by Bill WENHAM
Factor stepped around his desk with his hand extended to greet his visitors. He shook each of them by the hand and said, “Dean Factor, gentlemen. “I’m the president and C.E.O. of the Easy Green Garden World Corporation.”
Torrance smiled.
“Are you really, Mr. Factor?” he said, in what Factor thought was rather a mocking tone. He sat down in one the black leather chairs in front of Factor’s desk. His younger companion, Valentin Petrov, who had been brought in from Torrance’s Moscow operation, seated himself in another.
Factor thought that the older man’s comment was a little odd but it would also be rude for him to comment on it. Instead, he asked politely,
“So, gentlemen, how can I help you?”
His two visitors had requested an appointment with Factor and Nellie had made it at a time and date suitable to them. The caller had explained that they would be coming in from New York. Nellie had asked Ted Shelton to arrange to have them met and brought to the office. She had done that but had not asked the purpose of their visit.
When she had seen them enter the office, Nellie relaxed. It was obvious from just their appearance that they were here on important business. She would tell her husband about them later.
The older man, Torrance, leaned back in his chair and smiled.
“I’ve come here today to discuss your position and that title of yours with you, Mr. Factor,” he said.
Factor just stared at him.
“I beg your pardon,” he snapped. “My position and my title? What the hell do you mean?”
Torrance glanced at Factor’s desk but didn’t answer his question.
“Would you mind unplugging your phone for me, please, Mr. Factor?” he said.
“Unplugging my pho…..” Factor spluttered.
The younger man leaned forward in his chair.
“Just do as he says, Mr. Factor,” he said in a tone that was quiet but also menacing.
Factor was about to object but then thought – What the hell is this? Who are these guys – FBI, CIA or what?
He reached down and unplugged his phone as requested.
“Thank you, Mr. Factor. I have no wish to have any of this conversation either overheard or recorded, if you don’t mind,” Torrance said and then added, smiling, “You have absolutely no idea who I am, have you, Mr. Factor?”
Factor shook his head. The man could be the Grand Wumbah of Tutuland, for all he knew.
Torrance said, in the same conversational tone, “You are actually one of my best employees, Dean. You have been for some time, as a matter of fact.”
As Factor was about to object, Torrance added, “And I am your boss, Dean.”
Factor stared at him in astonishment. He couldn’t be this man’s employee. He owned Easy Green, for God’s sake! With Willoughby gone, he was the boss. These two must have come to the wrong company. Before he could respond, Torrance continued and quickly got Factor’s attention.
“I have been your boss for over eight years now. You seem surprised now. Does that time frame seem familiar to you? Ah, I can see that it does. That was when you started this business, wasn’t it? So just where did you think all the money came from to start these Garden Worlds of yours, eh?”
“From Jim Willoughby, my partner. He put up the money with funds he got from selling a manufacturing plant out west,” Factor said.
Torrance just laughed.
“Is that what he told you – and you actually believed him?” he said.
Factor nodded.
“Not true, Dean. Not true at all. Did he ever tell you the name of the plant he sold?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see any of the paperwork pertaining to it then?”
“No.”
Torrance smiled.
“I’m not surprised, Dean, because there wasn’t any paperwork. And why was that? Because there wasn’t any plant out west either. Willoughby didn’t have any money. Not at that time, at least.”
The awful truth began to dawn on Factor.
“Then where did all the money come from?” he asked.
Torrance smiled. The younger man smiled along with him when Torrance said, “Thought you’d never ask, Dean. It came from me, all of it and before you say it, let me tell you a little home truth here. You believed you were in a fifty/fifty partnership with Willoughby, right? You now know that not to be true. Next, Dean, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings, especially since we’ve only just met, but expertise, even expertise like yours, doesn’t buy businesses. Money does.
The basic home truth here, as I’m now telling it to you, is that neither you nor Willoughby had any money of your own. The money you used was all mine and consequently, like it or not, the Easy Green Garden World Corporation is all mine as well.”
He looked at Factor’s stunned face.
“You are shocked, Mr. Factor, as I’m sure I would be if I was in your position.”
He smiled at Factor again.
“But I’m not in your position, am I?”
Factor shook his head.
Torrance gave him an appraising look.
“Dean, I started off this conversation by saying you were one of my best employees. That statement wasn’t strictly true,” he said, as Factor stared at him with wide eyes.
Torrance smiled.
“You are actually the best employee I’ve got, Dean, not just one of the best. If you can accept it, nothing has really changed at all for you here today. You will still be the president and C.E.O. I allowed both you and Willoughby to become multimillionaires, Dean, and that is just as it should be. You have done a great job for me.”
He paused and gave Factor a look that sent a shiver running right down his spine.
“Recently, Jim Willoughby, also a former excellent employee of mine, took it upon himself to try to cheat me.”
Torrance tried, unsuccessfully, to put a sad expression on his hard and craggy face.
“Such a horrible way to die, Dean, for both of them. But I had to get my money back, the money used to run this Corporation, and I had to make a firm statement to others, who might also think of cheating me, at the same time. You were no doubt pleased to have the money returned to you.
I was very impressed by the way you handled the temporary shortfall, Dean. That took a lot of guts, dedication and loyalty – all qualities I admire.
I run my organization, of which this one is just a part, operated by you, from my headquarters in New York and I am the Chairman of the Board there, Dean.
We do things very, very differently these days. Need I say more?”
Factor shook his head, aware that the rest of his body was shaking like a leaf as well.
“No,” he said. “I understand perfectly.”
“And you can continue to work within this framework as part of my organization, can you?” Torrance asked.
“Do I have any choice?” Factor asked tightly.
Torrance laughed.
“Of course not. It was a dumb question. I shouldn’t have asked it.”
“Then I guess I’ll continue to work with you then, if that’s all right with you?”
“It is, Dean, and I’ll just tell you of a little saying we have in our business. It goes like this – ‘When given a choice between life and death, always take the one that offers you the best options’. Believe me, you’ve chosen well, Dean.”
Torrance sat back in his chair.
“Now to the next piece of business, Mr. Factor,” he said and paused.
Oh, Lord, Factor thought, what now?
Torrance continued.
“The subject of our business is that we are actually here to help you, Dean, but before I get into it, let me reintroduce you to your new working partner here in Saginaw.
Valentin Petrov will replace Willoughby in your Corporation here and his role will be exactly the same in every respect, meaning that he will also make the same kind of money as you do. To all intents and purposes, he is your new partner and he will
be given the opportunity to make himself a multi millionaire as well. He has been carefully selected by my board and me, and we have complete confidence in him.”
He looked across at Petrov.
“Val knows exactly what is expected of him and what his rewards will be, don’t you, Val?”
Petrov grinned at Factor.
“Indeed I do, Max,” he said.
“Well, Dean?” Torrance asked.
Factor got up, walked around his desk and shook Petrov’s hand again.
“Welcome aboard, Val,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. Torrance smiled at him again.
“Very good, Mr. Factor. You adjust to changing situations very well indeed and very gracefully too I might add, considering you had no option. Now, do you have any questions?” he asked.
“No, not really. Your visit today, although totally unexpected, was not entirely unwelcome. It has answered a lot of questions that have bothered me for some time. I’ve always had a feeling there wasn’t something quite right about Willoughby’s background or how we met.”
“We arranged that meeting, Dean,” Torrance said.
“I realize that now and the return of the money also makes sense.”
“We were just returning it to where it is doing the most good for our organization. You’ve made us many, many millions over these last few years and now, thanks to you, our money is all perfectly legal,” Torrance said.
“Laundered, you mean?”
“We prefer the term ‘recycled’, Dean. It fits in better with today’s way of thinking,” Torrance laughed and said, “My poor old grandfather would be spinning in his grave if he heard me say that. Legal was a word he wasn’t overly fond of.”
Torrance said, looking carefully at Factor, “Just continue what you’ve been doing, Dean, and you’ll have nothing to fear from either me or my organization.”
“You’re telling me you’ve had nothing to do with anything that’s been happening to me lately?”
Torrance laughed.
“Of course not. Like I said, you’re my best employee. You’re like family, Dean.”
Factor shuddered inwardly at the implications of that, but his overall trembling had now stopped.
Torrance said, “Like I just told you, Dean, we are also here to help you. Someone has been setting you up and I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all. I consider you to be family and this thing, this aggravation, must stop. I will see to it that it does.”
Factor thought the people who had died would hardly call it ‘aggravation’, but he had the good sense to hold his tongue.
Torrance stood up.
“Well, guys, I have to get back to New York, so good luck to you in your new job, Val,” he said.
He shook Petrov’s hand first and then Factor’s.
Thank God he only shook my hand and didn’t kiss me, Factor thought gratefully.
“Show Val where to park his ass, will you, Dean? You probably won’t see or hear from me again, unless you misbehave. Just remember that I, and my vast organization, will always be either the Comanche or the Cavalry just over the hill. Who actually comes over that hill will depend entirely on you, Dean.”
Factor and Petrov walked him to the elevators. Torrance didn’t offer to shake hands again and neither did they. When he was gone, the two men walked to Willoughby’s old office. It was in a bit of a mess.
He called Nellie in to join them.
“Nellie, this Mr. Valentin Petrov. Val is my new partner. I’d like you to show him around, introduce him to everyone and make sure he settles in. I’ll have Ted get someone in here to tidy this office up while you’re away. Then, if that’s okay with you, Val, I’ll come by at noon. We can grab a bite to eat and talk some more, okay?”
Petrov nodded and strolled away with Nellie. Now to make some really serious money, he smiled to himself.
Factor walked back to his own office and dropped heavily into his chair. His mind was reeling! He wasn’t exactly terrified but his whole world, his Garden World, had just been turned completely upside down. When people say if something seems to be too good to be true, it probably is, they were bloody right.
Everything he’d been working on for the past eight years was a sham. It was nothing more than a mirage, or more correctly, a house of cards that had just come down tumbling down around his ears! How could he have not seen there was more to this than met the eye?
He’d always had a gut feeling that all was not right with Willoughby and he’d been as jealous as hell over it. But, man, have I ever been off base with the rest of it, he thought!
It wasn’t a secret affair or an association with Dellie that Willoughby had been covering up at all. It had been one with Max Torrance, an elegant and dignified looking man, but still a bloody murdering mobster!
Everything he thought he’d been building for Dellie’s and his own future was untrue. It was a massive Corporation built on lies. He had naively thought he and Willoughby had built it from scratch themselves but the events of the last half hour or so had certainly proved to him they hadn’t.
Of course he could always challenge what Torrance had told him. He could do that and he also wondered if Torrance would even give him a choice of which way he preferred to die if he did. He very much doubted it. Willoughby had challenged him and lost and there was no way he was going to go like Willoughby.
When the first murders had happened and especially Dellie’s, Factor had thought everything that could possibly happen to him already had.
He now realized his troubles had probably only just begun.
It was a very peculiar situation to be in. On one level, nothing at all had changed. He still had his job, his house, his financial interest in the prototype Garden World and his considerable fortune. That was on one level, a financial one, and he’d accepted it.
It was the moral level he was battling with now. He was no longer in control of his own destiny. Whoever had come up with the term ‘between a rock and hard place’ had absolutely no idea how hard some places could be!
He wasn’t exactly at the beck and call of Torrance and his New York organization either, but he now knew that they were there and he was down deep in their pocket, like it or not.
Factor was probably less criminally minded than anyone else under Torrance’s control but he didn’t dare even think about doing anything about it. They weren’t a group to be trifled with and judging by the way they had caught and disposed of Willoughby, they had a far greater reach worldwide than even the long arm of the law.
If not abject fear, Factor still had a definite feeling of unease when he thought about what had just happened. In his analysis of his present situation, Factor had been a little wrong in his first reaction and assumptions.
The New Yorkers, as he was starting to think of them, including Petrov, were in this to protect their own huge interests, and by doing so, they would automatically protect his as well.
He also realized, tough as it might be to accept his new situation, he had no reason to fear the men he now reluctantly thought of as his new partners. As Max Torrance had said, Factor would probably never see him again, provided he continued to run things smoothly for him at the prototype.
The New Yorkers could even be looked upon as his insurance policy. They would always want to protect their own interests and he realized, gratefully, that he, as Torrance had just told him, was one of their best interests, not one of their targets.
But unlike Willoughby, who had normally displayed an easygoing manner, Val, his new partner, had the appearance of being a very hard man, because so far, his face had been practically expressionless. This, combined with his icy blue eyes, gave the impression that he would be a really tough negotiator. Right now he felt a bit like a bride in an arranged marriage. He was in it, as she was, and like her, he had no say in the matter whatsoever.
Of course, Factor still had no idea Willoughby had not only been the negotiator but also the executioner in his dealings wit
h the property sellers. Petrov’s role would be to do exactly the same thing. He was also unaware the money paid out to the sellers had been recovered by Willoughby and returned to the New Yorkers.
He’d never even considered who the principals of the Terra Trading Corporation were, even though it had been the biggest shareholder of Garden World stock ever since the corporation had been placed on the New York Stock Market. They were, in fact, the only major shareholder. Torrance had made damned sure of that. He owned Terra outright.
He allowed just a few selected people to make some big bucks with Terra Trading stock but since he controlled Garden World, he also controlled the availability of its shares. Only those on the inside knew the name Terra had nothing to do with the earth and gardening.
In Torrance’s world, the word had a different spelling and a totally different meaning, as anyone who ever questioned it would soon find out.
As Factor sat at his desk, he came to grips with two more facts of his new life. He had no doubt in his mind that Torrance’s New York organization was an extremely violent criminal syndicate. He was now a knowing, if possibly an unwilling accomplice in it.
He wondered how Liz would react if and when she found out he was involved with the mob? She was a good cop and he had no doubt she would uncover his guilty little secret eventually.
He also wondered how the hell he could ever get himself out of this arrangement. Then he shuddered as he remembered an old adage repeated many times in the old time gangster films of Edward G. Robinson and Cagney.
There was only one way to leave – and that was feet first!
He remembered Torrance telling him he’d been set up for the murders and that, as ‘family’, he would do something to help him.
“Nice man, Mr. Factor,” Nellie said, jolting him out of his reverie.
“Pardon, Nellie?”
“Mr. Petrov. He’s a nice man, isn’t he?”
“Yes, I guess so. He certainly looks to be very efficient but I don’t know him yet and I’ve barely said more than a few words to him so far.”
A slight frown creased Nellie’s forehead.
“But surely you chose him to be your new partner, didn’t you?”