Taking Care of Business ch-28

by Peter Corris

  ‘And what’s involved in that-floating?’

  Marriott shrugged, an odd gesture to go with what he said. ‘Millions for us of course as the original partners, and the way Stefan’s drawn up the prospectus and company plan, not that much loss of control. Accountability and all that, but there’s ways around such things and Stefan knows them all.’

  ‘And you think he wants you out of the way so he can divide up the millions more… equitably?’

  ‘No. Worse than that. So that after the float he can sell out to someone big. With the stock I’m going to hold, I could veto that.’

  I’d been scribbling a few notes while he talked and I looked at them now. ‘What does… Mark think about all this?’

  The shrug again. ‘Mark’s brain is so fried with coke and ecstasy and Christ knows what else, he just does whatever Stefan wants. It was Stefan who got him hooked in the first place and he supplies him now with the drugs and the women.’

  I’d been sitting down too long and felt restless. I stood and stretched and went to the window. It was late on a winter afternoon and the light was dimming fast. There’d been some rain and the roads and footpaths were dark. I could feel Marriott watching my back. There was a kind of energy in him despite his commonplace appearance. Naivety as well. He was focused and concise, and I could believe that he’d helped to develop some brilliant money-making scheme but had difficulty in coping with life’s realities. I traced a meaningless figure in the dust on the window. ‘How did Steve die?’

  ‘He fell under a train at Strathfield station.’

  I rubbed out the scribble and turned around. ‘Why wasn’t he driving his BMW?’

  ‘Steve was like me; he wasn’t interested in all that yuppie crap. He lived in a flat in Strathfield. He wore jeans to the office every day.’

  ‘Nice suit you’ve got on, Mr Marriott.’

  He forced a smile, or that’s the way it looked. Smiling didn’t come easily to him. He had bad teeth and I was beginning to think that he might also have a breath problem. ‘We’ve got this far,’ he said. ‘Call me Charlie. Have you got anything to drink? Don’t private eyes keep a bottle in the desk drawer?’

  I slid open the top drawer of the filing cabinet. ‘I’ve got a cask of red and some plastic cups.’

  ‘Do you know what Bob Dylan said to John Lennon in the Beatles’ hotel suite when John asked him what he’d like to drink?’

  ‘No.’

  He said, ‘Cheap wine.’

  I hauled out the cask and the cups. ‘Bob’d be right at home, then.’

  The cups were small and we knocked back a couple without saying much as the light died outside. Charlie fiddled with one of the buttons on his gunmetal-grey, single-breasted suit jacket. ‘I used to get around in jeans too, but Stefan wore me down.’

  ‘Have you got any evidence of his involvement in Steve’s death?’

  ‘Not really. I know he’s got a mate who’s been in jail for all sorts of things and would do anything Stefan asked him if the price was right. Guy named Rudi. Scary guy-tattoos and all that.’

  I took a slug of the red; the third drink tastes better than the first. ‘Might be enough to interest the police, Charlie, along with everything else you’ve told me.’

  ‘No, I can’t go to the police. Not ever. That’s one of the reasons I’ve come to you.’

  He explained, hesitantly and haltingly, that he’d had the pressure of studying and holding down part-time jobs got to him and put him into what he described as a ‘fugue’.

  He was well into his third cup of plonk by this stage and showing the signs. He loosened his tie, undid the top button on his shirt and suddenly looked a lot younger and even more vulnerable. ‘I was smoking a lot of dope and I went paranoid, really nuts. There’s a name for it.’

  ‘Marijuana psychosis,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. That. Well, I got this idea in my head that one of our lecturers was out to kill me because I was so much smarter than him and could take his job any day, and he knew it, and so he…’

  He finished his drink and held out the cup for more.

  ‘You driving, Charlie?’

  ‘No, I don’t drive. I’ll get a cab. That’s if… um…’

  I poured him some more red.

  ‘I… went to the cops, made a fucking nuisance of myself. Abused them… got locked up… got worse. It went on for a while until Steve found me a good therapist and I got clear of it. I still got a First-came equal top with Steve.’

  ‘What about Mark?’

  ‘He got a top Second. Mark did other things-read novels and played golf. You know.’

  Normal, I thought.

  ‘We were sharing a grotty flat in Ultimo, Mark, Steve and me, and they had to put up with all the shit I was getting into. I got busted for dope. They didn’t, but it was a near thing. They got very pissed off. Mark especially, not so much Steve. But they knew they needed me when we were developing Solomon. It was my baby, really. But Steve’s, too.’

  ‘Who’d read the Bible?’

  He laughed. ‘Steve, when he was a kid. He wasn’t a Christian anymore, but he was a good, gentle… Shit, I’m having trouble saying this.’

  ‘Take your time, Charlie.’

  He sniffed and did a bit of beard stroking. ‘When Rog drew up the agreement, Mark insisted that he put in a clause that sort of put everything on hold if I… exhibited signs of drug use and paranoia again. That survived into the revised agreement Stefan masterminded. I’m clean now but, you know, I get intense… See the picture?’

  ‘I think so. If you go to the police with your suspicions, that could screw up the float plan.’

  ‘That’s it. I’m taking a bit of a risk just coming here. Stefan’s got someone watching me, but I gave her the slip.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘Yes, this woman he’s sort of sicked on to me. Amie.’

  ‘You don’t like her?’

  ‘She’s stupid. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not gay or anything. I’m just not interested in sex.’

  ‘What are you interested in, Charlie?’

  He looked down at the wine in his cup but clearly had no intention of drinking it. He leaned forward to put the cup on the desk. ‘I’m very interested in staying alive, Cliff. That’s why I’m here.’

  Charlie Marriott told me the float would go through at the end of that week and if he could stay alive and at liberty for that long he’d be in a position to stop Stefan Sweig from selling the firm off to the multinationals.

  ‘Too much of our IT industry is going offshore,’ he said. ‘Jesus Christ, the federal government is doing it now. The finance minister’s gung-ho about it. I… we investigated one of these outsourcing deals for a client who was interested in getting into it. Found it’d be a great deal for him. I did a check of my own, just for fun, on what the government said it’d save. It was bullshit. If anything it’d cost the taxpayer money in the long run. Can you imagine the US government selling off the IT arm of the Internal Revenue Service to, say, France? That’s virtually what’s happening here.’

  He was excited again. I had to get him back on track. ‘At liberty,’ he’d said. ‘What about this mental instability clause?’ I asked him.

  ‘That’s what I meant when I said Stefan might kill me or do something worse. Worse would mean being committed to a loony bin. That’d bring the clause into play and rule me out when it comes to voting on the shares. I know Stefan’s been reading up on psychology and such.’

  ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘This girl, this Amie, let it slip. As I said, she’s not too bright.’

  ‘Good-looking, though?’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose.’

  ‘What about after the float?’

  He grinned; again, with the bad teeth, not quite parting the lips. ‘No, the original agreement dissolves and it’s all a new ball game after that. Some of the stuff to do with the float I don’t like, but I made sure there was nothing like that hanging over my head this time.’

>   I couldn’t say I liked it much, but I’d warmed to Charlie a bit and it had a certain interest. It was time I learned something about computers and this looked like a chance to do it. The prospect of five days of bodyguarding wasn’t exciting, but the money wouldn’t hurt. The mental instability factor worried me a little, but he seemed sane enough now, even if he was a bit of a two-pot screamer, to judge by the way the cask red had affected him. My doubt must have been showing because he took on that frightened look again.

  ‘You’re going to turn me down.’

  I shook my head and got a contract form out of the desk drawer. ‘No, I’ll take it on.’ I slid the form across to him and he examined it as if he’d never seen anything like it before.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I’d forgotten there were still things like this. It all happens online now.’

  ‘Reckon you can master it?’

  He pulled out a pen. ‘Sure, but you’re going to have to catch up to stay in business, Cliff.’

  ‘We can talk about that,’ I said. ‘What exactly did you have in mind for me to do, Charlie?’

  He filled in the form quickly, took a cheque book from his jacket pocket, made a quick calculation and wrote out a cheque for five thousand dollars and passed it across to me.

  ‘That’s too much.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard of a bonus? If you’ve got a good spreadsheet you can work it in as… shit, I forgot. No spreadsheet?’

  ‘All I know about a spreadsheet is that it rhymes with bedsheet. You didn’t answer my question and I think I’d better get an answer before I sign this.’

  ‘Okay, well, I guess I’d like you to drive me to and from the office on the working days remaining until the float.’

  ‘That sounds all right. What about at home?’

  ‘Oh, my home’s secure. No problems there. Plus I’ve got a rifle.’

  Have you? I thought. That’s a worry. ‘What about at work?’

  He thought for a minute, fiddling with his now empty cup.

  ‘I don’t think I’m in any danger there. It’d be good if you showed up once or twice, just to get the message across, but I hardly think Stefan’d get Rudi to throw me out the window.’ He smiled when he said it, but his laugh was nervous.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be an idea for me to go around and see this Rudi and put him in the picture?’

  ‘No, no. Couldn’t do that. Stefan could use that as an excuse to have me examined… you know.’

  I nodded but still didn’t sign. Charlie wrote a big, bold hand and the five grand was starting to look more and more attractive. I had rates to pay, credit cards and the Falcon needed work. ‘So how will it look when you show up in the office with a bodyguard?’

  ‘Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.’

  I made my decision then; I wasn’t convinced that he was facing the danger he anticipated. I had a suspicion that paranoia was part of his make-up, but he clearly needed help of some kind and I was willing to go along for the ride. I signed the contract and handed him his copy.

  ‘Haven’t you got an uncle with some money who’s thinking of buying shares when you float the company? And isn’t he the careful type who likes to take a good long look at things before he buys?’

  Charlie let go the first full-bodied smile I’d seen from him.

  ‘I believe I do,’ he said. ‘And I believe he’s just that sort of guy.’

  Marriott’s house was in Ryde; not my idea of a place to live, but conveniently close to Sydney’s Silicon Valley in Lane Cove. The deal we struck was that I’d see him from door to door tonight and for the next four mornings and put in an occasional appearance at the Solomon Solutions office. When he had to go out to meetings or other functions I’d tag along. If anyone asked how come Uncle Cliff was driving him around, my line was that I was semi-retired from owning and driving a taxi and that driving was in my blood. Plus I was happy to do it for my favourite nephew who was going to make me rich.

  We nutted some of this out as we drove from Darlinghurst towards the North Shore.

  ‘It sounds a bit thin,’ I said.

  Charlie looked tired now, as if the effort of coming to see me and unburdening himself, plus the couple of red wines, had wearied him. He shrugged. ‘But it’s feasible, and they can’t lock me away on account of it.’

  ‘Won’t Stefan twig?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t mind that. I don’t object to playing a few mind games with Stefan.’

  And who else? I wondered, but I drove on.

  The traffic was heavy. The free-flowing traffic of the Olympic fortnight, when people had left their cars at home and enjoyed the efficient public transport, was all over. We were back to our bad habits, with cars driving into and out of the city containing one person. I’m an offender myself, but at least now I wasn’t the worst. The politician who keeps cars out of the city and establishes drive-and-park points, or at least institutes an odds and evens numberplate system, will get the boot but he’ll be a sainted benefactor. Don’t hold your breath.

  It was stop-start for kilometres and not made any easier by heavy rain. Charlie was in a mood to talk, especially when I asked him what was so wrong about selling out to a multinational.

  He was still a bit drunk. ‘You know what they do?’ he said. ‘When they take over something down here? Get that? Down here! That’s what they always say.’

  I sighed as I pulled up at least a hundred metres short of a set of lights. ‘No idea. Tell me.’

  ‘Jesus, I remember what Steve said. That bloody awful red of yours must’ve triggered it. He said something like, “They’re such literal-minded bastards they’re up and we’re down and that’s the way they like it.” He was right.’

  Sitting there behind the wheel, and not entirely unaffected by the wine myself, I had a rare lateral thinking moment. ‘I suppose it depends where you are in the universe. If you’re far enough away and subject to other forces… say, the rings of Saturn have got you by the gravitational balls, the northern and southern hemispheres of planet Earth don’t amount to a hill of beans.’

  Charles Marriott laughed as if I was Woody Allen on wheels. ‘D’you read much science fiction, Cliff?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Really? Well, what you’ve just said is the sort of thing Steve would’ve said. He read a lot. Not like Mark, who reads trash. Steve read all that thoughtful stuff-Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick… why’ve they all got middle initials?’

  I made it through the lights on the amber, just. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Yeah, well. When the Americans take over a dot com here or anywhere else they get all enthusiastic about its potential and possibilities and they set up all kinds of well-funded research and development projects and we mere mortals get excited and start working our arses off and coming up with brilliant ideas. I’ve seen it time and again. Know what happens in the end?’

  ‘The corporate suits rip them off, the locals get nothing.’

  ‘Sorry, but you’re naive, Cliff. It’s worse than that. Say we were taken over by BigDick. com based in Palo Alto. They’d send some hotshot out here and fire half the staff as a beginning and then get all enthused about some project or other, get the remaining people to work twenty-five hours a day on it and then just drop it, lose interest. Or there’d be some change at board level and the strategic focus or some such shit would change and so little Oz project X would get the flick. Happens all the time. Morale goes through the floor. They send out another swinging dick and he fires a few more people and recommends the operation be moved to Malaysia. The end.’

  The rain got heavier and I had to concentrate on my driving, but I’d attended to what he’d said closely enough. He said it well, putting on a pretty good American accent for the key jargon words. I had the distinct feeling that he’d gone through the spiel a few times before, but he was so passionate about it that the diatribe still had a fresh feel.

  My response was pretty lame. ‘Well, that’s capitalism,’ I said.

  ‘No. I
t’s a new kind of capitalism with a different psychology to it.’

  I pulled up at another set of lights and glanced across at him. He’d taken off his tie and was rolling it up and unrolling it. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I’ll tell you a story. A little while ago Stefan hired this young guy fresh out of uni. He’d done some brilliant thing for his honours project. All to do with interest rate projections and the effects on a whole range of businesses. Very smart stuff.’

  ‘Sounds like your kind of boy.’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose so. Anyway, Stefan put him on a short-term contract for, like, five grand a week. It was more money than he’d ever seen in his life in week one.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be far behind him on that.’

  ‘Okay. So he’s given this thing to work on and it’s a pile of shit. I mean, I’m slipping a bit behind the fast boys and I know it, and I can’t catch up until I’ve got through this rough patch-I mean with your help, Cliff.’

  We were moving again and I was so glad to get a bit of speed up and get out of second gear that I almost missed the false note. Almost. Pleading and chumminess weren’t quite Charlie’s style. ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘It was nothing! Going nowhere. But Stefan kept encouraging him and he kept slogging away until he hit a brick wall. Well, by now he’s got more money in the bank than he’s ever dreamed of and he’s what, twenty-two? He likes girls and cars and he likes the grog. He starts to run off the rails, a couple of crashes where he’s close to the. 05 limit but he just scrapes through and then one when he doesn’t and he gets a conviction and a hefty fine and a suspension. I mean, I went into a kind of slide like that myself and I know what it’s like. I could see the signs in him-late in to work, red eyes, twitching… shit!’

  He became aware of what he was doing with his tie. He crumpled it up and stuffed it in his pocket. ‘I’m still a bit of a mess. I know it. Phillip, that was his name, Phillip Dare, he didn’t know what had hit him. His work went to shit; the grog, the cars, the fines and the girls took the money and his contract with us ran out. Last I heard he was working as a programmer in Brisbane for something to do with horseracing.’