King Con (41 page)

“Nobody seems to be part of it,” he said. “We got a first here, a crime with no criminals.”

“I’ll call you in the morning before it goes down,” she said, and hung up on him.
What a jerk.

She’d picked Stuart Bates up at the airport at eleven-thirty, and they had gone directly to a motel that was a few blocks from the Big Store. He’d asked for a room with a bathtub. Once they were inside, he had insisted that she take off all her clothes. She had hesitated, but then thought,
What the fuck
, and threw caution and her clothes away. She stood naked before him. He looked at her beautiful body and tried to decide which areas to pad.

“I’m gonna give ya the cellulite transformation, a big stern, and thunder thighs,” he said. Then he handed her a robe. He poured three bags of plaster of Paris into the tub and had her sit on a chair in the bathroom with her head tipped back in the sink while he made a face mold.

“Okay,” he said, “I’m going to give you body padding. I brought some in the huge suitcase. Try it on; we’ll probably have to tailor it, but you’ll wear it under clothes so it should work. Your hands are going to be tough, a real giveaway. Hopefully, he won’t look at them too closely. We’ll get a pant suit for you to wear, with pockets. Keep your hands in your pockets to hide them. I don’t have time for the hand appliances. I’ll do chin,
cheeks, and neck. You can look through that suitcase for a wig.”

They had started at twelve-fifty in the morning, and seven hours later the sun was up, and he was just applying the finishing touches. She was sitting in a motel bathroom four blocks from the Perm Mutual Building while he fine-tuned the eye makeup and powder-dusted the glued-on appliances. She watched in fascination; he had transformed her into a fat, middle-aged woman with three chins. In high school, Victoria had developed a very funny imitation of her history teacher, Miss Laura Luna. She had been rather large and had a breathy but slightly squeaky voice. Victoria needed a new persona so that Tommy wouldn’t recognize her. She decided to resurrect Miss Luna.

Stuart had picked up some size 15 clothes and she had selected a dark blue pant suit, with pockets. It also hid the leg and stomach padding, which were held on with Velcro. The whole contraption weighed over thirty pounds.

She was sweating under it as she cabbed the four blocks to the Penn Mutual Building and took the service elevator up to the twenty-fifth floor. Her FBI tail didn’t recognize the woman who hurried past them to the cab stand. Instead, they stayed and watched the empty motel room. She dashed into the President’s office just two minutes ahead of Beano and Tommy. Now, with almost no time to get set and settle down, she was face to face with Tommy Rina.

“I’m sorry, I can’t meet with anybody right now,” Victoria told the ugly mobster.

“Hey, lady.” Tommy took a menacing step forward. “Who the fuck you think you’re talking to?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said, in her breathy soprano. “I’ve never seen you before in my life. But
I’m going to insist you leave my office or I’ll have to call Security. I’m preparing for a meeting with our million-dollar shareholders and I only have a few minutes to review Mr. Lacy’s notes.”

“I own a million dollars’ worth a’this oil company,” he said, and he yanked open his briefcase and thrust the stock certificates at Victoria.

She looked at them.” This is only a hundred thousand shares. The stock is trading at just under six. That means the market value of these certificates is only about six hundred thousand.”

“The fuck,” Tommy said, “y’mean I’m still losing money?”

“Please leave my office,” she said insistently.

Beano pulled Tommy aside and whispered to him, “If the stock goes down, that’s good for us. Means we can buy more for our money. Forget the first million,” he whispered, “we’re talking about
billions.
”

Tommy pulled back and looked at Beano. Finally he seemed to connect to that. He nodded.

Beano thought he needed to slow the pace slightly. He had never played a mark who had less understanding of business. “We’re interested in buying control of this company,” Beano said to Victoria.

“And just who might you be?”

Beano thought Victoria’s makeup was a bit too heavy. At one spot, it looked like it had been put on with a trowel to cover the neck appliances. Then Tommy said something to Victoria that jerked him back.

“Don’t I know you?” he blurted. “We met someplace before?”

“I’m sure not,” Victoria asked.

“Yeah … yeah, I’m sure. Florida? You ever been to Florida?”

“What do you mean, you want to buy the company?”
she said, abruptly changing subjects. “That’s hardly possible at this point.”

“Miss Luna, is it?” Beano said and she turned to him. “I know you’ve got a bunch of angry stockholders convening here this morning. These people want their money back. I happen to know they all hold Class-A Preferred Stock, same as Mr. Rina here. And somebody, some insider, must be selling it fast to push the price down like this.”

“I can’t discuss insider business,” she said.

“Now the other stockholders can’t sell without flooding the market and driving the price to nothing. Since they’re all stuck holding this plunging stock, I think they’re going to want you to liquidate assets. If they vote this morning to do that, then you’re going to have to start selling stuff like the Tennessee land, and if that happens on top of this falling stock price, even the Vancouver Stock Exchange is going to panic and freeze everything, maybe even de-list the security. You’re in a horrible fix, Miss Luna. You should be treating us like saviors. We happen to be the only buyers in a market full of sellers,” Beano grinned.

“I still don’t know who you are,” Victoria said.

“This is Mr. Rina, a respected businessman. I used to work here until I was fired for doing my job. I’m a geologist, Dr. Douglas Clark.”

“Oh, yes. Seems to me I read that termination slip. So now what’s your story? You trying to buy the company and teach us all a lesson?”

“I’m trying to offer a solution, not a lesson.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think selling you the company at a distressed price is a very good business solution … at least, not this morning. As the corporate CFO, I’m empowered to negotiate deals for FCP&G, but I hardly intend to take advantage of that power until Chip Lacy gets better and can offer his opinion.”

“What’s she saying?” Tommy asked, leaning forward in his loafers like a railbird at the Aqueduct finish line.

“I happen to know this company is falling apart,” Beano exploded at her, losing his temper. “You people haven’t been bringing in new wells. Your field development costs are killing your cash flow. You haven’t even been paying your bills. Don’t stand there and preach to me about good business solutions.”

“I think you need to get ahold of yourself, Dr. Clark. You were fired for meddling in a financial matter that was not your concern. Now, obviously, you’re harboring the fantasy of buying us and firing everybody to get even. Revenge and retribution? Is that the plan?” she said, her voice rising in indignation to match his.

“The West Coast Platform Drilling Company was hired by me!” Beano screamed. “Donovan Martin was my friend. We had a contractual obligation to him, and all I did was—”

Then the door opened and Teo X. Bates entered the room. He was tall and broad shouldered. He had been doing land scams in the Phoenix area and flew in to work Beano’s sting. Following Teo into the room was a driveway specialist from Simi Valley, California, named Luther X. Bates.

“Everything okay in here?” Teo said, looking suspiciously at Beano and Tommy. “We heard shouting.”

“Perhaps these gentlemen would like to leave now,” Victoria said.

“I own a hundred thousand shares a’this company,” Tommy said. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Victoria looked at him unpleasantly, then seemed to relent. “Maybe if you’d wait in another office for a minute. Perhaps I can arrange for you to be included in the preferred stockholders’ meeting.”

As Tommy turned to leave, Beano gave Victoria a
lingering look. She held it for a minute, then winked at him and shrugged. Tommy pulled him out of the office. It was then that Beano saw Alex Cordosian standing there, out of breath. He had just arrived.

“They’re gonna let us in the stockholders’ meeting,” Tommy grinned.

“The reason I’m late is I’ve been making some calls. You can’t just walk in here and buy this place. I can’t get any banking information on this outfit. You don’t know what the debt obligation of this company is…. What if they owe a hundred million against a bunch of devalued assets? You’re gonna be liable for all their loans.” Tommy blinked his lizard eyes at the Armenian attorney. “What if there are outstanding claims by other subs?” Alex continued. “What if there’s hundreds of millions in lawsuits pending? You don’t know what you’re buying. You could be buying a long-term headache. I’m determined to point these things out to you,” he lectured. “You can threaten me, but I owe you my best judgment. Your brother would never plunge blindly like this, believe me.” That sentence, more than all the others, snapped Tommy’s eyes wider.

“Did you check on all that Tennessee land, did you call about that?” Beano asked hotly.

“Yes, I talked to the Clerk in Fentress County. The company does have a land grant title for the acreage, and I did feel better when I confirmed that, but there’s no current value for the land listed. The land grant goes all the way back to the Civil War.”

“There’s more value here than they even begin to suspect,” Beano whispered intently, turning Tommy so Ellen seemingly couldn’t hear. “Don’t forget all that oil in the ground. The largest stratigraphic trap ever located.” He led Tommy away from the secretary’s desk and out of earshot.

But Alex kept following and buzzing, “How much is
the oil field really worth? You don’t know, nobody knows. You don’t even really know there’s crude down there, you just have this guy’s word for it. What if it’s just a pocket well?”

“A what?” Tommy asked.

“It’s no pocket well,” Beano corrected. “Are you kidding? I’ve worked the seismics on this acreage for eighteen months. We’ve got at least a six-acre pool down there. The flow pressure tests were incredible.”

“I saw it. I saw the oil,” Tommy said.

“How much?” Alex asked. He was cooking now, he could see indecision clouding Tommy’s narrow thoughts. “Did you see a billion barrels’ worth, like he said?”

“You don’t have to see it. I know it’s there. That’s what geology is about,” Beano hissed angrily.

“I didn’t see it,” Tommy said, “but I got a decanter full.”

“Oh, a decanter. Well, great, that’s gotta be worth about two bucks. You can’t do this.”

“Look, you,” Beano said, leaning in on the lawyer, who pulled back in fear. “I don’t need all this sarcasm from you. I worked to prove that field for almost two years. You don’t know what you’re talking about. In half an hour this opportunity goes away.”

“I’ve been in a few oil deals in my life, and they’re not done like this. This is nuts. I called some friends of mine back east this morning. They think this company went bankrupt in the late seventies.”

“Bankrupt in the seventies?” Beano sputtered.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy this eventually, just slow down. Joe never buys stuff quick. He always says, ‘If there’s a clock anywhere in the deal, then let the buyer beware.’”

“Joe says that?” Tommy asked.

“If this is an up-and-up deal, it will be for sale tomorrow
or next week. You don’t have to buy it now. If you insist, we can negotiate an option today, preserve all your rights, and then, after I’ve checked it out, we can let go of the cash.”

It was a solution that would never work for Beano. Alex would surely discover the fraud if given enough time to investigate. Beano had to up the stakes…. So, he moved back to Ellen’s desk, borrowed a pencil, and wrote a note for her while Alex was slowly getting Tommy to reconsider.

“What’s it matter if you buy it today? Look, big purchases don’t happen like this. You don’t roll in with a suitcase full of cash and plunk it down. That’s insane. Do it the way Joe would do it. Do it smart.” Alex had finally found the right tune to play, and Tommy was listening and nodding.

Beano handed the note to Ellen. She read it and stood up. “You can wait in Mr. Spencer’s office while Miss Luna gets the approval for you to attend the meeting,” she said, as she showed them to a nearby office.

They entered and looked out of the huge plate-glass window. Across the street, the Exxon double locking
x’s
were shining. Ellen left them in the office and closed the door. Then she handed Beano’s note to her husband, Steve.
Rig a chill and play the cross-fire
, the note read.

There was a computer in the office where they were waiting. Tommy watched as Beano turned it on and booted it up.

“I’m telling you,” Alex went on relentlessly, “we can hold our dirt. If they’re really in cash trouble, time is working for us, not against us.”

Beano had the Quotron stock report up, and he motioned to Tommy and Alex.

“Look’t this,” he said, and he punched in FCP&G and they watched the stock ticker report. “This stock
was trading at ten yesterday, this morning it’s down to five and seven eighths and whoa, no … look’t this …”

Tommy leaned in and, as they talked, he saw the stock drop from five and seven-eighths to five and three-fourths. Again, Victoria’s program had overridden the real Quotron ticker, and Fentress County fell right before their eyes.

“This fucking thing is dropping faster than a bad tit job,” Tommy said, glaring at the screen.

“Mr. Rina,” Beano said, “I don’t mean to stand here and argue with Mr. Cordosian, brilliant in legal matters as I’m sure he is, but I’ve been in the oil business for fifteen years. This stock is about to get frozen by the Vancouver Exchange. An insider is obviously dumping stock without notifying the Board. They’ve gotta be looking at this. A stock goes from ten to five and three-quarters, loses almost half its value in one day, and you don’t think the Exchange is gonna stop trading and delist it? Once that happens, we are absolutely out of the game. Maybe your brother thinks if there’s a clock in a deal there’s a problem, but I’m sure he wasn’t contemplating a foreign stock exchange taking the whole transaction out of our hands. We have one hell of an opportunity here. But we’ve gotta suck it up, be a little brave, and move now.”