“Who made that rule?” Cole asked.
“Jennings … Lou Donofrio is affiliated with an organization.”
“What organization?”
“The organization formed to control the sale of milk in this area.”
“In other words, there is a conspiracy.”
Lyman sighed loudly. “Call it what you want. Lou Donofrio is a part of it.”
“Okay. But Louis Donofrio is represented by me, and I will have to consent to anything you negotiate.”
Lyman nodded. “I guess you think you’re a tough guy.”
That was Wednesday. On Sunday the body of Louis Donofrio was found in the trunk of a car abandoned in the Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.
VII
“Goddamnit!” Dave barked. “When you’ve got a problem like that, you should check with me. I know ways to—”
“Cope with the Mafia?”
“It’s not Mafia. Forget Mafia. I’m not sure there is any such thing. But there are groups of wiseguys who form conspiracies to—”
“Control, for Christ’s sake, the sale of milk?” Emily asked.
“Any market. The sale of anything. Cole … They’re moving in on the banking and securities businesses! There isn’t any business they won’t assault. And you know how they work it? Violence. Or the threat of violence. They’re all standing up in line now, that bunch. And so are the guys who haul and sell milk. They take notice of what happened to Lou Donofrio, and they march to orders. That’s the way it is.”
“Well, what could I have done about it?”
“Cole … The key is money. We could have bought Donofrio out of the problem. We could have bought it! We could have bought off the wiseguys. We could have bought off the friggin’ district attorney. He wouldn’t be the first one bought off. And for small fry like Donofrio it wouldn’t have cost all that much. You confronted those bastards. Their goddamned honor was at stake! No … forget honor. Their goddamned credibilaty was at stake. And that they can’t risk.”
Alexandra shook her head. “Cole. You can’t play honest small-town lawyer in this league.”
“Is there any league left where I can play it?” Cole asked bitterly.
“Yeah,” she said. “Minor leagues. Very minor.”
“You want to come in with me on a business deal?” Dave asked. “Alexandra and I have a deal in mind. It may be worth a hundred fortunes. You’re too damned good a lawyer, Cole, to be screwin’ around with a small-town practice in Wyckoff, New Jersey. How’d you like a share in a business that might come to … Well. It might become a significant new industry.”
“I might as well,” Cole said. “I sure didn’t do Tony DeFelice any good.”
“I’m damned sorry about that,” said Dave. “You’re a good lawyer, Cole. But, you stick with what you know. I’d like you to work on a corporate deal.”
“I’m not a specialist—”
“My friend, you’re a specialist as far as I’m concerned.”
“But why me? There must be thousands of lawyers in Manhattan who—”
“I want somebody I can trust. I want a friend.”
They were in the Sheas’ Manhattan apartment, where they felt more comfortable, there being no children. Alexandra had not sent out for food. She had a pork roast in the oven. Their predinner drinks were half-frozen vodka. She had a Russian’s taste for caviar, and a generous supply of it lay in a crystal bowl.
“You’ll have to see a demonstration of the Reitsch software to see what business we have in mind,” said Alexandra. “But … business. Enough for tonight. How do you like your rings by now, Emily?”
Emily took that for a clue, which it was, and lifted off her sweater and exposed her breasts. She smiled shyly.
“My engagement ring,” she said.
She had in fact had the ring in her left nipple cut and her diamond engagement ring inserted in it. It hung from the nipple ring.
FIFTEEN
I
MAY, 1992
“The deal,” Dave said to Hermann Reitsch, “is that we form a corporation. We issue shares of stock. I can find investors who will buy it. You will then have the cash to continue your development and build the system that will bring ships of any size into major ports in varying conditions of wind and weather.”
“Who controls this corporation?” Reitsch asked.
“We do. You will be president and chief executive officer. I will have no office. My name will not be on the corporation.”
“But it should be.”
“No. I think I’ve explained that. My bank would take the position that I am investing in competition with it.”
“But who will invest?”
“I have interested investors. Part of the money will come from overseas.”
“I am happy to say that your friend Mr. Jennings was most impressed,” said Reitsch.
“And his word will be accepted by some very wealthy people.”
II
One of them was Julian Musgrave, the owner of Musgrave Enterprises, Incorporated, which now owned seven automobile agencies.
They sat over Italian food in a restaurant in Bayonne. Julian Musgrave was in his late sixties now. He had not lost his exuberance. Nor his taste for Chianti and Italian veal.
“You’re looking for a hell of a lot of money,” he said.
“I’m looking for ten percent of what’s going into it,” said Dave.
“Both of you guys are convinced that this damned thing is—”
“There’s no such thing as certainty,” Dave interrupted. “But if I believe in it and Cole believes in it, it’s worth a commitment.”
“Worth a risk,” said Cole.
“What are you guys putting in it?” Musgrave asked.
Dave grinned. “You weren’t born yesterday,” he said. “You know I can’t publicly invest in an idea my bank turned down on my recommendation. Hell, they wouldn’t have underwritten the funding anyway. But they wouldn’t take that into consideration.”
Julian Musgrave invested three million dollars in the Reitsch idea.
When he had left the restaurant, Dave shrugged and said to Cole, “Hell. He can afford it:”
III
Alexandra sat across a table from Bob Leeman in a Czech restaurant on the Upper East Side.
Leeman looked at her. “It’s okay. Y’ know. I understand that Dave can’t be seen talking to me.”
“It’s an idiot goddamned world,” she said.
His bald head—she suspected he shaved what little hair he had left—gleamed even in the dim candlelight of the restaurant. As always he didn’t drink and didn’t eat meat, which was not the easiest thing to do in a restaurant known for its excellent food and wine. How he had managed over the years literally to rape the financial markets and never to be suspected or charged was beyond her. And his stable of little girls that he used and then educated.
One of them was an associate in a fine Manhattan law firm. One was an investment banker. Three were advertising executives. One was a confidence artist with no other definition. The world was a strange place.
“We have come up with an opportunity,” said Alexandra. “I can explain it to you, or I can take you to see a demonstration of it. We are looking for ten million dollars. Dave and I think you could put in three. We ourselves are going to risk five.”
Leeman grinned. “From Zurich?”
“From wherever. And I won’t ask where your money will come from.”
“I wouldn’t consider an invitation to invest that much money if it came from somebody else.”
She smiled. “We have a record, Bob.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We are going to take control of a marvelous new technology that is potentially worth hundreds of millions.”
“Not Sphere,” he said sarcastically.
“No, and not the ladies’ undergarments business.”
“Don’t scorn that. I wish I had been in that at the outset.”<
br />
“They would have eaten you alive,” she told him.
“You think so?”
“If they could have eaten us, they could have eaten you. Dave has gotten … reasonably powerful with assets since you and he did business. He’s grateful to you, I might tell you. If not for the goddamned bank, you and he would be associates.”
“But he needs Harcourt Barnham to—”
“You know why he needs Harcourt Barnham. Let’s don’t play around, Bob. You want to hear about this deal? Or not?”
IV
Leeman wanted to hear about the deal, but he also had something more in mind. He invited Dave to a lunch in a suite in the Waldorf, where he said other investors would be present.
No others were present. Dave was not quite sure how to take that. He accepted drinks and hors d’oeuvres and stared down at the street from the windows, wondering what Bob Leeman had in mind. The man did nothing without a purpose.
“Somebody is here to see you,” said Leeman eventually.
He opened the door to a bedroom. A striking young woman came out, dressed in black: tiny minidress with deep décolletage and skirt halfway between her knees and crotch, black sheer panty hose, and shiny stiletto-heeled shoes. She was small, as he had not forgotten, but she had distinctly matured since the last time he saw her.
“Remember her, Dave?”
“Janelle …”
“All grown-up,” she said.
She was in fact, grown-up. Twenty-four years old now and no longer the teenager Leeman had given Dave in 1983, Janelle had developed into an extraordinarily beautiful young woman.
She still worked for Leeman, though—apparently.
“Guess what she does now,” said Leeman. “You said you wanted her to have an education and were willing to pay for it. I said I’d take care of that, and I did. Janelle graduated from MIT with a degree in mathematics. She’s a systems designer. She’s a hell of a lot smarter than I used to think she was.”
“Systems designer … ?”
“You know the difference between an architect and a carpenter?” she asked, casually pouring herself a drink of Black Label scotch. “It’s the same as the difference between a computer systems designer and a programmer.”
“You’ve done damned well,” said Dave.
“Well … he asked me to meet you again. I guess I owe him that much.”
“She knows the name Hermann Reitsch,” said Leeman.
The meeting began to be meaningful. “What do you know of him?” Dave asked.
“He’s an eccentric computer guru,” said Janelle. “He’s developed the system you’re asking Bob to invest in, and of course he’s desperately short of money. From all I know of the thing, it just might work. It just might.”
“In which case, it’s worth the risk, she tells me,” said Leeman.
Janelle crossed her legs. She was no more concerned about modesty than she had been when she was presented to him as a stark-naked teenaged girl. Her legs were slender and sleek, and she exposed them all the way to her hips. She took a pack, of cigarettes and a lighter from her purse and lit a cigarette.
“She’s developed a bad habit,” said Leeman.
“I’ll stop smoking when someone makes it worth my while,” she said nonchalantly.
“Do you think Hermann Reitsch would let her see his idea?” Leeman asked.
Dave raised his chin high. “It could be arranged, I suppose.”
“Okay. Why don’t you do that? And … uh … I’ve got things to do. Why don’t you two enjoy the bar and the buffet? I’ll talk to you later.”
Leeman left, abruptly.
“Well …” said Janelle. “I guess we should renew an old friendship.”
She pulled her dress over her head. She was wearing a rigid black bra that forced her breasts up into unnatural points and formed her shadowy décolletage. She unhooked the bra and dropped it, loosing her big, firm breasts.
“God, girl …”
“We never got very far back then,” she said.
“I couldn’t take a chance on getting a fifteen-year-old girl pregnant.”
“I was seventeen,” she said.
“Fifteen, I checked it out.”
“But didn’t you want it? I mean, didn’t you want to put your cock in me?”
“Of course I did. Sure I did.”
“Okay. You’re hung like a horse. And I’m a big girl now and on The Pill. Do you want to fuck me, Dave?”
He could hardly speak. He was mesmerized. He nodded.
She smiled lazily. “Well, then …”
She took his hand and led the way. She kicked off her shoes and took off her panties. She left on her lace-topped hosiery. She lay on her back on the bed and spread herself.
He hurried to get out of his clothes. He was hugely, almost painfully, erect. He straddled the grinning young woman and lowered himself into her. Her black pubic hair was thick and coarse, and the rough feel of it almost got him off. Her slit was wet and smooth, though, and he was able to thrust deeply into her before he came.
Janelle sighed heavily. “You don’t call that fuckin’, do you?”
Dave chuckled. “It was for me. But now we get down to serious work. I’m good for four or five times.”
“You better be,” she muttered. “And how about doggy style next? I’m not much for the missionary position.”
V
When Dave told Alexandra he was going back to New Rochelle to meet again with the Reitschs, she said she didn’t care to go. He was glad. He wasn’t sure how she was going to like Janelle. Also, he wanted an hour or so alone with Janelle.
Rain was windswept and pouring when they were to go to New Rochelle, so he rented a car, picked up Janelle at her apartment, and drove. Traffic was heavy on I-95, and tricky in the driving rain. It didn’t help his concentration when Janelle opened his pants, put her face down in his lap, and began stroking and sucking his penis.
He had to wonder about something: Was she a nymphomaniac, or did she have a design to destroy his marriage and have him for herself? The latter idea was a good one, but he had to remember he was not just Alexandra’s husband; they were partners, and she knew a lot about him. And he knew she would not let go of him.
When they arrived at the Reitsches’ apartment Sara immediately offered Scotch to Janelle. The taste of what she had coaxed out of his cock still lingered in her mouth, and she hated to wash it away with Scotch whiskey and soda.
They were not invited to the apartment for dinner; it was too late for that; and Reitsch turned abruptly to the business at hand. “I am glad to see Miss Griffith,” he said, “but please explain to me again just why you have brought her.”
Dave nodded. “Miss Griffith is a graduate of MIT and a recognized systems designer. She works often as a consultant. In this instance, a man seriously considering investing three million dollars in your idea has retained her to look at it and make him a recommendation: Should he invest or not?”
Reitsch looked at Janelle. “You understand my caution,” he said.
It was not easy to believe this very young woman, beautiful and stylish, was a heavyweight consultant in systems design. She had made no concessions and was wearing a shiny bright red minidress, black panty hose, and black shoes.
Janelle sipped Scotch and smiled casually. “You are afraid I will steal your idea,” she said. “Not an unrealistic concern. But I doubt I could—particularly not after a single demonstration.”
“I was not quite … thinking in those terms,” said Reitsch.
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
“I spoke of ten million dollars,” Dave said. “I have six. The man she advises is ready to commit three million more, making nine. I don’t know where we are going to get the other million, but—” He shrugged. “We will do it.”
Reitsch switched on his equipment. The screens lighted up. The Verrazano Narrows entrance to New York Harbor appeared as it had before, and Dave noted with some concern that this was prob
ably the only harbor entrance the man had programmed. That would mean also that the handling characteristics of what he fancifully called the Exxon Reitsch were the only ones entered in his computers.
Would ten million dollars bring the system up to market feasibility?
Well … Reitsch had spent what he thought was a lot of money to get this far; but it was probably not more than half a million dollars, if that. With ten million—
Janelle sat down at the keyboard. Reitsch put the ship in motion. She immediately grasped the concept, but she scraped a bridge pier just the same. On her third try she brought the huge tanker safely through to the pier—but crashed into the pier and presumably caused a spill and fire.
She lost interest in steering then and began to question Reitsch about how he designed the program and what equipment he was using and how.
“Will it offend you if I tell you I think you can probably make more effective use of resources?” she asked Reitsch. She accepted another Scotch from Sara. “There have been some very recent developments in data compression. You can shove data through the circuits faster.”
Reitsch smiled tolerantly. “If you have the money,” he said. “These things are dear.”
“How much money?” Dave asked.
“Well … if we have access to millions as you are suggesting, we can do all of this and more.”
“The big expense will be in collecting the data,” said Dave. “You can’t spend millions on jazzing up the machine and be left without enough to make the videotapes of the ports.”
Reitsch looked at Janelle, as if to invite support. “A million and a half, maybe just a million and a quarter, for the machine,” he said.
“Not unrealistic,” said Janelle.
“Then you’ll have to move into spiffy quarters,” Dave went on. “You’ll have to design and print sales materials. There are a lot of expenses.”
“You think maybe it’s not feasible?” Sara asked, crestfallen.
“I’m not saying that. I am saying you will have to accept cost control. You are a genius, Mr. Reitsch. You will be impatient with the bean counters. But you’ll need them, and you’ll have to do a lot of the things they say.”
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