can establish an account with Pictet et Compagnie in Vienna. Let Amy or Bailey find that one. Let Cooper. And while we’re at it, let’s see where the Coopers keep their money—and if they pay taxes. Everybody can play this game.”
Dave bent forward, slipped one of her rings between his lips, and gently tugged on it. Alexandra moaned. She loved it.
“I wish you had been my first wife,” he said.
“I do, too.”
IV
AUGUST, 1991
“It is a very great pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Shea,” said Axel Schnyder. “I knew your name before you married Dave.”
“You did?”
He smiled placidly. “It is my business to know as much as I can about everybody. Your firm does public-relations work for some important American companies. By virtue of which you have access to important information.”
Dave grinned. “I believe you recommended I not deal in insider information,” he said.
The Swiss asset manager was smooth. “That altogether depends on the source of the information, its value, and how it is used.”
“We begin to understand each other better,” said Dave.
“You are a more experienced young man than you were when I met you.”
“I’ve been shit on.”
Schnyder shrugged. “Shit happens. Isn’t that how you Americans say it?”
“I’d like to put that goddamned Jerry Cooper down.”
“What did I tell you about enthusiasm?”
“Emotion,” said Alexandra.
“Anyway … we know a lot more about the Coopers and their corporation,” said Dave.
“I’ve looked into them myself, since I had your report. I would call them virtually invulnerable. They’ll be taking some heavy risks in the Far East. They may experience a comeuppance there.”
“Jerry has married his late wife’s sister,” said Dave. “She was a German collaborator during the Second World War, had her head shaved, was paraded naked through the streets.”
“I know,” said Schnyder.
“All of which,” said Alexandra, showing some impatience, “has nothing to do with finding a new deal. I’ve got something in mind, Mr. Schnyder. Dave knows about it. I’d like to run it by you.”
“I should be happy to hear it.”
“I hardly need tell you how I come by my information,” she said. “United Forests has retained my group to open a major p-r campaign for the company. They’ve hired Dan Wilson away from NBC to become a spokesman for them. What they want is to establish themselves with a reputation for being something other than clear-cutting ravishers of forest lands—which is what they really are. They’ve been censured by the Sierra Club, to name just one.”
Axel Schnyder poured modest sips of brandy into three snifters, nodded, saluted with his snifter, and resumed the solemn attitude of studious listener.
“Oh, we’re coming up with some great stuff for them. ‘United Forests—the company that brings you the warmth of wood. If you build your new home of wood, likely you can trace the origin of that wood back to UF. United Forests. The company that brings beauty and comfort to American homes.’”
“And such a campaign is going to influence the price of UF stock?”
Alexandra grinned. She was on a roll and went on. “‘Plastic? Cold, environmentally destructive. Just look at the emissions from those plastic factories. The small branches, twigs, and leaves from harvested trees are burned in power plants, where the natural emissions of wood smoke are carefully controlled. When you switch on your lights in Maine, the electricity may have been generated by the waste-not folks at United Forests.’ And so on and so on. All in the mellifluous voice of Dan Wilson, on Sunday mornings.”
“Dan Wilson is a whore,” said Dave.
“If he is, so am I,” said Alexandra acerbically. “He reads for money the lies I write for money.”
“I still ask,” said Axel Schnyder, “what impact this is going to have on the price of United Forest stock.”
“None,” said Alexandra. She sipped brandy, appreciatively. “It is why they want a better image that is going to impact on the value of a stock.”
“Explain, please.”
“They are trying to build a better reputation because they are going after another forest-products company. Potlatch.”
“Potlatch?”
“Potlatch Corporation owns a million and a half acres of timberland in Idaho, Arkansas, and Minnesota and has a reputation for effective timberland management. United wants to clear-cut those forests. They are a little afraid of an antitrust suit, but they think they own enough western senators and congressmen to forestall that. Their problem is that when they make the offer, there’ll be a storm. Environmentalists from all over will raise hell. So … the campaign to portray UF as the company that supplies warm and beautiful wood for new homes. Environmentalists have something of a reputation for being kooks, anyway. How dare they attack a wonderful company like United Forests?”
“Such a public-relations campaign will take time,” said Schnyder. “A year or more.”
“So we start a rumor,” said Alexandra. “United Forests is said to be considering an assa
ult on Potlatch. It’s premature. UF will go nuts. But the market will take note, and Potlatch stock will rise. Maybe only a little, but if Reinhard Bruning buys some through Pictet in Vienna … and you buy some, then sell of course, the profit should be significant.”
“Dave cannot be Reinhard Bruning with Pictet in Vienna. He will have to use a different name there. Friederich Burger will suit. A citizen of Luxembourg.”
“We know how to launch the rumor,” said Alexandra. “How soon should we move?”
“Let us take two weeks to make the necessary arrangements with Pictet,” said Axel Schnyder.
“Good.”
“Incidentally … I am glad you disestablished Windsor Nassau. I have always been afraid it could be traced.”
V
SEPTEMBER, 1991
Dave launched the rumor. He used the reputation of Harcourt Bamham—something he ordinarily avoided. It only took a confidential word dropped here and there—
“What the hell’s going on? There’s some odd movement in Potlatch Corporation.”
Of course there was. His European affiliates had already taken minor positions in Potlatch—enough to show analysts and brokers that something was going on.
Alexandra reinforced it. She was careful not to use her known relationship with United Forests. It came up at cocktail parties—
“What is this I hear, that UF wants to initiate a raid on Potlatch? I do some work for United Forests, and they’ve never said a word to me about an unfriendly acquisition. I think it’s a planted rumor.”
When the people she talked to checked their market computers, they found that indeed there was some inexplicable movement in Potlatch shares. Some of them bought modest positions, driving the stock up a little more and giving credence to the rumor.
“You do know,” Dave said to her one evening, “that we could go to the slammer for manipulating the market this way.”
“How could that happen?” she asked. “Nobody we know has bought any Potlatch.”
“That’s why I haven’t suggested it to Cole as a way to make a little profit.”
“Good!” she said. “And for God’s sake, don’t tell him. Don’t tell anybody we know. We aren’t going to make a Rockefeller-type fortune on this, but the risk is hellish.”
“No risk if we keep our mouths shut.”
“I like this way of doing business,” she said.
“We can’t run it many times, baby.”
They didn’t make the million back that he had paid to Amy. Deducting Axel Schnyder’s fees and expenses they made $437,000.
VI
OCTOBER, 1991
Dave was not a forgiving man. He forgot nothing, and he forgave nothing. He was truthful when he said he was sorry what he had done to John Thomas Miley had driven the man to suicide, but he did not dwell on it.
He did not imagine he could drive Jerry Cooper to suicide, but he wondered if there were not some way to harm him.
Axel Schnyder had been right when he said the Coopers were all but invulnerable. From all Dave could find out, their business was in order: cash-rich, sound, tax returns filed, and taxes paid.
There were scandals in the family. Jerry’s second wife had been a collaborationist, but that meant nothing anymore, particularly in the States. Len’s first had been an aggressive lesbian, but she was his first wife. Len’s second wife was both a Luchese and a Castellano: “connected” if ever anyone was. It would be a mistake to go after the Coopers on that account.
They were, though, vulnerable on one count that he could identify. Some of their merchandise was made in sweatshops, in violation of law.
Cole had told him about the case of Rosaria Lopez, the girl who’d done six months in jail for a crime she probably didn’t commit. Dave wondered if Rosaria could have worked for the Coopers.
He put a man to work on it, and within a few days the man came up with Rosaria.
A few days later, Rosaria Lopez sat down in Cole Jennings’s office in Wyckoff.
“I thought you might remembering me, Mr. Jennings,” she said. “Remember? I was in jail You worked out a deal for me.”
“I remember you, Rosaria,” he said. “You got a rotten deal. It was the best I could do for you, but it was a rotten deal.”
“I need a lawyer,” she said. “I am remembering you.”
She said nothing about how she came to New Jersey to look for the lawyer who had gotten her out of jail, eventually. Especially, she didn’t say that she had traveled to Wyckoff at the expense of a New York banker who had sworn her to secrecy.
“What’s your problem, Rosaria?”
“I work for man who don’t pay minimum wage, in place without toilets, in slave conditions. Better than jail. But not much. All of us work like this. No laws about this? Yes. Laws, I do believe.”
She worked for a man called Charlie Han. Dave had taken the trouble to find out that Charlie Han was one of the Coopers’ chief suppliers. Cole discovered the connection and wondered if Dave was not somehow behind Rosaria’s complaint. It made little difference to him. The girl had been given a rotten deal before. He decided she would not get the same now. He filed complaints with the New York city and state authorities on working conditions, also one with the United States Department of Labor.
“Cole … Can we settle this?”
Liz McAllister asked the question. That she asked it confirmed Cole’s suspicion that Dave was somewhere behind Rosaria’s complaint. On the other hand, he had checked. The girl’s complaint was factual. She did work in a sweatshop. She sewed erotic undies for Cheeks shops.
“How do you propose to settle it?” he asked.
Liz smiled weakly. Obviously, she was uncomfortable with the role she had been assigned to play.
“A nice settlement for the client. Case dropped. Something fun for the lawyer. Like—”
“I’ll never forget it, Liz. But it happened, and it’s history.”
Charlie Han was driven out of business in New York. The cost of manufacturing Cheeks merchandise in the garment district became all but prohibitive. The Coopers sent Han to Hong Kong, where he would manage their businesses in a more forgiving environment.
VII
NOVEMBER, 1991
For the first time, Little Emily was allowed to spend some time with the Sheas. When Dave and Alexandra came to Wyckoff they came early enough that the little girl could be with them during their cocktail hour.
Alexandra brought a Russian doll for the girl, also a Russian board game that would not be too challenging for the little boy. Little Emily was glad to receive a gift and old enough also to understand what Russian was. Little Cole was not entirely glad to see these odd New York friends in the house. He went to his own room as soon as he could. The children did not have a nanny, but a teenaged baby-sitter was sophisticated enough to know when her charges were to be kept upstairs and not allowed to come down. Emily paid her enough to be certain of that.
“Okay …” Emily said when Little Emily had gone to bed. “You made a believer of me.”
She opened her blouse and showed her rings.
They were not platinum as Alexandra’s were but gleaming silver installed by a nondoctor operator in New Jersey who had used a spray local anesthetic and pierced her nipples, one on one day, the other a month later.
Her breasts remained small, after two children had nursed. She took modest pride in her rings.
“Like you said. They don’t pinch. It hurt a little when she did it, and they were sore for a day or two. But—Well … Damn! They feel good now. And they’re …”
“Beautiful,” said Dave. “And distinctive.”
Emily lifted her left ring and flipped it with her finger. “I think we’ll hang something on one of them one of these days. My engagement ring …”
“You can buy all kinds of ornaments,” Alexandra said.
Dave grinned. “Well, Alexandra, I guess it’s time to show what we’ve got.”
Alexandra was wearing a black microski
rt and flesh-colored panty hose. She pulled down the skirt and then the hose.
“Jesus!” said Emily.
They were used to the fact that Alexandra did not shave her crotch, as Emily did, and was bushy with sandy-red hair almost as vivid as the hair on her head. Dave had said he was proud of her luxuriant pubic hair and would not want her to cut it off as Emily had always done.
Now her cunt was bare. The pallid flesh to either side of her slit was stark naked, showing not even a stubble of the hair that had been shaved off.
But—
Hanging from inside her cleft were two oval rings, much larger than the ones in her nipples. They hung from holes in her inner labia—from the thin, wrinkled, fleshy reddish petals inside her most private part. Attached to each ring was a small cone-shaped weight. They were stretching her labia, pulling them down and making them more visible.
“Each one weighs about half a pound,” said Dave.
“Kee-rist!” said Cole.
“You like?” asked Alexandra with a wicked smile.
She walked around the room. The weights swung, clicking against each other and slapping her inner thighs.
“I know I’m not the only woman in town with rings in her nipples, but—” Emily said, almost blushing.
“They feel good,” said Alexandra. “Every day, all day, I feel them tugging at me. And when they swing … my God!”
“They feel good to me, too,” said Dave.
“So—”
“For me, I don’t think so,” said Emily.
FOURTEEN
I
FEBRUARY, 1992
Hermann Reitsch sat across the table from Dave Shea in his office at Harcourt Barnham. He was a less-than-impressive man: maybe thirty years old, blond but thinning, with light blue eyes that swam behind thick eyeglasses.
“It’s of course a matter of money,” he said. “It’s always that, isn’t it?”
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