The CEO

by Peter Ralph

“Perfectly. Do you have a primary password in mind?”

  “Yes, Jasmine1.”

  “Very good, Douglas,” Carradine said, glancing at his watch. “I’m terribly sorry I have another appointment and, unfortunately, I’m not free for dinner tonight, which is rather embarrassing.”

  Aspine breathed a massive sigh of relief. The thought of spending the night with the pompous Philip Carradine, was not something that he’d been looking forward to. “There’ll be another time.”

  “I’m sure there will. I’ll organize to have you dropped at your hotel and picked up in the morning. Is nine o’clock suitable?” Carradine said, picking up the phone.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  The Hyatt Regency Grand Cayman was an up-market, low-rise hotel positioned on Seven Mile Beach. Carradine had booked him into an ocean view executive suite, with spectacular views of the beach, the yachts and cruise boats lolling on the glittering blue sea. The beach was a hive of activity with people, swimming and walking, while the kids played cricket and soccer. The Hyatt had a bar on the beach appropriately named the Beach Bar, and he headed off for an early evening drink.

  “Why don’t you try dark Jamaican rum, Mon?” The barman asked.

  “I’ll have a Jack Daniels, with just a sprinkling of water.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing, Mon.”

  “And I’ve no intention of finding out,” Aspine laughed, downing his whisky in one gulp.

  “Can I get you another?”

  “I’m going for a walk along the beach. I’ll have a thirst by the time I get back.”

  The sun was sinking behind the horizon and its remaining rays bounced off the water’s ripples, creating a kaleidoscope of colour. Island girls frolicked in the shallows in their tiny thong bikinis, catching the last of the sunlight. They had lithe toned bodies, flashing white teeth, and inviting smiles. Such was their beauty that he found it hard to concentrate on any one of them. “Hey, watch out, Mon” the young girl lying on the sand said.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching.” She was about twenty-five, with sun-bleached blonde hair, a broad cheeky smile, tiny nose and the golden brown skin that all the natives seemed to have been blessed with. Her bikini top was bright yellow, and he could see the matching thong under her white shorts.

  “You nearly trod on me,” she giggled. “What accent is that?”

  “I’m Australian.”

  “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi,” she said, bursting into laughter. “I watched the Sydney Olympics on telly. What were you looking at?”

  “The ocean and the setting sun.”

  “Not the pretty girls?”

  “I might have been,” he grinned. “What’s your name, and can I buy you a drink or perhaps dinner?”

  “My name is Simone, and are you trying to pick me up Mr Aussie?” she asked, her big brown eyes glistening with mirth. “Where are you staying?”

  “The name’s Doug and I have a suite at the Hyatt.”

  “We could go the Beach Bar and have a few drinks if you like.”

  “You’ve been there before?”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  As they strolled along the beach, he couldn’t believe how easy she’d been to pick up. If all the girls in the Caymans were like her, maybe he should think about relocating. The bar had filled up, the music was thumping and the dance floor was full of writhing bodies. They managed to get a table near the bar, and the barman winked knowingly at him. “What’ll it be, Mon?”

  “Jack Daniels neat and an ale.”

  “Red Stripe,” Simone interrupted.

  “Yeah, Red Stripe,” Aspine repeated, not knowing that it was the national beer.

  “So what are you doing here, Mr Aussie?” she said, taking a large swig from the bottle of Red Stripe.

  “I have some banking business.”

  “Are you here long?”

  “Only tonight.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking disappointed. “Can I get myself another beer?”

  “Of course,” he said. He’d hardly touched his whisky.

  “What room number will I ask them to charge?”

  “Hang on,” he said, looking in his wallet, “308.”

  She came back with two bottles of Red Stripe. “Saves me getting up again,” she grinned. “You want to dance?”

  “Sure, if you like.”

  The floor was crowded and she gyrated in front of him totally uninhibited, and oblivious to anyone else. He felt her breasts brushing up against his chest and her pelvis thrusting into him. He was sweating heavily but enjoying the pleasant throbbing in his groin. After about ten minutes she said, “Let’s have a drink.” She downed the second bottle of beer and knocked the top off the third. “I have to go to the little girls’ room.”

  “No wonder,” he replied, still sipping his whisky.

  As she left the bar, a strapping bald Jamaican followed her. “What room is he in?”

  “308.”

  Aspine sat at the table, feeling good about myself. She was a lovely looking young girl and better still, she wasn’t a prostitute. He wasn’t drinking heavily; because he didn’t want to spoil what he knew was going to be a fantastic night.

  “Did you miss me?” She giggled, taking a large swig from the remaining bottle of Red Stripe.

  He laughed. “Would you like to see my suite? It has some great views.”

  “So you want to show me the views?”

  “Let’s go,” he smirked.

  They entered his suite and she kicked her shorts off and stood in front of him in a thong bikini that left nothing to the imagination. He flicked through his wallet and found two condom packs and threw them onto the bed, before putting his arms around her, and kissing her passionately. Her lips were wet and warm and her tongue darted in and out of his mouth. He started to remove her bikini top but she pulled away. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’d better get the business out of the way before we start,” she smiled. “It’ll be two hundred dollars for an hour or five hundred all night.”

  “You’re a hooker! You bitch, I kissed you.” he shouted, spitting on the carpet. “I’m not paying anything.” He grabbed her tightly with one hand, while trying to pull her thong down with the other.

  “No,” she screamed.

  “Shut up,” he yelled, placing one hand over her mouth and raising the other as if to punch her. “Shut up.”

  He was interrupted by a sharp knocking on the door. “It’s hotel security, open up.”

  “Don’t say a word.” He glared at her. “What’s the problem?” he asked.

  “We’ve had a complaint about noise coming from your room, sir. Please open the door or I’ll unlock it myself.”

  He picked up her shorts, throwing them at her. “Put them on,” he whispered. “Hold on,” he said, grasping the door handle, and turning it slowly.

  The door was violently shoved open, knocking him down. He felt a huge hand tighten around his throat and lift him off the floor, until he was staring into the raging eyes of a huge black man. “What you doing with my wife, Mon?”

  Aspine was terrified. “I...I didn’t know, she told me she was a hooker.”

  “What’d you say about my wife?” the man growled, tightening his grip and crushing Aspine’s wind pipe. “What’s he talking about, woman?”

  “It’s not true, honey. I had a bit too much to drink, and he forced me up here.”

  “If you touched my wife, I’m going to kill you, Mon. Did he touch you, woman?”

  “Yes,” she sniffled, pointing to the scratches and red marks around her thighs, where Aspine had tried to pull her thong down.

  “You raped my wife,” the big man whispered, his eyes narrowing as he drew back a huge fist.

  “No, no, I didn’t. Tell him.”

  “You saved me, honey. You got here just in time, but he still hurt me.”

  “Go downstairs and get 'em to phone the police, woman. We’ll see how you like a Cayman jail, Mon.”


  “I didn’t do anything. She never told me that she was married, and I never forced her to come up here.”

  “Are you calling my lady a liar?”

  Aspine was panicking. He couldn’t afford to be stranded in the Caymans. If he didn’t get back home to hold Kerry’s hand, he’d probably break down and confess. “No, I’m not. Look, is there anything I can do to stop you from phoning the police?”

  “You’re not trying to buy my lady’s honour are you?”

  “No, it’s all a big misunderstanding. If I hurt you, I’m sorry, Simone. Please don’t phone the police.”

  “What you think, woman?”

  “I’ll have to see a doctor,” Simone sobbed, suggesting her leg had been torn off at the hip.

  “Let me get my wallet,” Aspine said, pulling away from the man. He took out two, one hundred dollar bills, and handed them to Simone, but the man grabbed the wallet and emptied all the notes into his hand.

  “What’s this funny coloured money?”

  “Australian dollars.”

  “You can keep them,” the man said, dropping the notes on the floor. “Come on, woman, we’re leaving. You should think yourself lucky, Mon. If I’d got here ten minutes later you’d be dead now.”

  Aspine sat on the bed, massaging his neck and cursing. He knew that it’d been a scam, but he just couldn’t afford to call their bluff with the police. They’d stolen a little over eight hundred US dollars from him, but there was nothing that he could do about it.

  “Did you see any of our night life, Douglas?” Phillip Carradine asked.

  “No, I had an early night,” Aspine said, not wanting to think about what had happened. “Are the documents complete?”

  “They will be when you’ve signed them before a witness. We couldn’t get Phoenix, so the name of your new company is Seven Mile Phoenix.”

  “I’ll sign now and you can witness. Then I’d like access to a computer, so that I can make a transfer into the account.”

  “I’ll show you to a private room where there’s a computer ready to use. We’ll be able to confirm receipt of the funds within the hour. Will you wait?”

  “I’ll have to. I’ve left myself short of cash and I’ll need to withdraw a thousand dollars.”

  He logged into the Swiss National Bank and punched in the numbers that Charles Ong had given him, and Mapago’s account appeared on screen showing a balance of just under ten million dollars. He hit transfer and typed in the details of The Royal Bank of Canada and the account number of Seven Mile Phoenix. He filled in the amount, leaving only one hundred dollars in the Swiss bank, and pressed confirm, and was asked to type his password again. Almost instantly the account balance was reduced to one hundred dollars. Another loose end tidied up, and he no longer had to worry about Charles Ong stealing his money.

  He sat chatting to Phillip Carradine, sipping iced tea and eating chocolate biscuits, while he awaited confirmation of the receipt of funds. Forty-five minutes later a young clerk knocked at the door and handed Carradine an envelope and a piece of paper, that he

  glanced at before handing it to Aspine. “Confirmation of your deposit, Douglas, and there’s a thousand dollars in the envelope.”

  “Thank you, Phillip,” Aspine said, anxious to see the last of the Caymans.

  “It’s been a pleasure,” Carradine said, rising and extending his hand. “I’ll organize a car to take you to the airport.”

  “Thank you, again.”

  The air conditioned Mercedes was more to Aspine’s liking, but on the short trip to the airport he resolved, despite the climate, the beaches, and the beautiful girls, never to set foot in the Caymans again.

  Kerry Bartlett was under severe stress, and at times Mercury’s accounting and administration staff seemed to be outnumbered by auditors. They plied him with questions, which he somehow managed to answer, or which he fobbed off by saying that he had to complete the third quarter’s results for the board. At the end of each day he knew that they were only one question away from finding out what he’d done, and he sweated in the knowledge that they might ask that question the following day. Harry Denton was a totally different CEO to Douglas Aspine. He spent most of his time on the company’s building sites, or he was interstate with the branch managers, or he was out at the quarries. Brad Hooper had resigned and the slick talking, freewheeling salesmen that he’d employed soon followed. They quickly realized that Harry Denton wasn’t going to pay them the tens of thousands of dollars in commissions that they’d earned under Brad. Harry was overseeing what was left of the sales team but, despite, his age, the long hours and pressure, he seemed to be thriving. There was a new culture in the company, not based on greed and, while Kerry had little to do with Harry, he found himself liking and respecting the older man. Harry had asked him when the quarterly figures would be ready, and did he have any idea of what the result would be? “Fi-first we-week in Nov-November, and no I don’t,” he’d responded. On two occasions he’d gone to Harry’s office on the verge of confessing and telling him what he’d done, but Harry hadn’t been there. In the rare times he was, he was surrounded by managers asking him questions, or on the phone receiving progress reports from site managers. Kerry craved brandy at the end of each day, but was too scared to leave until after the last auditor had left. Then he’d rush to the hotel, drink a bottle or more of Remy Martin, and crawl home hours later, racked by self-pity and guilt.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Jasmine pleaded. “Just tell me. It’ll help.”

  “Nothing,” he slurred.

  She knew that something was wrong, but the more she probed, the more he clammed up. “It’s that job, isn’t it?”

  “No, no, it’s not.”

  “Has it got something to do with Douglas Aspine getting fired?”

  “No, leave me alone. It’s nothing.”

  “Honey, you can always leave. I’d rather you worked forty hours and were happy, than this.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t resign?”

  “You don’t understand. Leave me alone,” he said, staggering down to the study.

  “It’s Douglas Aspine, I know it,” she screamed in frustration.

  -39-

  HARRY DENTON LOVED Mercury Properties, the industry, the people and, most of all, the employees. He flourished running the business again, and he sensed that the staff were hugely relieved that Aspine had gone. His inherited PA, Kelly, couldn’t type and couldn’t make a decent coffee, but she knew the business and nearly every deal that Aspine had done backwards. She had a quirky personality, was confident, competent and very helpful. He’d been fill-in CEO for only three weeks, and suspected that Kelly had little time for Douglas Aspine, but she didn’t bucket him. Harry admired her loyalty and confidentiality, and hoped that the new CEO would retain her services. Kerry Bartlett was another matter. He had a severe case of acne, was nervous, stuttered badly but, worse, his body reeked of spirits. Harry had seen the signs of alcoholism before and thought it was a shame. Kerry was highly qualified, obviously bright, had a young family, but was an alcoholic. To date, the auditors had not detected anything untoward in the figures, and Harry was starting to think that his earlier misgivings might have been ill-founded.

  When Aspine phoned Helen Philmont on his return, she didn’t mince words. “We haven’t decided whether we’re going to sue you or hire you.”

  “You’ve already hired me and I’m starting on the first of October.”

  “No, you’re not. If you start at all, the earliest it will be is November. We don’t want it to look as if you already had the job when that deal at Mercury blew up.”

  “You mean you don’t want it to look like I conned you. I didn’t; I had no idea that deal with Vic Garland was about to go sour. I promise.”

  “I don’t want you to phone me again. I’ll instruct Hamish Gidley-Baird, and you can deal with him in the future,” she snapped angrily.

  “You sound like you’re losing it. If
you try and shaft me, I’m going to sue you for early termination.”

  “If you haven’t started you can’t be terminated, and don’t threaten me. If we take you to court for our five million, we’ll make your life hell.”

  “Bullshit! You’re not going anywhere near court. Your family’s not going to like it when they find out that you’ve parted with five million from its coffers. How do you think you’re going to look, when I swear an affidavit stating that you asked me to fire family members? No, you want to keep this as quiet as possible. I have an offer from you on your agent’s letterhead and I’m more than ready to sue them and you. I’m going to reconfirm my availability to commence on the first of October in writing. You’re not going to weasel out of this.”

  “Talk to Hamish from now on,” Helen Philmont snarled, slamming down the phone.

  Kerry Bartlett’s head was splitting from another session with Remy Martin the previous night, when he walked into his office. There were two auditors sitting in the visitors’ chairs waiting for him. “Good morning, Kerry, we’re just having a little difficulty understanding some entries in the last year’s accounts,” Richard Creland, the dapper special investigation manager with Kravis & Cooke, said.

  Kerry glanced down at the work paper, and his heart skipped a beat. “Wha-what’s the prob-problem?”

  “Well it seems costs have been taken out of completed buildings, and added onto part-completed buildings.”

  “I-I’m sor-sorry,” Kerry said, starting to sweat under the armpits.

  “Well, in this entry here,” Creland said, pointing to the work paper, “you reduced the cost of this completed building in South Melbourne by four million, thus increasing the profit on it by the same amount, and then you added the costs to the Richmond building, which was only part-completed.”

  “Tha-that’s be-because costs were charged inc-incorrectly to South Melbourne in the fir-first place. I’m sure I wen-went over it with the au-auditors at the end of the y-year,” Kerry mumbled, unable to hold Creland’s gaze.

  “I thought so,” Creland smiled, “but we’ve been unable to find any back-up documents or evidence to support the entry.”