The American Broker

by Andrew Hill

  "That's what I was thinking about," said Chris, quietly. "In all honesty I can't think of anyone who would seriously want to do anything bad to me - at least anyone who knew the truth - but those dockers probably still do blame me for the thirty grand that they never saw. Harry wouldn't know how to do anything but they could..." He paused. For a while he had actually quite enjoyed the limelight of his trial and had begun to believe the simplified story that had been put together by his defence. Persuaded to invest hundreds of thousands of pension fund money under his control in ventures suggested by Bob Lindon he then finds that those ventures don't exist. Instead of admitting to colleagues then that he has lost the money he tries to track it down. In attempting to get the funds back he is put in touch with people who turn out to be New York mafia and they merely take another hundred thousand and tell him to keep quiet or else. He learns of investigations by the DTI and leaves the country, scared for his life from one organisation and his freedom from another. There was rather more to it than that. There had been threats but they were veiled more than specific and he had never been scared - just very confused. His period of 'disappearance' had enabled him to have time to collect his thoughts and to return to face the music. He would only see the New York representatives again if he were to have given accurate descriptions and more information about how he had made contact. That he had never done and never would. It had been bad enough, though, beginning to believe an act of being frightened. Actually being scared was much worse. Tyler's news had, in fact, brought that home sharply and, for the first time, he genuinely was beginning to get scared. He was tempted to come clean and, at least, shorten the discussion by excluding, at least, the mafia connection, but it seemed to be going that way anyway. He could, though, easily see a couple of angry dockers trying to get their revenge. A quirk of fate meant that they were after the wrong man as it was Harry Gordon and his associates that had had their money. The same Harry that he had lent over fifteen thousand to and saved from jail by supporting him in Court and keeping quiet. Everyone sympathised with 'poor Harry'.

  "That fart Harry." he said with disgust. "I bet he's been crowing about how he didn't know anything and how I never paid him what I promised. And he's only got to have said something like that to a few of those dockers..."

  "Which he would, to save his own skin..." agreed Evelyn.

  "...and next thing I know, they've driving up my arse. Jesus Christ! Looks like Harry's dropped you in it, too, John."

  "Trouble with Harry," said Tyler, "is he never thinks anything through. I don't think he deliberately does things - they just happen as a result of something he says or does."

  Brian Hawkins, Paul Livingstone and Michaelis Ziparis had listened to the exchange for a while, then started talking amongst themselves. Their reason for being there was Bob Lindon and, whilst they wanted to keep Chris out of trouble, there were plans already afoot which needed to be changed following Tyler's story. Michaelis brought the five together again.

  "OK. We all agree we cannot stop what is happening in Newbury. Forget it." He swept the table with his hand as if to brush the subject onto the floor where he wanted it to stay. "Now we must find Bob Lindon first and talk." Paul was about to say something but Michaelis put his hand up to stop him. "Talk to begin with. Let him think we are friends and forgive him. 'Help us now Bob and you will have no more problem with us.' Make him feel comfortable. Maybe even we can give him a deal. A real one. For the first time he will see real money can be made. We will make him feel like the King. He will have a happy face and just as he starts to think all is fine...we strike."

  Michaelis cut through the air with his forearm. "He will know it is a trap - he is a clever man - we will not disappoint him. But we will have him alone and what we haven't learned before then in a friendly way we will get in an unfriendly way. I hope it will not be necessary. We will make Bob work for us. For the rest of his life or until he pays us, say, three million dollars, every cent he gets is ours."

  "Well, I've already spoken to him..." Tyler spoke almost apologetically, hoping that he had done the right thing.

  "Bob? You've spoken to him? Good. Good, John! What did he say?" Michaelis was enthusiastic. Tyler was relieved.

  "Not knowing what you people were planning...I, er, well just thought I'd call him and tried the last number I had for him...."

  "Yes, John. OK. What did he say?" Michaelis' enthusiasm was coloured by impatience.

  "Give him a ticket and he'll meet Chris anywhere except here." said Tyler, rather more briefly than the conversation itself but nonetheless accurate.

  "Good. Now we can move to the next stage," said Michaelis.

  Evelyn proposed a break for lunch at this point and they moved into the restaurant. Relaxing now, the conversation turned to what each had been doing in the intervening period. Tyler rapidly caught up with the few weeks' start the others had on the plans and wondered to himself whether there would ever be an end to it all. It looked like being a long day but he was glad to be in on the action and, with the exception of Brian Hawkins, had a lot of faith in the chosen team.

  Tyler proposed to toast: "To getting the job done."

  Chapter XI To France

  "Four large gins. That'll be £7.60 please," said the Hoverspeed girl as she handed out four plastic beakers, four miniature bottles of Gordon’s gin and two small yellow cans of Indian tonic water.

  The four men lifted their beakers: "Cheers!"

  Trying to drink on the Hovercraft from Dover to Calais was a difficult task. Speeding at some sixty to seventy knots across the Channel, the vessel rose and fell quite heavily as it was stabbed by the good-sized waves at sea. Despite the seriousness of their mission, good humour was seldom far away. As Evelyn steadily became conscious that more of his drink was landing outside his stomach that inside it he held up his hand to clasp the girl's arm as she walked by.

  "Have a word with the driver, would you dear." he said charmingly. "See if he can slow down a little until I've finished."

  Chapter XII Monza To Switzerland

  Tyler took first turn at driving as the Opel Monza rolled off the ferry and on to the backyard of the French terminal. Collecting the free "Motorists Guide to the Wine Routes of France", which he tossed to Evelyn, and showing a handful of familiar navy, gold-embossed passports to the disinterested Customs official, they passed into France proper without stopping. The authenticity of Paul Livingstone's was a subject of some doubt in Tyler's, Evelyn's and Chris's minds, but they were content that whatever he had arranged for himself would be beyond detection.

  "What's the speed limit in France?" asked Tyler, as they settled down on the motorway.

  "Hundred and thirty," replied Chris.

  "Ah, right."

  "Kilometres." he added, looking across at the large yellow figures on the digital speedometer, which read 112. "That's about eighty miles an hour," he continued, noticing the figures still rising. At 120, Tyler settled, easing back in the grey Recaro seat. Leaning forward for an instant he turned a small knob on the display. The figures changed to 189.

  "Heaven help us with him at the wheel," grunted Paul.

  "Reminds me of February '84." said Chris to Evelyn.

  "God, yes!" said Evelyn. "In fact I think this is quieter but even the 3 litre straight six under the bonnet can't match that beautiful 5.3 litres you had then - sheer power!" Evelyn was recalling the Aston Martin he and Chris had driven to Switzerland. They had just decided one day and set off the next, hurtling two tons of British craftsmanship down through France. "And I prefer the absence of air-conditioning!" he joked, referring to the window that had become stuck down on their trip, necessitating overcoats, scarves and stops every twenty kilometres or so to refit a temporary plastic window that continually came off.

  "Yes, Chris - for God's sake don't touch that button!" cried Tyler, laughing.

  Their route took them past Lille and then down to Paris. They reached the outskirts of the capital at five in the afternoon. T
here, what appeared on the map to be a fairly straightforward motorway encircling the city turned out to be a nightmare.

  Chris was behind the wheel now with Evelyn in the 'suicide seat', as it had been nicknamed. Being a right-hand drive car, overtaking on the short stretches of ordinary road encountered required a 'oui' or 'non' from the front passenger. He would also be the first and worst to suffer from any misjudgement.

  It was peak travelling time in the city and the three lanes of the ring road had ground to a halt. Renaults behind, Peugeots in front and Citroens everywhere else hooted gaily as they wove from lane to lane, never really advancing greatly. The Opel was automatic and manageable in these conditions but when a junction approached the road seemed to widen to five lanes and there would be more cars laid out diagonally across the road than in the lanes themselves. Everyone craned out of windows searching for some hint of the direction they wanted but neither the signs nor the map helped at all. Most of the indications given seemed to be to local districts of the capital or towns well off their route.

  Slowly, however, they made their way along and, whilst none could really figure out how they had managed it, they found themselves an hour later heading for Nemours and Auxerre - the right road.

  An overnight stop in Dijon, where Evelyn insisted on sampling rather more white burgundy than was good for him, left them refreshed, at least in the morning, as they headed for Basle. Three countries joined here, Switzerland, France and Germany, and it was on the Swiss side that Tyler had arranged to meet Bob Lindon. A helpful travel agent had organised an open return from New York to Basle. Tyler had asked a friend of his in the States to ensure that a silver-haired, sixty-year-old American, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles and a red-and-white striped shirt would actually catch the plane by offering to collect him and take him to the airport.

  Tyler wondered whether, after two years, he would have changed at all. He doubted it. Rendezvous was at the Hertz rent-a-car stand within the small airport block at 14:30.

  Chris stood alone at the counter, chatting to the cheery representative. He had arrived an hour earlier and by now had read all the notices neatly placed in the airy building. He watched passengers come and go and tried to figure out their nationalities. Tyler was leaning against the chrome rail to the side of the arrivals hall from where he could watch the people filing past the ordered immigration channels. The white letters fluttered on the information board to mark another landing. He moved to allow a noisy family to stand in front of him whilst still having a clear view without being noticeable himself.

  "Hullo there!" Bob almost shouted as he spotted Chris.

  "Welcome back, Bob," said Chris, and the two men threw their arms around each other in a gesture of friendship surprising passers-by, not used, perhaps, to English greeting Americans that way.

  "Christ, I still don't know what to make of him," thought Chris as he patted Bob's shoulders. Parting, they avoided each other's eyes and Chris grabbed Bob's bag, leaving him with the familiar battered old brown briefcase.

  "Oh!" sighed Bob, loudly. "Oh boy - this sure is a swell place. You know no one understands English in this country. This little town isn't on the map in the States so I had to be routed through Zurich. I ask for a cheese and tomato sandwich and they give me this!" His left hand fumbled about in his jacket pocket and, stopping to put his briefcase down while he held an assortment of bills, tickets and wrappings in one hand, he waved a crumpled, polythene-encased brown bread something in the other. "Here, you look like you haven't eaten for a week!" he continued, offering Chris the bundle as he moved off again. "Remind me to call Violet when we stop - you know how she starts to hit that shit when I'm away. Oh! I don't look so bad for a crazy Jew of sixty-two....'Hi there'!" he called at the reflection in the dark, shaded glass at the exit. Chris kept thinking of something to say other than all the questions he really wanted to ask but could only smile at the complete lack of change in the man responsible for the complete and utter change in his own life.

  "I've got the car round here," he managed to get out.

  "I figured you'd drive. You just wouldn't be you unless you drove. I guess John's lost his chauffeur's hat..."

  "I'm sure John will tell you himself...."

  "Hullo there, Bob!" said Tyler, who had been walking behind them.

  "Well, you crazy son-of-a-bitch. Who invited you!" Bob showed no sign of surprise at all, beaming as he grabbed Tyler's hand.

  "You written that book yet, eh?" asked Tyler.

  "Yeah. It got banned!" laughed Bob. "If I don't laugh I'll cry." he admitted. "It's tough - you two can see that now. You've been through exactly what I been through. But here we are - in gorgeous downtown - hey, what d'they call this place, Basle as in sheep, or Basel as in the sign? he asked, pointing up at the five large white letters on the building.

  "Whatever you say they won't understand you, Bob!" joked Tyler, as they walked away towards the car park.

  Chris had been dreading the next bit. He'd got to tell Bob that Paul and Evelyn were there too but couldn't predict Bob's reaction. Nor the others' if Bob started one of his shouting sessions. They had to stay friendly, at least until they had him safely tucked away somewhere. He just came out with it.

  "I hope Evelyn and Paul haven't gone off with that air hostess, John." he said, a little too loudly, perhaps, to Tyler.

  "Ha...girl with skirt up always runs faster than man with draws down..." replied Tyler as Bob looked up and around to see what they meant. Then he realised.

  "Great." he said, not very convincingly, but not giving much away either. "You make a great team. Friends need each other in this cheating world. Just don't ask me to be sweet to Keith."

  "Keith's not around these days." assured Chris, referring to his erstwhile Financial Director who had nagged and argued with Bob about the deals and never trusted him. "He dropped out when things got rough."

  "Figures." remarked Bob. "He didn't fit in to your group. Money moves on a word. A word! Screw the paper. I don't give a shit who you are or what you think you know. My programme deals with the movement of money on a word - faith and trust, faith and trust. Over and over like a broken record."

  Chris knew a different story. Keith had often been right and would have been with them if his health had not faltered after his own problems had taken their toll. Out of all of them, Chris had been able to talk more freely with Keith than anyone else. Evelyn was too easily persuaded. Only Keith had really stood up to him but then father time had had its effect. He kept quiet, though, and hoped that Keith might forgive him for not defending him.

  Paul and Evelyn were rather cooler in their greeting of Bob than the other two but nevertheless the car was full of laughter as it headed away from the airport into town. Five up, it was a squash in the back and, as Paul drove along the fairly quiet streets, the talk was more of Chris's passion for driving having given his colleagues cramp than anything more important.

  Once out of Basle, they took the empty motorway south through Berne, then started climbing as they passed the beautiful Thun Lake. The excellent Swiss roads took them to Spiez where the passengers lurched to the right as Paul only just caught the turning off the main road into the town itself. The squeal of tyres caught a few pedestrians by surprise as they scattered like a drop of mercury on a glass plate. By-passing most of the town, the small Frutigen sign directed them up a much smaller road and they left the Thunersee behind them. Evelyn pressed the button on the roof console to close the roof. The early evening chill was particularly noticeable, as they were now one thousand metres above sea level and climbing rapidly.

  After Frutigen the road twisted along the edge of the mountains with little more than the pine trees or a flimsy-looking fence to protect the unwary from returning the quick way. Snow still lay on the surrounding peaks; each fresh turn provided yet another glorious view. The houses now were, without exception, of dark timber, with strong, low-pitch roofs hanging two or three feet over the sides. An abundance of flowers spil
led out of window boxes and contrasting bright shutters peeped through the tall pines above them.

  Finally the ski resort of Adelboden came in sight. Low season now, this normally bustling little village was quiet. Turing right in the village they found Hotel Beausite on the right, past the ski lift and bus station. Frau Stimmer welcomed the visitors, recognising Chris from previous visits and nodding with a broad smile at the others. Chris exchanged a few words with her in German and Herr Stimmer, a tubby, well-dressed, nearly bald man in his fifties, rolled along the corridor from his normal stool at the bar. He was also pleased to have guests and none of them really had any energy to resist dinner and some of his excellent wines. He was so proud of his cellar. He and Evelyn went into raptures that evening with each new glass, much to the amusement of the young English waitress, Claire.

  Bob was happy to go along with the consensus that business could wait until morning.

  Chris had arranged with Herr Stimmer that they rent a four-bedroom apartment he had, contained within the hotel itself, accessed from the third floor. Looking like any other room entrance from the hallway, it was actually a beautifully spacious and luxuriously appointed apartment. A huge living and dining area featured an open fireplace. A staircase led to two bedrooms above and two bedrooms off the entrance hall, with another door leading to the kitchen area.

  "Pity Keith isn't with us." Evelyn had remarked when he saw the kitchen. "We could have had some of his handiwork." Keith Reilly had always prepared wonderful meals when they used to hold board meetings at Chris's old house near Newbury; meetings that could last days and where the cooking was more like fun than a chore, Keith jokes mingling with his stirring and sprinkling of ingredients.