Paper Money (10 page)

"If you would, Valerie." Fett nodded to his secretary. and she went out.

"The desk--no, I never use it. Everything I write is dictated; nothing I

read is too heavy to hold in my hands; why should I sit at a desk like a

clerk in Dickens?"

"So it is for decoration."

"It's been here longer than I. Too big to get out through the door and

too valuable to chop up. I think they built the place around it."

Hamilton smiled. Valerie brought in his milk and went out again. He

sipped and studied his friend. Fett and his office matched: both were

small but not dwarfish, dark but not gloomy, relaxed without being

frivolous. The man had heavy-rimmed glasses and brilliantined hair. He

wore a club tie, a mark of social acceptability: it was the only Jewish

thing about him, Hamilton thought wryly.

He put his glass down and said: "Were you reading about me?"

"Just skimming. A predictable reaction. Ten years ago, results like that

from a company like Hamilton would have made waves from audio shares to

zinc prices. Today, it's just another conglomerate in trouble. There's a

word for it: recession." Hamilton sighed. "Why do we do it, Nathaniel?"

"I beg your pardon?" Fett was startled.

He shrugged. "Why do we overwork, lose sleep, risk fortunes?"

"And get ulcers." Fett smiled, but a subtle change had come over his

demeanor. His eyes narrowed behind the pebble-len sed spectacles, and he

smoothed the bristly hair at the back of his head in a gesture Hamilton

recognized to be defensive. Fett was retiring into his role as a careful

adviser, a friendly counsel with an objective viewpoint.

But his reply was measuredly casual. "To make money.

What else?"

Hamilton shook his head. His friend always had to be beckoned twice

before stepping into deeper water. "Sixth-form economics," he said

derisively. "I would have made more profit if I'd sold my inheritance

and put it into the Post Office. Most people who own large businesses

could live very comfortably for the rest of their lives by doing that.

Why do we conserve our fortunes, and try to enlarge them? Is it greed,

or power, or adventure? Are we all compulsive gamblers?" Fett said: "I

suppose Ellen has been saying this kind of thing to you."

Hamilton laughed. "You're right, but it pains me that you think I'm

incapable of such ponderings on my own."

"Oh, I don't doubt you mean it. It's just that Ellen has a way of saying

what you are thinking.

All the same, you wouldn't be repeating these things to me if they

hadn't struck a chord." He paused. "Derek, be careful not to lose

Ellen."

They stared at one another for a moment, then they both looked away.

There was silence. They had reached the limit of intimacy permitted by

their friendship.

Eventually Fett said: "We might get a cheeky bid in the next few days."

Hamilton was surprised. "Why?"

"Someone might think he can pick you up at a bargain price, while you're

depressed and panicked by the interim results."

"What would your advice be, then?" Hamilton asked thoughtfully.

"It depends on the offer. But I'd probably say "Wait." We should know

today whether you've won the oil field license."

"Shield."

"Yes. Win that, and your shares will strengthen."

"We're still a poor prospect for profits."

"But ideal material for an asset stripper." "Interesting," Hamilton

mused. "A gambler would make the bid today, before the Minister'S

announcement. An opportunist would do it to morrow, if we win the

license. A genuine investor would wait until next week."

"And a wise man would say no to all of them." Hamilton smiled. "Money

isn't everything, Nathaniel."

"Good lord!"

"Is that so heretical?"

"Not at all." Fett was amused, and his eyes sparkled behind the

spectacles. "I've known it for years. What surprises me is that you

should say it."

"It surprises me, too." Hamilton paused. "A matter of curiosity: do you

think we'll get the license?"

"Can't say." Suddenly the broker's face was unreadable again. "Depends

whether the Minister believes it should go to an already-profitable

company as a bonus, or to an ailing one as a life belt "Hm. Neither, I

suspect. Remember, we only head the syndicate: it's the total package

that counts. The Hamilton section, in control, provides City contacts

and management expertise. We'll raise the development money, rather than

supply it out of our own pocket. Others in the team offer engineering

skills, oil experience, marketing facilities, and so on."

"So you've a good chance." Hamilton smiled again. "Socrates."

"Why?"

"He always made people answer their own questions." Hamilton lifted his

heavy frame out of the chair. "I must go."

Fett walked to the door with him. "Derek, about Ellen, I hope you don't

mind my saying ..."

"No." They shook hands. "I value your judgment."

Fett nodded, and opened the door. "Whatever you do, don't panic."

"Okey-do key As he went out, Hamilton realized that he had not used that

expression for thirty years.

Two MOTORCYCLE police parked their machines either side of the rear

entrance to the bank. One of them produced an identity card and held it

flat against the small window beside the door. The man inside read the

card carefully, then picked up a red telephone and spoke into it.

A black van without markings drove between the motorcycles and stopped

with its nose to the door. The side windows of its cab were fitted with

wire mesh internally, and the two men inside wore police-type uniforms

with crash helmets and transparent visors. The body of the van had no

windows, despite the fact that there was a third man in there.

Two more police bikes drew up behind the van, completing the convoy.

The steel door to the building lifted smoothly and noiselessly, and the

van pulled in. It was in a short tunnel, brightly lit by fluorescent

tubes. Its way was blocked by another door identical with the first.

The van stopped and the door behind closed. The police motorcyclists

remained in the street.

The van driver wound his window down and spoke through the wire mesh

into a microphone on a stand. "Morning," he said cheerfully.

There was a large plate-glass window in one wall of the tunnel. Behind

the window, which was bulletproof, a bright-eyed man in shirtsleeves

spoke into another microphone. His amplified words resonated in the

confined space. "Code word, please."

The driver, whose name was Ron Biggins, said "Obadiah." The Controller

who had set up to day's run was a deacon in a Baptist church.

The shirt sleeved man pressed a large red button in the white-painted

wall behind him, and the second steel door slid upward. Ron Biggins

muttered: "Miserable. sod," and eased the van forward. Again the steel

door closed behind it.

It was now in a windowless room in the bowels of the building. Most of

the floor space was occupied by a turntable. The room was otherwise

empty. Ron steered carefully onto the marked tracks and switched off his

engine. The turntable jerked, and the van moved slowly through 180

degrees then stopped.

The rear doors were now opposite the elevator in the far wall. As Ron

watched in his wing mirror, the elevator doors parted and a bespectacled

man in a black jacket and striped trousers emerged.

He carried a key, holding it out in front of him as if it were a torch

or a gun. He unlocked the van's rear doors, then they were opened from

the inside. The third guard got out.

Two more men came out of the elevator, carrying between them a

formidable metal box the size of a suitcase. They loaded it into the van

and went back for more.

Ron looked around. The room was bare, apart from its two entrances,

three parallel lines of fluorescent lights, and a vent for the air

conditioning.

It was small, and not quite rectangular.. Ron guessed that few of the

people who worked at the bank would know it was there at all. The

elevator presumably went only to the vault, and the steel door to the

street had no apparent connection with the main entrance around the

corner.

The guard who had been inside, Stephen Younger, came around to the

left-hand side of the van; and Ron's co-driver, Max Fitch, lowered his

window. Stephen said: "Big one today."

"Makes no difference to us," Ron said sourly.

He looked back at his mirror. The loading was finished.

Stephen said to Max: "The gaffer here likes Westerns."

"Yeah?" Max was interested. He had not been here before, and the clerk

in striped trousers did not look like a John Wayne fan. "How do you

know?" he asked.

"Watch. Here he comes."

The clerk came to Ron's window and said: "Move Max spluttered and tried

to cover his laughter.

Stephen went around to the back of the van and got in. The clerk locked

him in.

The three bank employees disappeared into the elevator. Nothing happened

for two or three minutes; then the steel door lifted. Ron fired the

engine and drove into the tunnel. They waited for the inner door to

close and the outer one to open.

Just before they pulled away, Max said into the microphone: "So long,

Laughing Boy."

The van emerged into the street.

The motorcycle escort was ready. They took up their positions, two in

front and two behind, and the convoy headed east.

At a large road junction in East London, the van turned onto the All.

It was watched by a large man in a gray coat with a velvet collar, who

immediately went into a phone booth.

Max Fitch said: "Guess who I just saw."

"No idea."

"Tony Cox."

Ron's expression was blank. "Who's he when he's at home?"

"Used to be a boxer. Good, he was. I saw him knock out Kid Vittorio at

Bethnal Green Baths, it must be ten year ago. Hell of a boy."

Max really wanted to be a detective, but he had failed the police force

intelligence test and gone into security. He read a great deal of crime

fiction, and consequently labored under the delusion that the CID's most

potent weapon was logical deduction. At home he did things like finding

a lipstick-smeared cigarette butt in the ashtray and announcing grandly

that he had reason to believe that Mrs. Ashford from next door had been

in the house.

He shifted restlessly in his seat. "Them cases are what they keep old

notes in, aren't they?"

"Yes," Ron said.

"So we must be going to the destruction plant in Essex," Max said

proudly. "Right, Ron?"

Ron was staring at the outriders in front of the van and frowning. As

the senior member of the team, he was the only one who got told where

they were going. But he was not thinking of the route, or the job, or

even Tony Cox the ex-boxer.

He was trying to figure out why his eldest daughter had fallen in love

with a hippie.

Felix Laski office in Poultry did not display his name anywhere. It was

an old building, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with two others of

different design. Had he been able to get planning permission to knock

it down and build a skyscraper, he could have made millions. Instead it

stood as an example of the way his wealth was locked up. But he reckoned

that, in the long term, peer pressure would blow the lid off planning

restrictions; and he was a patient man where business was concerned.

Almost all of the building was sublet. Most of the tenants were minor

foreign banks who needed an address near Threadneedle Street, and their

names were well displayed. People tended to assume that Laski had

interests in the banks, and he encouraged this error in every way short

of outright lying. Besides, he did own one of the banks.

The furnishings inside were adequate but cheap: solid old typewriters,

shop-soiled filing cabinets, secondhand desks, and the threadbare

minimum of carpet. Like every successful man in middle age, Laski liked

to explain his achievement in aphorisms: a favorite was "I never spend

money.

I invest." It was truer than most dicta of its kind.

His one home, a small mansion in Kent, had been rising in value since he