Cash Burn (9 page)

Their glasses chimed over the table, and all five of them sipped.

Ed returned to his swirling cabernet.

“How are things going with getting the Clarington team assimilated?” Jason asked.

Ed glanced to his wife, as if he wanted to protect her from such detailed business. But he didn’t hold back. “There won’t be much to assimilate when we’re done. Not at the top, anyway.” He grinned at Randy, and his CFO smiled back.

“The whole executive team?”

“Shot in the head.” It was the term Ed always used when they discussed acquisitions in the conference rooms at Northfield, but Jason was a little surprised to hear it over dinner with the wives. Ed said it like a gangster, the smile gone, as if releasing an acquired management team was part of a gangland feud.

Maybe it was.

The appetizers arrived, and Ed managed their dispersal, the others deferring to him in everything now, making no show of independence. His conversation lingered on Northfield’s business so long, Jason had to finally ask him how things were at their ranch in Montana for a change of pace.

With the appetizers obliterated, Ed lifted his menu, and the others were quick to seize the opportunity. One by one they replaced the folders on the table, and the waiter materialized and took their orders, gathering the menus under his elbow. To Ed’s order of the house special, braised pork chops, the actor affirmed, “Very good, sir.”

After their orders were placed, the CEO raised one substantial eyebrow and looked across the table. “So, Jason, there’s a rumor that you’ve had some interesting experiences trying to get your loans repaid.”

“You’d be surprised how many people think repaying a loan is optional.”

“I suppose that’s the case if you want to take the whole thing to court.”

“My experience is that the only winners in bankruptcy are the lawyers. And they win big.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Ed lifted the glass again and reached for the bottle.

Randy’s glasses magnified his eyes so they looked like they filled the thin rims. Candlelight flickered off his lenses. “I think Ed would be interested to hear about the crowbar incident.”

Jason looked over his shoulder. A show of drama, as if he needed to avoid the paparazzi. “You do stupid things when you’re young.”

Ona leaned forward. “A crowbar, Jason?” Her cheeks were plump. Like her husband, she had a sizable chin. The two of them could probably outbox any couple in town.

“It was one of my first loans. It goes bad, and the guy dodges my phone calls for weeks. So I go out to his house.” Jason knit his fingers together and shrugged. “My career was just starting. I was putting my wife through law school. This guy gets belligerent with me, like it’s my fault he applied for the loan, my fault he can’t pay it back even when he swore he was good for it. I guess I got a little heated, and he bolted. I knew I wouldn’t be able to chase him down, so I had to throw something at him. Might have been a crowbar. I’m not really sure. Anyway, it missed. But I can still see him planted against the wall, frozen like a deer in the headlights.”

“How many collection laws did you break that day, Jason?” Ed tipped the bottle toward his wife’s glass.

“I did it for my depositors. It’s their money we lend, you know. I was working for the higher good.”

“You always are.”

After dessert and coffee, Ed said, “Well, Jason, you won’t have to take a crowbar to Northfield to get paid back.”

“I’m too old and too serious to do that kind of thing anymore.”

Ed lowered his voice. “It looks like we’re going out for the offering.”

The coffee grew bitter in Jason’s mouth. “What’s the timing?”

“Probably the next ninety days. Something wrong?”

“No, no. It’s the right thing for the company. You need to refresh your balance sheet. Don’t want the market to think you’re overleveraging.”

“Our underwriters think the appetite for our stock is going to be good after we publish results with this acquisition. After the offering, we’ll be flush with cash for a while, but we want to keep our line of credit available. And we’ll take care of BTB on the deposit side.”

“I appreciate that.” A line of credit with nothing borrowed on it did nothing for him.

“If you guys had an underwriting desk, we’d give you the offering business too.”

“I know you would, Ed.” Jason felt the wine and the filet beginning to weigh him down. Or was it this news? “Anyway, it’s the right thing for the company. We’re not transaction guys—you know that. We’re in for the long haul, and what’s good for the company is good for all of us.”

“That’s right. That’s right. Ona, you want some more coffee, dear?”

She didn’t. The waiter set the check in the middle of the table, and Jason reached for it, but was glad to let Ed pluck it away. “Our treat,” Ed said. “You did the job for us with that Clarington financing, Jason. Like you always do. Your support means a lot to us. That right, Randy?”

Randy nodded, his enlarged eyes wavering in the candlelight.

16

The moon like a wary cat’s eye searched with its reflected glare, but it couldn’t reach Flip under the eaves of the house. Nothing hampered the moon in the cloudless sky, and he hated it, its unremitting shine, its nightly waxing like a widening eyeball staring at him, and he hated the stars that attended it too. Their patterned glistening only reminded him of nights staring at them out of a cage. He wanted them all wiped away. He would strike them from the sky if he could.

The house was silent and in darkness. Windows like rectangular clefts gaped with a deeper blackness than the stucco face above him. He’d watched it from across the street and walked past it a dozen times. It was empty. So why did he delay?

He knew. He didn’t want awareness of the reasons to surface in his mind, but he knew. It was the ghostly sensation in his knuckles that arose whenever he thought of the boy. As if he’d just hit him, his knuckles remembered the flat concussion and sink of the blow, the boy’s face appearing as a specter in his mind now.

He wrenched his lips. Hatred of his weakness flared his nostrils, and he rose from the brush surrounding the house.

The moonlight was a hateful touch. He stepped quickly around the edge of the house, found the exterior circuit box and switched the main breaker off. His pocket bulged with tools, and he would need them, because the house was locked tight as a vault. Penlight in his mouth, he addressed a window, pried the screen away, and went to work angling the flattened implement toward the lock. In thirty seconds both locks were free, and he slid the window open.

He listened. No sound rose from the house. He moved the curtains aside and stretched his leg over the sill and inside.

His back to the wall, his chest hammered. Gone was the confidence he’d always felt at these moments, the sense of taking ownership and enjoying the shock his presence would inspire if discovered. It was replaced with dread.

He froze against the wall inside the banker’s house, lips wringing, eyes darting, clammy hands pressed flat against wainscoting, waiting for the feeling to pass.

* * *

The valet brought the Monroes’ Range Rover around first, and Jason shook Ed’s hand.

“Thanks for dinner, Ed.”

“My pleasure. Tell Serena no excuses next time.” He pumped Jason’s hand and released it so Ona could take it with her dainty grip. It was like going from an ape to a puppy.

The Range Rover crept off, and the next valet drove up in the Sloans’ Mercedes.

“Keep me posted on the timing of that offering, Randy.”

“Will do. We’ll try to keep most of it on your balance sheet. At least for a while.” Randy stepped closer, holding on to Jason’s hand like a lover. “We’re looking at more acquisitions, Jason. Don’t worry; we’ll go through the cash soon enough, and we’ll be right back at the well for more credit.”

“I’ve always appreciated your appetite.”

Randy winked and slid down into the Mercedes. Jeanne blew Jason a kiss and waved.

Jason sifted through his currency for a five for the valet. He heard the purr of his BMW rolling up and watched it, enjoying the shape and blue tint of the headlights and the spin of the glinting chrome wheels. The valet stepped out, and the engine droned just right.

Jason got in and nearly jammed his knee into the dashboard. Short valet. His fingers found the switch on the side of the seat and it inched backward so he could angle his leg under the steering wheel. He slammed the door and shifted.

Ten o’clock at night, and traffic still persisted on Santa Monica Boulevard. As he accelerated into the flow, a Hummer’s wide eyeballs grew in his rearview mirror, high and dazzling, washing the whole cab of the BMW in brightness and seeping into the side mirror, pounding his eyes.

He changed lanes, and the Hummer moved next to him, high as a house. A glance at the driver revealed a woman perched up there, thirtysomething, ponytail and upturned nose. As she passed him, he saw the padded plastic of a kid’s car seat in back, empty. His mind pieced together this information, slotted her and her hubby in the same category he and Serena planned to occupy one day.

Or used to.

He downshifted and felt the engine whine, then surged around a Honda crouched around its tires by the weight of four passengers.

The house would be silent. Not even a housecat’s distant appreciation of his arrival.

A sign shaped like a blue shield with a red bar across the top announced that he could reach the 10 freeway by making a left down Fourth Street. He shifted and eased into the turn and probed his mind for something to take his thoughts away from the emptiness of the house.

An eighteen-million-dollar payoff. The idea of it knotted him up. He could feel the impact of it on his numbers, dropping his division’s loan totals by—what?—five percent. It would set his growth back again. Runoff of his loans was like a seeping wound. You had to keep pressure on it or pretty soon you got weak and your earnings grew faint.

He made his left and took the on-ramp, pushing the Bimmer hard, shifting like it would speed him away from Vince’s competition, and for a moment it worked as the power of the engine seemed to lift the tires off the pavement, the car jumping with each pop of the clutch, engine screaming to the top of second, then surging into third, and he was faster than the flow of traffic by the time he reached the end of the on-ramp. He sped into fourth, passing a semi and a lumbering SUV and gliding across the lanes like a gazelle among wildebeests.

* * *

Flip forced himself away from the wall, bringing with his jacket the frame of a picture that rattled back to its place, dangling crookedly. With eyes accustomed to the darkness, he regarded it, an off-kilter rectangle offending the other dark angles of the room. He brought a gloved hand up to the corner of the frame and righted it.

Facing the blocky shapes of the kitchen, he looked over the shadowed room. The countertops hosted obscure contours of appliances he tried to associate. A blender, a coffeemaker. A toaster. A bowl with apples or oranges huddling inside. A knife rack angling the handles upward for unsheathing.

He turned.

The staircase ramped upward, beckoning him into greater blackness. He ran his glove along the banister, a touch light as a lover’s caress, rising into the place where the bedrooms would be.

He caught himself rushing. He wanted out of here. He wanted to be back out in the expansive night. The walls seemed to crowd him and box him like a trapped rabbit.

Slow down. Slow. This will be easy.

But still his heart leaped in his chest, making the blood pound in his temples. Out, out—he wanted out.

Three bedrooms vied for his attention. With his penlight he eyed each one. The larger room with the king-size bed and walk-in closet, with its private bath and double sinks—this would be the one. This was the bedroom of a banker and a lawyer.

* * *

Jason steered the BMW down the off-ramp, glided into the turn clutch in, and downshifted, engaging the engine to rev and drop his speed. Stopped alone at the light at the off-ramp’s terminus, he felt the idle through his back and rump, smooth power constrained. He wiggled the gear shift absently, then plunged it into first and waited for the green.

Nearly ten o’clock now.

He got his light and drove onto Robertson, northbound, past Hamilton High. He’d hoped for green lights this time of night, but after being stopped twice, he made a left and began hopping street to street, climbing the hills toward Beverlywood. He managed the gears approaching each speed bump and stop sign like a hurdler would manage his strides, slowing for the bumps just enough to avoid bottoming out and tapping the brake in deference to the stop lines in the street before gliding past into each empty intersection.

He made his right onto Bagley, and after a quick left on David, steered onto Guthrie and entered his neighborhood. Slowing, he loosened himself from his seat belt and let it snap into place behind his shoulder, feeling the familiarity of his street settle his nerves like it always did.

He reached up to the visor to trigger the garage-door opener and pressed the button as he brought the wheels around to enter the driveway.

The garage door faced him, unmoving.

He pressed the button again.

Nothing.

What now?

The pulled the car right up to the garage, lights reflecting straight back from the panel of the door, and turned to the visor and crushed the button five times. The garage door stood stubbornly before him.

He cranked the key to switch off the engine and jerked the parking brake on. Teeth grinding, he stepped out and slammed the door, marching around to the front door while he sifted his keychain for the door key he rarely used.

No porch light. The street light nearby was enfolded by a tree, so he had to tilt the keys until he found the silver gleam of the one he wanted. Its nose blindly poked for the keyhole until it finally slipped in. He turned it and opened the door, one hand reaching inside for the switch that would turn on the light in the foyer.

His fingers found it, and he flicked it up.