by Predators
“What’s that to me?”
“Between us, with the stock I bought from Bobby, we control enough stock to move him out. I take over the company, make some restructuring moves, and we jump into the black. Minerals are dead. Alternate forms of energy are in. This country we’re visiting has gas reserves. We need to be talking to the minister about drilling, not mining copper and nickel.”
“I still ain’t heard anything that makes me moist, pal.”
“Stay with me, here. I can do this without you, by the way. You won’t have the money in time to buy me out, and the deal is with Bobby, not you, anyway.”
“He’ll do what I tell him.”
“Yeah? Well, even if you don’t get him to go along, there are other places I can go to get the votes I need.”
“Bullshit, Parizzi, You must think I believe in the Easter Bunny, too.”
Travis sighed and wondered if it was even worth the effort to recruit this woman. But the truth of the matter, it would be infinitely easier to pull the thing off with Griswold’s stock than without it. And there was the problem of timing. He plunged ahead.
“Do you know Leo’s story—how he took over the company?” Travis didn’t wait for an answer. “He married Harry Reilly’s daughter to get a job, made a career, then forced Reilly out and dumped his daughter. He has spent the last decade trying to buy up the Reilly family holdings. That old man’s dead, and the rest of the family would shoot Leo on sight if they had the chance. About 10 percent of the outstanding shares are in their hands, by the way. Leo has used shadow companies and straw men to get those shares but so far has failed. Did you know that one of the Reilly grandsons works for Leo? His name is Bart Polanski and he’s in Engineering. He’s staying in this hotel. He will vote the Reilly stock for me if I need it. I have other options out there as well. They all have a cost, but I can exercise them. I will level with you, Brenda. It’s easier with Bobby’s stock, but even without it, it’s doable.”
Brenda sat and waited for Travis to get to the part where she could cash out. He stared blinking and then went on, “I’m guessing you want the stock to sell to either someone wanting in before the IPO, or after that, which could produce a big payday for you. Half a payday, if you decided to dump Robert or he decides to dump you.”
“Not going to happen, Travis. That kid is, like, a Brenda addict. I can do things for him that makes his brain turn to yogurt, so forget that.”
“Still, it’s a one-gun bullet. You sell and boom it’s over. No more cash cow. I happen to know Bobby’s debt profile. It’ll all be gone in a week. Dump or not to dump, you end up with zip. Are you with me so far?”
“Like, what do you want from me?”
“First, you need to leave the boy. He’s never going to make it for you. He has a trust fund that you go through in a month. He is basically unemployable at any level beyond flipping burgers at some fast food joint. Leo has kept him on as a charity. When I take over, he’s toast. And I will take over.”
“Not so fast. You know what’s in Leo’s will?”
“I do. Do you?”
“Yep. When Leo dies, we get a bundle.”
“After the public offering, it will be preferred stock and an income for you. Do you really want to live on dividends? What happens in a down economy when there are no dividends? I’m telling you this now, and nobody else knows this yet, I’ve seen the books. There are no dividends this year. If the IPO goes through there will be none for the foreseeable future.”
“But Farrah said—”
“Henry Farrah is a lawyer. He doesn’t know squat about business. That’s why Leo is about to bust his balls when we get home.”
“But the public offering, the IPO, what about that?”
“It’s a maybe. I can’t always read Leo, but I think he has something up his sleeve. That’s why we need to move fast when we get back to Chicago.”
“And the will?”
“There are wills, and there are wills. Do you really think Leo will let the old one he drew up two years ago stand? There is another will, you can count on it.”
“What’s it say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know for sure if there is one, but Leo is sneaky. Don’t count on that buzzard sending anything good your way.
Brenda turned the information over in her mind, seemed to make a decision.
“Let’s talk about you and me.” She leaned back on one elbow on the bed and smiled.
CHAPTER 15
He was upwind so that the hyenas’ scent did not carry to him, but Sekoa sensed them. Every nerve in his diseased body jangled and urged him to move onward. They were tracking him, an easy task for them given his deteriorating physical state. He kept padding along the river until he encountered a fence. He could be cornered there. The hyenas would not attack him as long as he could turn and move. But if he were to stop or be backed up…He shifted his weight from right to left. On his left, the river shimmered and rippled in the moonlight. His instincts told him to stay clear of the water. The crocodiles might be dormant in the dark, and they might not. Knowledge of their habits did not register in the instinctual portion of his brain. On the other hand, swimming he did only in extremis. He turned to his right and headed away from the water, following the fence line south. The scent of humans began to fade as he turned his back on the town. The hyenas seemed to be gaining.
After ten minutes of jogging his tuberculosis caught up with him and, gasping for breath, he stopped. Ears up, listening, he faced back the way he’d come. The hyenas had reached the fence and were moving up from the water toward him. He moved forward a few meters and spotted a gap in the fence, probably made by elephants on one of their sojourns into Kasane to forage for fermented morula fruit. He slipped through and backtracked toward the river until he met the pack of hyenas bearing uphill toward him, but on the other side of the fence. He stopped and faced them, daring them to come for him. They stared back at him through the steel mesh. One after another three of the pack charged the fence and bounced off. One chewed at the links in frustration. The lion rose and moved further downhill and away from the gap. The enraged hyenas followed him yipping and yowling. After a few dozen meters he turned and continued east toward the human smell. He caught the scent of goats as well. Goats were food.
The hyenas raced along the fence line, half of them south and the other half north, back toward the river. Unless some easy prey diverted them, they would find the gap soon enough and follow. He hoped the proximity of humans would eventually cause them to turn back.
Had Sekoa a sense of irony he might have appreciated the circumstances that sent him to seek protection from the very beings that, although he and his kind fascinated them, would kill him in a heart beat had they known he was loose in what passed for their territory. He trotted on.
***
Leo had been pacing for nearly an hour, asking questions Bobby couldn’t answer and puffing on a seemingly endless series of cigars. Bobby supposed they were expensive. He wouldn’t know. He didn’t smoke, except for the occasional joint, and though smoke usually didn’t bother him, by the time Leo fired up another cigar, it began to take its toll on his respiratory system.
“I gotta go.” Bobby stood and headed for the door.
“Stay put. I may need you.”
“Can I at least open a window? You’re killing me with that cigar fog.”
Leo gestured toward a set of French doors and continued pacing. Bobby considered listening at the wall. The hotel may have been one of Gaborone’s best, but sound still carried through it.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”
“We?”
“Just listen. I told your mother I’d take care of you and even though my instincts are to make good on my intention to fire you, I think we can help each other.”
Bobby looked hopefully at the man in front of him while straining his ears to make out any sounds from the room next door.
“How?”
“First, you
dump that wife of yours.”
“Dump Brenda? I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can and now is the best time to do it.”
“But…”
“Will you stop saying can’t for once and listen. If you weren’t such an idiot, you’d be worth some real money by now, and that little gold-digger would be divorcing you instead. Now, if you divorced she’d get at least half of what you have. But idiotically you stumbled into the perfect set-up. You don’t have a dime. Your debts exceed your assets and, as of today, you don’t even have a job. She might be awarded some alimony, but with no income and no prospects, she’ll be happy to settle for some cash.”
Bobby started to say something, but Leo shushed him.
“Then, she might hold out for the stock that you sold to Travis, but since you won’t own it any more, there’s not much she can do about that either.”
“She said something about knowing what’s in your will. She could go for that.”
Leo smiled. “She must have been talking to Farrah. That’s even better. Wills can always be changed, if you catch my drift.” Bobby did not catch his drift or, indeed, much of anything else Leo was saying.
“But just in case she thinks about working the option deal with Travis and collecting, we’ll have to take that away from her, too.”
“I don’t know about an option deal. You mean she’d ask for half of whatever I could sell the…I don’t get it. How?” Bobby was warming up to the idea of being free from Brenda, but the thought of being penniless and unemployed still scared him.
“In a minute. You own or rent that condo of yours?”
“Rent, but I don’t see…‘
“You don’t have to. Don’t try to think your way through this, Robert. Leave the details to me. What’s in the condo? Any valuables?”
“Her jewelry and some art crap she bought.”
“She’d get the jewelry in any event.” Leo pondered a moment. “Unless we can arrange for a burglary. I’ll have to think about that. We’d have to split the proceeds fifty-fifty. I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
“Split what with who?”
“Never mind. Now, if she goes for the stock, you won’t have an option to share with her because I’m going to redeem that stock from Travis before she knows what hit her. Well, actually, you are going to redeem it, but with my money. You will assign it to me first and, for your services, I pay you one hundred thousand dollars. See, you have a deal. So, if she comes sniffing around your financials all she’ll find is what’s left of the hundred grand. You with me so far?”
“I think so, but—”
“Good. Now, as for the grounds. I guess that’s easy enough. She’s next door boffing Travis, as far as we know. Sue for mental cruelty, adultery, and fiscal irresponsibility. I’ll get you an expensive lawyer, and he’ll make her go away cheap and be thankful.”
“But we don’t know that she’s…you know…with Parizzi.”
“I’m your witness. If we say she was, she was. We’ll say we were suspicious and went out on that balcony and peeked in and caught them in flagrante delicto, as the shysters would say, and it’s a done deal.”
“There’s an adjoining balcony?”
“Out those French doors, yes.”
Bobby rushed to the doors and worked at the latch.
“Too much noise. You don’t want them to know. Here this way.” Leo eased the latch, and the two stepped out on the balcony. Eight feet away a matching set of French doors gave in to Parizzi’s room. The curtains were not completely drawn, and they peered in.
“You satisfied now?” Leo whispered
“I’ll kill her.”
“Shhh, come back inside. We need to put some things on paper.”
Once inside Leo’s suite Bobby repeated his threat.
“Killing is a really bad idea, son. In the first place, I don’t think you have the guts to do it. And even if you did, Botswana is a capital-punishment country and its courts would not be reluctant to hang you, particularly if it deems the crime to have been premeditated. So, unless you can line up a really good hit man, you’d better stick to the divorce court.”
“I don’t know, I…”
“Just do as I say. Once this is over, I’ll find a job for you that you can actually do, and if you work at it instead of slacking, it could even lead to something better. Now, go back to your room and act like nothing happened.”
Leo sounded sincere. He always did when he was about to slice and dice, but Bobby didn’t know that and smiled his thanks instead.
The part of his brain that had to do with self-restraint was coated with Teflon, and “acting like nothing happened” did not stick.
CHAPTER 16
When Brenda slipped into the room at three A.M., Bobby was sprawled, mouth agape, dozing in the chair by the window. He’d intended to stay awake and confront her when she returned, but as agitated and angry as he’d become, the two double scotches Leo insisted he drink canceled out all of those good intentions. She was undressed and headed for the bed when he awoke.
“Where’ve you been?”
She stretched and yawned. “I just went to the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake you. Sorry.”
“You didn’t just get up to go. I’ve been sitting here all night waiting for you. You’ve been with Travis.”
“For a little while, yeah. I’m working on getting the stock back. Frankie at the club set it up so we can get it back. You need that, Bobby. Trust me, I have a deal. You should be thanking me, not hassling me about where I’ve been.”
“That won’t wash, Brenda. I…” Leo’s admonition to act as if nothing happened caught him up and Bobby shifted his ground. “And you’re paying for them, how?”
He rose and stepped close to her. He was not the brightest dude in the world, he knew, but he could tell when somebody has had sex, especially if it wasn’t with him.
Brenda hesitated, apparently weighing in her mind what he might or might not know. Finally she took the approach that had always worked for her in the past. She went on the offensive. That would be offensive as a descriptor. “I told you, Frankie set it up. Look, you dumb bastard—” Brenda didn’t finish her sentence because Bobby slapped her. Slapped her hard. She stood, slack-jawed and unbelieving. Her cheek began to burn. It wasn’t that she’d never been slapped before. Beginning with her alcoholic mother, then her stepfather, and a handful of men she’d had dealings with in her former life, she’d had her share of physical abuse, but never before from Bobby. This was something new and potentially dangerous.
Bobby slipped over the edge. “You’ve been doing more than talking with Travis.”
“No, I…look, Bobby, I’ve set it up so we can work a deal where we can get out from under Leo’s thumb, make some real money. Travis will put it together for us.”
“For us or for you? Sure he will. Forget it. I’m not working with that guy. You can have him if you want him, but not me. I don’t need him, so I’m out, you got it?” He decided not to mention divorce until Leo had everything nailed down.
“Not you? You are, like so not getting it. He can make it happen. You can’t do squat and—”
Bobby smacked her again. “You slut, you must think I’m really stupid.”
“Stupid isn’t the half of it,” Brenda screamed and launched into a tirade so intense and scorching it might have peeled the wallpaper off the wall, had there been any. During the course of her diatribe she managed to include most of the commonly exercised profanities, obscenities—some that seemed to be the exclusive usage of exotic dancers—and at one point managed to use the word associated with sexual intercourse as an adjective, noun, and verb all in the same five-word sentence. Had Bobby majored in English in his brief stint in college, he might have appreciated the skill it took to put together this nonstop bit of invective. As he hadn’t, and because he had no other place to go with his anger and sense of betrayal, he picked her up, threw her face down on the bed, and acted out at least one of her char
acterizations of him.
Bobby had played football and lacrosse in school. He still retained some strength and agility in spite of his dissolute lifestyle, and Brenda could only struggle helplessly and scream at him. He shoved her face into the pillows and finished what he started.
A porter, who happened to be cruising the corridor, heard the commotion and started to knock on their door to be sure no one was in trouble, but when he heard what he took to be moans and bedroom activity, he smiled and moved on. That was the room with the hot American tourist, after all.
Travis, one floor up and two rooms over, tossed and turned in his bed oblivious to the commotion he’d manufactured and instead wondered what he’d gotten himself into. Brenda Griswold might not be the best ally for the undertaking he had in mind, and he surely did not want her hanging around after it was over, but he needed to hold on to that stock, and he guessed she would be the price he’d have to pay. At least for the short run.
***
Leo Painter couldn’t sleep. Travis’ apparent duplicity hurt. Yet, he didn’t know whether to be angry at him or admire his chutzpah. Leo guessed if their positions were reversed, he might be doing the same. Not might, most assuredly he would. He smiled and checked his watch. An eight-hour time difference separated Gaborone and Chicago. It would be a little after six in the morning. Probably too early to call Baker, the snoop.
He lighted a cigar, puffed twice and stubbed it out. He’d been smoking all night, and his mouth felt like old burlap. Even with a good Cuban, taste paled after a while, and your tongue went to sleep. His doctor had warned him, “You want to die, Leo, keep on drinking, smoking, and juggling all those corporate balls.” Well, that last part would be over soon if Greshenko did his job.
He stood and paced some more. He still hadn’t heard from Greshenko. It had been three days, and they were due to fly to Kasane in twenty-four hours. He pulled out his map of the Chobe River National Park and the area nearby from the pile of papers on the desk. There was an airport and commuter service in and out of Kasane. More important, its landing strip could handle corporate jet traffic. Perfect. He’d need to build a first-rate FBO on the field to handle the private planes he figured would be arriving. He’d have to talk to someone in Jet Aviation or Signature Flight Support about leasing and managing it when he did.
