Continental Attack: Murder and Mayhem in Detroit's Auto Industry
Page 22
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The Stockwatch office had received the news that Continental was going to be re-listed as from two days after the notice with a mixture of relief and alarm. Relief that the Corporation officers were certain that their problems were over, and alarm that nothing had been established as being the cause of the tremendous dive of the share price. James Gareth Wexley called all his staff together for a warning talk. "You now have in place some of the most sophisticated scanning and interrogatory software this country has ever produced. If this stock starts another nose-dive, I want to know exactly who has been responsible, and then we can nail the sonsabitches! Remember, the whole Stock Exchange will be watching, and if we end up with our tits in a wringer, we are gonna lose our credibility."
The morning of the re-listing dawned, and once more chaos reigned, but a different sort of chaos. There had been virtually no buying of the Continental shares, which had been placed for sale by the holders of that stock, before the suspension; and dealers and brokers all over the country were being bombarded with demands that their sale be halted, the stock was being withdrawn and held, and wherever possible, more of the Continental offering bought. This sudden demand for a share which was previously thought to be on the skids made the Market react, and the Continental price rocketed back, through the barrier which was the original price, upwards to a new high, over fifty percent up on the prevailing bid price. The market watchers had never seen anything like it, and as one they all piled in, thus pushing the bid price even higher.
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Lazarus was shouting down the phone at Bob Webster, demanding that he do something, anything, to reverse the trend, when his manservant knocked, then entered his employers' study, closely followed by four detectives who arrested the crippled German on charges of Conspiracy to Murder; and a representative of the S.E.C., who confiscated all the discs and records of the giant buying operation. At the same time, Elspeth Hardesty and five others were taken into custody, and charged with Conspiracy to Defraud.
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During the search of Bob Webster's desk after his arrest, the detectives found a diary listing a name, Ray; a comment, 'hit' and a telephone number. Following up on this, a search warrant was taken out on the home, office and property of Ray Salvatori, an analyst with a large securities company on Wall Street. His home and office proved a blank, but one officer, dutifully searching the suspect's car, found a metal hose-clip in the car side pocket. Three days later, after forensic examination and comparisons, Ray Salvatori was charged with the murders of Howard, Allison, Amy and Jack Klein. Surprisingly, despite massive security precautions, he died from food poisoning five days after his formal arraignment.
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Don Guido Soncini still sits in his office, facing on to Battery Park; he is still occupied by the need to control the vast wealth his Family has generated over the years, but has decided to leave the industrial side of the business to his cousin.
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As his knock sounded at the front door, Eudora Crickell left Claudia seated by the window, and opened the door of her apartment; then gazed at Ken Melchek as he stood on the porch. As he spoke, stating that he would do his best to look after her daughter from now on, her face broke into a gentle smile, and she welcomed him in; and as Claudia wrapped herself around him, the mother felt secure that her daughter was in the right hands.
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The new Chief Executive Officer of Continental Motors rolled his car into the drive of his home in Grosse Point, Detroit. It was two months after the traumatic events of the suspension and relisting of the shares, the death of Nick Cavalieri in a plane crash, the S.E.C. examination of the Pension Fund; together with the discovery of a shortfall of over seventeen million dollars from the Fund, and the triple>accidental= deaths of the other principals on the Continental administration side of the Fund. The new models, both Stiletto and Sabre, were selling well, without the extra message from the hidden persuader in the commercials. Joseph was beat, after another frustrating attempt to find why the Continental workforce had seemed to be dying ahead of their time. The Plants had all been given a clean bill of health, and no-one knew where to turn next, but the early deaths had ceased.
He knew that Alexis was home, as her car was parked out front, but she was not in the kitchen, or the lounge. He called out, and heard her voice from the bedroom, "In here, honey." He walked through, to find his wife lying propped up on pillows on the big bed.
"Everything all right, Alex?"
Her eyes lit with mischief, Alex replied, "If it's a boy, shall we call him Tadeusz?"
Ω
8 1999 James Michael Cunningham
This e-book is a work of fiction. The characters and situations in this story are imaginary. No resemblance is intended between these characters and any real persons, either living or dead.
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, photocopied, electronically transmitted or held in any retrieval system or otherwise circulated without the author=s prior consent in any form whatsoever and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Mike Cunningham has been married to his beloved
Jacqueline for 43 years. He is the father of three adult kids and has three
dynamite grandsons. A writer for over twenty years, with a drawerful
of rejection letters to prove it, he has always believed that the
writing ain’t the difficult bit; the hard part is finally seeing your name
in print.
He maintains a website at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/mikesbookpagesonline/
and blogs at http://mikecunningham.wordpress.com/
This e book is a work of fiction. The characters and situations in this story are imaginary. No resemblance is intended between these characters and any real persons or group of persons either living or dead.
This e book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re sold, hired out, photocopied, electronically transmitted or held in any retrieval system or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form whatsoever and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.