Never Enough

by Harold Robbins

III

  “Here’s the deal, Professor,” Joe Giannini said to Greenleaf a few days later. “We can put you in touch with investors who will be interested in putting up money to fund your research and development But first we will have to put a crimp in Drake.”

  “Drake is a fraud,” said Greenleaf.

  Under the dinner table, Livermore squeezed Greenleaf’s hand.

  “His reputation is high,” said Giannini. “His stock sells well.”

  “He’s a fraud.”

  “If that word got out, it would slow him down at least.”

  Greenleaf shrugged. “I can say it, but who will pay attention?”

  “Maybe you could recruit a few who will join you in your statement. We know how to get word out to the media. With Drake slowed down, your program can move quickly to the forefront—provided you have the money.”

  IV

  A week later, a story appeared in newspapers all across the country:

  PROFESSORS CHALLENGE VALIDITY OF DRAKE VOICE-RECOGNITION PROGRAM

  A group of university professors is challenging the validity of the famous Drake voice-recognition program.

  Several professors of computer science, including Stanford University Professor John Greenleaf, suggest that the Drake program is deficient, inadequately tested, and unready for business use.

  A number of professors, from various universities, have viewed demonstrations of the Drake system and pronounced it “marvelous.” Professor Greenleaf and the others suggest that the tests are staged demonstrations at which witnesses see only “canned” illustrations of the system in use and are not afforded opportunities to run independent tests.

  “If anyone were allowed to sit at the terminal and run his own tests, the system’s deficiencies would become apparent,” said Professor Greenleaf. “I, for example, have never been allowed to get closer than to stand behind Professor Drake and watch him run a demonstration. I have challenged him on it, but he does not wish to be challenged. He does not wish to be subjected to the usual standards of scientific investigation.”

  V

  On the day the news story appeared, a courier knocked on the door of Joe Giannini’s apartment and handed him a package. He sat down on the couch and opened the package.

  “Mine and yours,” he said to Sydney Toller, handing her a Hong Kong passport in the name of Cynthia Kent.

  “I’m nervous about this,” she said.

  “They are not forgeries. We had our photographs flown out to Hong Kong, and these are valid Hong Kong passports. The application says that we have lived in Hong Kong for ten years, before which we were British nationals.”

  The package also contained two first-class tickets on Cathay Pacific Airline. They were to go to Vancouver, using their new passports, and board a flight for Hong Kong.

  “It will be a great adventure,” she said. “I hope to God we don’t come to regret it.”

  “We could struggle all our lives here and never realize what we are going to realize immediately in Hong Kong.”

  “We will have to learn to speak Chinese,” she said. “I understand it is not easy.”

  “Our lessons begin immediately. I will go to work at the China Overseas Bank, and you will begin to teach at a Catholic school where the students speak English. You are right. It is going to be a great adventure.”

  VI

  DECEMBER, 1997

  On November 26, stock in Drake Research Services, traded on NASDAQ opened at 27¾. By the end of the day it was trading at 15. The following day it fell to 8½.

  Reinhard Bruning in Zurich bought thousands of shares. So did Friederich Burger in Vienna. Axel Schnyder bought a bloc for his own account. Most of the money used by Bruning and Burger, had been deposited to those accounts by Chen Peng. A trust account in China Overseas Bank bought some more.

  Dave exulted. “Among us we own forty-two percent of it! Drake’s investors bailed out as the stock dropped. They were speculators. They had no loyalty to him.”

  “That’s the way it is with high-tech stocks,” she said.

  “How would you like to make another little run out to Hong Kong?”

  “To do what?”

  “Two things. The chief one is to coordinate strategy with Chen as to how we’re going to squeeze Drake. Second, though, I want you to make sure all the loose ends are neatly tied with Giannini.”

  “I assume,” she said dryly, “that Greenleaf is not right. I mean, I assume Drake is on the right track.”

  “Both Chen and I, and Ben Haye, have had that looked into. Greenleaf is a jealous nut. He’s an obsessive academic. He’ll work on something—and work on it and work on it and work on it—but he’ll never come up with anything. He’s like an artist that won’t give up his painting, though someone is willing to pay a price, until he adjusts one final brush stroke.”

  “He served his purpose.”

  “He sure as hell did.”

  “But Drake still owns the controlling interest,” she said.

  “We’ll have to find a way to squeeze him. I have one or two ideas. I imagine Chen has as well.”

  VII

  Drake and his wife sat at the dinner table after they had finished and the children had gone off to play Nintendo until their bedtime.

  “It’s a goddamned catastrophe,” he complained. “Greenleaf … That son of a bitch!”

  “I don’t think it was Greenleaf,” said Julie. “I think somebody is behind Greenleaf: a raider, trying to take over.”

  “Who?”

  “Look at the stock register. Foreigners moved in. Zurich, Vienna, Hong Kong.”

  “I still have controlling interest.”

  “Yes. But the big drop in the stock is drying up financing.”

  “It will recover.”

  “In time.”

  “We can look at it this way—If we have raiders coming after us, that means somebody has confidence in the system. Otherwise, why bother to try to steal it?”

  “A valid point.”

  “Well … the system is worthless without me. And I’m not about to be run over.”

  “Well …” she said. “We can think about this and talk about it all evening. But we’re going to watch Letterman in bed, like always; and when that’s over, I don’t want to think or hear about it. This business has spoiled nights we can never recover.”

  Drake nodded. “Can’t let it spoil our lives,” he said.

  VIII

  Professor John Greenleaf sat down in Ben Haye’s office.

  “I understand that Mr. Giannini is no longer with Enterprise Bank.”

  “That is true,” said Haye. “He resigned.”

  “Well … he made certain commitments to me, on behalf of Enterprise Bank. He made certain financial commitments—that is, to make certain financial assistance available.”

  Haye nodded and smiled faintly. “Well … You understand that the bank cannot be bound by any commitments made by a former employee, whatever they were.”

  “He promised me.”

  “Even so—”

  “Where is Mr. Giannini now?”

  “I really don’t know. He seems to have left the city.”

  “I … have been counting on the commitments he made.”

  “If you want a loan, Professor Greenleaf, apply for it. We will look into the possibility and reach a decision.”

  IX

  JANUARY, 1998

  Janelle did not leave for Hong Kong until after Christmas and New Year’s. They celebrated the holidays at home. Once again, they drove out to Wyckoff, taking Alicia Griffith, Janelle’s mother, with them. Dave’s family liked Janelle, and they liked Alicia. They never guessed that Alicia still turned tricks.

  With Janelle away, Dave returned his attention to Tabatha Morgan. He had been able to see her a few times in the past six months, but with Janelle at home it had been difficult, as he had warned it would be.

  As soon as Janelle was aboard her plane, Dave called Tabatha at her office and asked her to me
et him for dinner. He took her to the Four Seasons.

  She was impressed. He ordered a single-malt Scotch for her.

  “Well …” he said. “Are you still looking for something I’m doing that is against the law?”

  Her gaze fell from his face to the table. She smiled faintly and shook her head. “I’m focusing on other things right now.”

  “You haven’t given up on me?” he asked, half teasing.

  “Maybe,” she murmured.

  “I sent you a gift,” he said.

  “I used it,” she said with a faint blush.

  He had sent her a two-hundred-dollar gift certificate to one of the Coopers’ Cheeks stores. Having no idea what would fit her, he had sent the certificate rather than try to buy.

  “Something pretty?”

  “Something for you to see,” she said, lifting her chin and speaking more boldly. “I assume you gave it to me so I could buy something for you to see.”

  “Yes.”

  “You flatter me.”

  Two hours later, in her apartment, she showed him what she had bought. He had been right in guessing that not everything sold in a Cheeks store or in Victoria’s Secret would fit her. She had chosen what would.

  She came out of her bedroom wearing a loose, sheer black shorty nightgown, open in front, happily flaunting her heavy breasts. Over her crotch she wore a small black triangle of fabric, held in place by elastic strings that circled her waist and ran down and between her cheeks and up to join the waist string behind: a G-string. It did not cover her thick bush of pubic hair. She wore thigh-high black mesh stockings and black patent-leather shoes with stiletto heels.

  This big, husky woman was more than a bit absurd in this erotic outfit. On the other hand, her innocent effort to please him was completely appealing to Dave, and he felt moved to embrace her and kiss her.

  There was more. In her left hand she carried a pair of steel handcuffs.

  “You complained that I made Janelle sit and talk to me in handcuffs,” she said. “So handcuff me. Take the key and put it in your pocket and handcuff me. To be honest with you, I’ve always wondered what it feels like.”

  He slipped the cuffs onto her wrists and closed them. As he brought his hands around he began to massage her nipples.

  “Dave . . .” she whispered hoarsely and pressed her face to his and kissed him.

  He held her arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  She moaned and said she wanted him to take her to bed. “Only the beginning of the evening,” she muttered.

  On her bed, he pushed the G-string aside and mounted her.

  Back in the living room, he poured them drinks and asked her if she wanted the handcuffs taken off.

  “No!”

  She sat with her head on his chest, raising her face only to take a sip from her drink or to kiss him.

  She sighed. “We’ve got no future, have we, Dave?”

  “There is no such thing as a prophet, Tabby.”

  “Tabby … Tabby, the cat, is going to give her kitten a bath.”

  In the next twenty minutes she licked every inch of him, from his ears to the soles of his feet.

  Later, she brought out her Polaroid camera and invited him to take pictures of her naked and wearing handcuffs. She posed playfully, flattered that he would want such pictures. That was more serious. He took the pictures home and locked them away. They might become useful sometime.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I

  FEBRUARY, 1998

  Janelle accepted Chen Peng’s offer of his suite in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. One of her reasons was his sophisticated communications facility there.

  “This telephone line is scrambled,” he explained to her. “E-mail from here is encrypted. So are faxes. My agents in New York have already called on Mr. Shea and installed the necessary correlating equipment on his computer and lines.”

  They began to talk with Dave.

  “Drake inherited money,” Dave told them. “That’s what keeps him afloat. His grandfather was one of the founders of Intercontinental Petroleum, and Drake inherited a bloc of it. He’s held it. He hasn’t sold it off and diversified. One of the bluest of blue chips. He feels secure in it. Now …”

  “If Intercontinental fell on the market …” said Chen.

  “Right. It will take money.”

  “More than that,” said Chen.

  “Well … Our specialty,” said Dave. “I’m looking into it. Intercontinental has got to be vulnerable some way.”

  Chen invited Joseph Giannini and Sydney Toller—now Bradford Smith and Cynthia Kent, according to their Hong Kong passports—to dinner at his magnificent mansion on The Peak. Janelle was there, pushed by Chen into the temporary role of hostess in the household. Chen’s wife and his daughter and son-in-law dined separately in a dining room on the second floor and were not invited down to be introduced.

  This was how a Hong Kong patriarch could act. Janelle was not the first young woman introduced into his home as though she were the mistress of the household.

  Chen had given her still another cheongsam, this one white with gold-thread embroidery, with ankle-length skirt slit to her hip.

  They ate the kind of dinner Chen had served to Janelle that night in the Mandarin Oriental—the birds’ nest and shark fin soup, the goose webs, all served elaborately with champagne.

  “I hear that you are well settled in at the bank,” Chen said to Giannini.

  “I have a lot to learn.”

  “If we had another special assignment for you, I assume you would undertake it.”

  “Of course,” said Giannini. He and Sydney talked this over. They were happy with their adventure, but they realized that they were completely captive to Chen Peng.

  “Well … we will watch for opportunities.”

  “If I may ask, what happened to Professor Greenleaf?”

  Chen smiled. “The bank simply explained to him that a commitment made by you was no longer valid, since you had left. They invited him to apply for a loan if he wanted one, but he hasn’t done it.”

  After dinner, the four went out to the swimming pool and sat at a table where assorted fruits were served, with more champagne.

  “Perhaps the young ladies will favor us by going in swimming,” said Chen casually.

  “I didn’t bring a swimsuit, said Sydney Toller.

  “It won’t be necessary, dear,” Janelle said with a grin as she pulled down her cheongsam.

  Sydney was visibly, painfully reluctant, but she stripped down and went in the water.

  II

  MARCH, 1998

  Intercontinental fell into Dave’s hands. It operated a number of tankers, but on Sunday, March 8, its newest and biggest supertanker, the IntPet Oman, rammed a pier of the Verrazano Bridge. The huge tanker had been moving very slowly, almost not moving at all. The bridge shuddered but was not severely damaged. The tanker was hardly damaged at all.

  An editorial on Monday morning said:

  Sunday’s accident, the IntPet Oman hitting the Verrazano Bridge, sent a shudder through the bridge but should have sent a far greater shudder through all New Yorkers, indeed through everyone living on the East Coast of the United States.

  Suppose the tanker had been moving a little faster, which ordinarily it would have been, except apparently for want of confidence of its captain. Suppose the collision had knocked down the bridge. That could have been repaired in time, at huge cost. But suppose the tanker had ruptured and spilled its millions of tons of crude oil. The economic and environmental consequences to the metropolitan area would have been incalculable. The incoming tide would have spread the oil throughout the harbor and up the Hudson. New Yorkers might have wakened this morning to find the harbor closed and the waters covered with a thick coating of heavy oil.

  The risk to this area is inexcusable. The ship could have picked up a harbor pilot just after passing the Narrows, but Intercontinental Petroleum chose to have its own crew guide the ship through t
he Narrows.

  Thought should be given to banning Intercontinental ships from New York Harbor, indeed from every harbor in the United States, until the company abandons its arrogant, public-be-damned attitude and adopts proper safety procedures.

  Dave telephoned Tabatha Morgan. He invited her to see a demonstration of the Reitsch program, at the Manhattan offices of Navigation Simulation, Incorporated.

  “Sit down, and we’ll let you navigate a supertanker through the Verrazano Narrows.”

  She couldn’t do it, of course. Neither could he. Then a representative of the company sat down and took a simulated supertanker under the bridge and into the harbor.

  “You can bring any type of ship into New York or New Jersey, into San Francisco, into Rotterdam, into Hong Kong, and so forth. The system can simulate weather conditions, tide conditions, traffic conditions … Pilots learn and practice on the system, without risking anything more than their egos, until they become proficient. If Intercontinental tries to navigate into harbors this company simulates, without this training, it is egregious negligence.”

  “Why don’t they?” she asked.

  “I thought you might want to look into that. They damned near caused a major disaster for New York.”

  A day later a news story appeared:

  The Coast Guard reports that Intpet Oman, the ship that nearly caused a disaster for this city, discharged the contents of its bilge into the Atlantic, some fifty miles off New Jersey.

  The office of the United States District Attorney announced that it is conducting an investigation into possible negligence amounting to violation of maritime law.

  At the same time, a committee of the United States Senate will open hearings on the safety of tankers in general and intercontinental tankers in particular.

  Dave had done a little to orchestrate the investigations. Tabatha hadn’t thought of it until he took her to see the simulator. Three calls to political friends had contributed to promoting the Senate investigation.