Chasing the Wind

by Pamela Binnings Ewen

  And no one wanted to take that chance. The banks insisted that the twenty million be sent to First Merchant Bank first. The investors refused. They had the same concern—and more to lose.

  Robert leaned over and whispered in Tom's ear. From the corner of her eye, Amalise glanced at Bingham, sitting on the other side of Tom. She'd caught him watching her several times this morning, just like Robert, as though she were a specimen he didn't quite recognize.

  Tom nodded, then looked at Doug, tapping his chest. "Our position isn't negotiable, Bastion. We're putting in twenty million to the banks' seven. They'll fund first."

  Doug shrugged and slowly pushed up from his chair. He turned to Preston. "I'll be in my office. Let me know if things change."

  Robert snorted.

  Tom slapped the table with the flat of his hand. "Take it or leave it."

  "Go make your phone call. Talk to your boss. I'll be in my office."

  Tom blanched.

  Robert's face turned purple. Amalise watched the mottled flush spread over his cheeks as Doug walked out of the room.

  For an instant everyone was still. Then Robert shot from his chair, his fist slamming down on the table in the same instant.

  "Hold it." Tom stretched his arm across Robert and said, "Let's go down to the small conference room."

  As Amalise left the room, Rebecca picked up a pencil and began writing on a legal pad. She was so engrossed that when Bingham walked over and sat down beside her, she was startled.

  "Hello, beauty."

  Rebecca gave him a half smile.

  He looked down at her notepad and then up at her. "Complicated issue."

  She nodded.

  Arms on the table, he turned toward the door, looking for Robert and Tom, she supposed. "But it shouldn't be."

  "Shouldn't be what?"

  He turned back to her again and lifted his shoulder. "The chicken-and-egg problem, funding, all of it." He smiled. "It shouldn't be complicated. There's a fairly simple solution."

  Robert stuck his head in the door. Bingham looked up and said he'd be there in a minute. Then he leaned toward Rebecca and spoke low, explaining what he'd meant. When he finished, he sat back, hands flat before him on the table. "Of course, I have no idea how you'd say all that in legalese. But I think it would work."

  Rebecca's brows arched. "What about overnight interest on the funds?"

  "I'll agree to that. The investors shouldn't lose by waiting."

  He looked at her notepad and then waved the back of his hand in her general direction. "It's all yours. Consider it a gift." With a grin, he planted his hands on each arm of the chair and rose, buttoning his jacket. "Once more into the fray." With a nod, he walked off.

  She sat there doodling on the notepad, thinking. What Bingham had suggested made sense. It was simple and fair. She began to sketch out the plan. It took over an hour. When she'd finished, she read over what she'd written and then rewrote the entire thing, making revisions and corrections. At last, when she was pleased with what she'd done, she picked up the legal pad and walked to the door. Preston would be in Doug's office, she knew. That would give her an excuse to present the solution to both of them at once. That way there'd be no question in Doug's mind who'd come up with the proposal. She would tell them that Bingham had sketched it out. But he'd given it to her, and she'd turned it into a real solution.

  Pushing through the door, she felt a twinge of guilt at not including Amalise in this. But waiting at the elevator, she told herself that they were each on their own now and liked it that way. Still, she'd already bypassed Amalise once by getting herself assigned to this transaction. The elevator arrived and she stepped in, wondering what Jude would think of her actions.

  Then she tossed her head and stabbed the elevator button with the pad of her thumb. Doug's office was on eighteen.

  Tom, Richard, Robert, and Murdoch were holed up in the small conference room, talking on the speakerphone to their fellow investors in New York. Steve and Lars would be joining them shortly. Preston and Doug had retired to Doug's office. Raymond had disappeared, saying he had work to do. Rebecca had said she'd stay in the conference room to catch up on some of the documents.

  Amalise walked into her office and strolled past the row of deal books on the bookshelf, running her fingers across the sequence of letters embossed on the spines. At the window she stopped and watched the swarm of people below. It was the right thing to do, she was certain.

  Still. She turned around and gazed at the diploma hanging on the wall near the door. Tulane Law School, 1976. She thought of all the years that piece of parchment represented, all the work and dreams. All the hours she'd shuttled food at Café Pontalba to pay for that diploma. Working until midnight, scurrying home to study afterward, then rumbling up

  St. Charles Avenue on the streetcar to school every morning and back to the café at night. Had she really come so far to take a chance on losing it all for the family on Kerlerec?

  Yes. Especially because of Luke.

  She was excited with anticipation, but also frightened. She remembered feeling that way once when she was small. Jude was teaching her how to ride her new bike without training wheels. She must have been eight or nine years old. He'd held onto the bike at first, running alongside as she rode up and down in front of her house, weaving and wobbling. But just when she'd gotten the hang of it and was feeling steady, he said it was time to try it on her own.

  So she'd sat there, perched on the bicycle seat, feet on the pedals, waiting, anticipating. Jude said he'd warn her first. He would say, "Ready, set, go," then give her a little push and she would take off on her own.

  As she'd waited for that moment, sucking in her breath, she had looked down the sidewalk ahead, and she gripped those handlebars like she'd never let go. Because she knew that she might fall, might scrape a knee, and it would hurt. But she also knew that if things went right, she would experience a new kind of freedom. She would be able to fly from now on instead of walking everywhere she went. She'd feel the wind in her hair, and something would change forever. If only she took the chance.

  She looked again at the books and the Lucite trophies on the shelves beside them, mementoes of everything she had to lose. And then she thought of those childhood days when happiness turned on decisions as simple as learning to ride a bike. Of course, that bicycle was long gone, replaced in her life by other vehicles. And it occurred to her then that those books, as well as the agreements and transactions they represented, were, in the grand scheme of things, ephemeral vessels. One day other lawyers would sit in this office, at this desk, instead of her. Like the bicycle, the agreements bound in these volumes would come to an end in a couple of years and be replaced.

  But there was only one Luke.

  Ready. Set. She retrieved her purse from the desk drawer and slung it onto her shoulder. Go! She headed for the door.

  Caroline and Ellis might make out somehow if she did nothing. Charlie and Nick and Daisy might, too, eventually. But Luke would not. Luke would disappear forever behind that wall he'd built around himself. His cry in the park would be his last if he were yanked from the safety of Caroline and Ellis's care and returned to the orphanage. He would give up on the world once and for all.

  Amalise drove uptown to Whitney Bank on Carrollton Avenue, where she kept her accounts, and parked on the street. She stepped out into the dappled shade as sunshine filtered through branches overhead. Birds sang, and a squirrel inspected her from a nook in the tree.

  The bank was on the corner. As she entered the lobby, she could see Edward Stephenson sitting in his glassed-in office across the way. He looked up, waved, and walked to the door, holding it open for her.

  They shook hands and she took a seat, holding her purse in her lap. "I have an unusual transaction to work through, Edward, and I'll need your help."

/>   He sat behind his desk and picked up a pen. "Just tell me what you need."

  It took two hours to explain and a half hour more to sign the documents. But when she left, Edward had already dispatched someone to the offices of C. T. Realty and was picking up the phone. She had no doubt he'd get it done, and in time.

  Later that afternoon in the conference room, Amalise's lips parted as she listened to the proposed solution for the funding problem. It was Rebecca's idea, Doug said, looking down the table past Amalise. Beside her, Rebecca shifted and looked down.

  "Rebecca?" He motioned in her direction. "Why don't you explain."

  Rebecca nodded, squaring the papers on the table before her as she looked up. "My idea's simple, really. Investors fund into the company's Cayman account at Banc Franck on the day before the closing, on Tuesday. Interest on the notes will begin to accrue during this period."

  Tom turned. "Bingham, the company agrees?"

  "Yes. We've already discussed it."

  Rebecca glanced down at her notes and back up. "On Wednesday morning, the closing documents are executed, and when that's complete, Mr. Murdoch initiates a conference call with Banc Franck." She glanced at Murdoch, and he nodded. "All banks participate in the call, and Cayman will confirm the twenty million is on deposit as required."

  She then fixed her eyes on Tom. "Upon that confirmation, the banks begin funding, and when the last bank funds are in, Cayman is notified. Banc Franck then promptly wires the investor funds to First Merchant Bank."

  Doug interjected with a look at Frank Earl, who nodded. "That solves the problem from our point of view. For the banks. We'll take Cayman's confirmation that the money's there to start our funding and go first." He looked at Bingham, and Murdoch nodded. "And it should satisfy the investors, since they'll be earning interest even if by chance their money is stuck in the Caymans over the holiday. And funds in the Cayman account will be under Bingham's control, not First Merchant Bank's."

  Amalise picked up a pencil and drew circles on the notepad, a spiral of smaller and smaller circles. The idea was simple and smart. Beside her, Rebecca was silent.

  Tom said, "I think that might work. I'll have to run it by the rest of the group, but it sounds good." He turned to Bingham. "What do you think?"

  Bingham nodded. "I think it works."

  "Robert?"

  "Yes." Robert fixed his eyes on Doug. "But we'll want the wiring memorandum to specify each step. Every detail."

  "Amalise?"

  Amalise just stopped herself from flinching. She leaned forward, looking down the table past Raymond and Preston to Doug. "Yes?"

  "You'll prepare the wire transfer memorandum. We'll need to get wiring information from each investor and bank, get each step nailed down."

  Amalise nodded.

  "We'll give you what you need for the investors," Tom said.

  Robert's voice came, cold, insinuating: "I'll want to approve it." His eyes flicked to Amalise and back to Doug. "And we'll want to see a draft right away."

  "Not a problem." Doug looked at Frank Earl. "We'll have someone in your wire room on the closing day to confirm as each bank's transfer hits?"

  "Yes. We'll leave the phone line open in here at that point."

  Doug leaned forward, caught Amalise's eyes again and held them. "Got all that?"

  "Yes. No problem." Why hadn't Rebecca mentioned this to her before the meeting? Immediately she checked the thought because she knew the answer: They were competitors now.

  "Good. I want a first draft by tomorrow morning to circulate to the other side."

  Again, Amalise nodded. "All right."

  Frank Earl heaved a sigh, and a hum of conversation began. Chairs were pushed back from the table. People stood and stretched. Beside her, Raymond rose, scooping up his legal pad, and she did the same.

  Rebecca pushed back her chair, looking past Amalise as Doug called her name. Standing, she sidestepped Amalise. Raymond's eyes followed her.

  Preston walked up, bracing his hand on Raymond's arm, and Raymond snapped to. "Find her a good model for the wiring memo. The one we used in the Roustabout deal might work. Once we've got the wire transfer memo circulating, we'll need Amalise and Rebecca to start preparing those purchase agreements for the properties. Time's short and there are hundreds of those things."

  Past Raymond and Preston, Amalise saw Frank Earl scoot his chair away from the table to make room for Rebecca. Rebecca sat and bent her head, listening to Doug, with Frank Earl looking over her shoulder.

  Amalise's suddenly realized there were no longer two Silver Girls in the room.

  Tom and Adam had returned to their hotel to call the other investors. Bingham and Robert were in the small conference room down the hall on eighteen. Robert lay the investigator's latest report down on the table between them.

  "What've you got?" Bingham felt tense, short-tempered after the events of the day. The closing loomed and nothing could be allowed to interfere. He looked down at the report Robert had placed before him and turned the pages.

  "Amalise Catoir left the building for a couple hours today. After we broke up the meeting this morning."

  "So?"

  "She went to a bank on Carrollton Avenue."

  Bingham spread his hands and arched his brows.

  Robert's eyes went flat. "The investigator says she was there for . . ." he reached over to the report, turned it and read, then returned it to Bingham, "two hours and thirty-five minutes."

  Bingham looked at the wall across from him. "That's a long time," he said at last. Too long for making a deposit or cashing a check. He turned to Robert. "Anything new with that family in the Marigny?" Robert's face turned dark. "Or the kid?"

  "No."

  Amalise Catoir was drafting the wire transfer memorandum, which was crucial to his deal. Doug had assigned her to the work, and Bingham knew that he couldn't interfere without solid grounds. But a woman worried about souls and trees currently inhabiting a money spot could be trouble. Put that woman together with those kids on Kerlerec Street, and that spelled big trouble.

  "Find out what she's up to. Now."

  Robert nodded and rose. "I'll take care of it."

  Robert had given her one of his murderous looks when she'd entered the conference room earlier. But returning to her office with orders to prepare the wire transfer memorandum, she told herself that Preston wouldn't have assigned the work to her if Robert or Bingham had already complained about her. And she welcomed the thought of drafting this document. Hard, challenging work, bearing down on one thing, would absorb all of her attention. After one important phone call, she'd let nothing more distract her.

  At ten minutes to five she picked up the phone and dialed the number of the Whitney Bank. "Mr. Stephenson, please," she said. "Amalise Catoir. Yes. Thanks, I'll hold."

  Cradling the phone in the crook of her neck, she continued marking up the memorandum. A minute ticked by and then a cheerful voice came on the line. Amalise dropped her pencil and grabbed the telephone.

  "Hello, Edward. This is Amalise Catoir. Have you received a confirmation yet?"

  "Just got it, Amalise." She relaxed, hearing the smile in his voice. "We're all set."

  Adrenaline shot through her. Suddenly this was real. She took a deep breath. All she had to do now was make it to the closing next Wednesday without discovery.

  "So we're set for the day after tomorrow?"

  "Yes. Friday. How about noon? Just bring them to my office when you get here. I'll have everything ready to sign."

  Gripping the phone, she looked around her office. Would she lose all of this? "All right," she said, struggling to remain calm. "That's good. I'll see you Friday at noon. And . . . thanks, Edward." When she turned to place the phone on its cradle, the room spun. Hold on, Amalise, she whispered
to herself. You're going for a ride.

  Step one was complete.

  Abba, are you with me? Am I right?

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Thursday morning, six days before the closing, Ashley Elizabeth hand-delivered copies of the wire transfer memorandum that Amalise had prepared to each member of the team. She reported back that Bingham Murdoch's group was already closeted in the small conference room on eighteen, reading it. Amalise breathed a sigh of relief and thanked her.

  She looked down at her desk. Ashley Elizabeth had made one hundred and eighty-six copies of the form purchase agreements, each one to be competed with individual property descriptions, the names of the buyer and sellers, and other pertinent information. Preston had instructed Rebecca and Amalise to split this work. Ninety-three agreements each.

  Just looking at her allotment made her yawn. Amalise had worked on the wire transfer memorandum most of the night and had managed only a couple of hours' sleep. A sudden restless feeling made her stand up and walk over to the window, to move, to stir her blood, before she began the arduous work.

  "Don't jump." She started and turned to see Rebecca.

  "Hey." The smile came on its own. "Good thinking, yesterday."

  "Thanks." Rebecca strolled in, eyeing the forms on Amalise's desk. She waved her hand over them. "I've got the other half. They're already putting me to sleep."

  Amalise grimaced. "I think they may be reproducing." She went back to the chair behind her desk and dropped into it, arms flung out over the armrests. Rebecca lifted her hair and let it fall as she sat facing her. For a beat Amalise sensed an invisible barrier between them that hadn't existed before. She took in Rebecca's shining eyes, her glowing skin, the hair tumbling around her shoulders and told herself it was no wonder Jude loved this girl. She was smart as well as beautiful. Smart enough to have figured out an elegant solution to the chicken-and-egg problem.

  "Is Jude back from Pilottown?" Amalise picked up a pencil, balancing it between the tips of her fingers, staring at the number-two yellow as if the pencil was the most intriguing thing she'd seen in a while.