Just like in the Tehran Bazaar, I thought. Thirty grand net for two months of work. Did I put one over on the Big Scammer, or what? I was to discover later that it didn’t bother John DeLorean in the least to spend large amounts of money, as long as it was somebody else’s money, if he even actually spent it. For him $30,000 used to be the tab for a routine business trip. And considering the length of the stay in Leavenworth to which my DeLorean gig might have entitled me, I could have wound up working for $1,000 per year. I was to learn later.
He said he’d wire the retainer, so I gave him my account and routing numbers. Once that cleared he’d send me the details. For better or worse, I’d signed on to work for John DeLorean.
A few days later, the bank notified me of the transfer. I picked up the paperwork. It was the full ten thou, but it wasn’t from Ireland or DeLorean. It came from a bank in Switzerland, from the account of a company named GPD. Must be standard procedure, I thought. He probably uses a Swiss bank for the sake of convenience. But what’s GPD?
Early the next week he called to say that things were developing more slowly than he’d expected, but that I should ready to fly to Belfast around the first week in September. Late that week he called to tell me he’d booked me on a flight from LA to NYC on September 13. I’d spend a day in New York for briefing and orientation and then depart from there to Belfast. I was to pack for a several weeks stay, and my tickets would be at the United Airlines counter the day of departure. “Another question, Mr. DeLorean,” I said. “I was wondering if I should bring a gun along.”
“A gun? Ummm…good idea. Dangerous place, Belfast. Violent people, those Irish. Always fighting, lead flying everywhere. The IRA is the worst of the lot. Murderers. Human scum. They’ve tried to destroy the factory with Molotov cocktails. Constant sniper fire. I don’t go out on the streets in Belfast, myself. Won’t stay there overnight. You’d be surprised, the death threats I’ve gotten. You might have trouble getting your gun into the country, though. Arms smuggling’s a sore point here. Tell you what, pack it in a box, label it “Automotive Parts” and air express it to yourself at the factory.” He gave me the shipping address and rang off. I got busy on final prep for the trip. Heedful of Evanston’s advice about cab fare and exit doors, I secreted a sheaf of American Express Travelers Cheques and my fake Swiss passport into my gear—just in case Zak Fahnke had to haul ass in a hurry.
2 | The Hook
My first surprise working for John DeLorean came when I confirmed my air ticket at the United counter in LAX. Flying me cross-country to New York, he put me on a red-eye, in coach. Not that I’m against sharing tight cabin space with my fellow humanity. Lord knows I globetrotted far less comfortably courtesy of the United States Army. It’s just that my various business-sponsored assignments generally included first class air travel. And a red-eye flight? Arriving in New York in the morning after six hours in the air, with a ten o’clock meeting scheduled? Well, he’s the boss, and I’ve always been able to sleep just about anywhere. Fortunately that was before 9/11, security screening queues and airlines crowding the cabin seats to squeeze every last passenger into fully booked planes. What is an ordeal now was merely inconvenient then.
So I was able to curl up in an empty row and catch a few z’s. I arrived in New York bright and early and made my way from JFK to DeLorean’s Manhattan office—by taxi, at his instruction. No car and driver to meet and greet. New York City always overwhelms me. I’d seen many a big city—a number of world capitals, and I hail from Los Angeles. But NYC is a BIG city. From just about anywhere you stand you see no end to those relentless, towering buildings. Canyons of concrete and glass with so little charm. The message I get there is: We Mean Business, Mac. Personally, I prefer the California scene, where life happens in the open air. In New York you spent your life mostly inside buildings. Not that outside of them was so enticing. For the wealthy New York may have been Fun City, but for others the graffiti, squeegee men and street crime of that pre-Giuliani period didn’t foster a festive frame of mind.
The cab dropped me off in front of a tall office building on Park Avenue, indistinguishable from so many others, across from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. DeLorean Motors Headquarters office was on the 35th floor. The reception told an intercom that I’d arrived, and John DeLorean came out of a nearby office to greet me. He was the image he’d created, in the flesh. Tall—well over six feet—handsome, fit, and exuding energy. He’d let his hair go silver greyish now, and age wrinkles showed: still, he looked younger than his 55 years. He’d put 70s hair styling behind him, but his calculated informal get-up emphasized that he remained resolutely a maverick—a multi-millionaire maverick, that is. Escorting me to his office he offered coffee or tea. I opted for coffee, which a secretary brought on a silver tray as soon as we’d seated ourselves.
“So, how was your flight, Jake?” he asked.
“It was fine. I slept pretty much the whole time.”
“That’s good,” he said. “I personally don’t need much sleep. Overnight flights are a great time saver. Sorry about putting you in coach, but the company currently is in receivership, which means that auditors watch our books, so I try to economize where I can. Keeps them off my ass. Every penny is all they care about, small minds that have no conception of value, only care about costs. I travel to Europe frequently, used to use the Concorde. That way I could be over and back for a meeting same day, no need for a hotel stay. An executive’s time is precious, priceless, that’s what the asinine bean-counters don’t get. The hours the Concorde saved me, what a bargain. But that’s off the table for now. Our current challenge is getting DeLorean Motors back on its feet, which is a matter of rounding up money. We have cars pouring out of the factory; they’re piling up on the Belfast docks. They’re piling up on the Long Beach docks. We need money to move ‘em out. Three hundred and forty five dealers in the US are desperate for those cars. Customers are crying out for them. We had two years’ production sold before the first one came off the line.”
“If the buyers are so eager, couldn’t their money move the cars?”
“That’s a good question, Jake. The fact is, it’s complicated. There are a bunch of morons putting up barriers between DeLorean Motors and our customers. Banks. The British government. Creditors. Competitors who can’t compete with cars, so they tie us up with red tape and lawsuits. People trying to scam us. Back-stabbers. Saboteurs. We’re turning out cars the world was dying for, that’s not the problem. Even before the factory opened we had 30,000 buyers waiting. But all these legions of idiots are blocking us every way we turn. We could be doing so much more. I’m developing plans to create a sedan model—the ethical sedan! It’ll sweep the international automotive market, guaranteed. Detroit will never produce anything like it, they’re stupid, they don’t care what the public wants. DeLorean Motors is poised to be a global company, a global empire. We just have to work our way through some rough patches right now. It’s a matter of money, that’s all. I’ve sunk millions into this venture, my dream, and I’ll be damned if I’ll lose it all. I’ve got investors in the wings, big money ready to pounce. Of course first I have to dislodge the money the Brits are withholding from us. They owe us fifty million pounds, money that is rightfully ours. My lawyers are preparing lawsuits on that.”
“It’s not clear to me where I fit into the picture,” I said. “I’m not a fund raiser. I’m not a lawyer.”
“That’s an astute observation, Jake,” he replied. “We are pursuing several avenues, and some of them—how might I put it?—demand special handling. Not top drawer people we’re dealing with, some of them. Plenty of money but no manners, no class, you know what I mean? For those types of people we need a man present who projects authority, who demonstrates that we aren’t pushovers. I don’t mean to suggest you’ll be roughing people up, of course not. We’re not the mafia. But there may be critical deliveries…precise execution…not exactly back-alley deals, but when the so-called legi
timate sources of finance cut us off, well, you do what you have to, you know?”
I knew, but he wasn’t exactly clarifying my situation. My God, the man could talk—on and on, building dream cars and global empires in the air. I could see how he’d charmed the media. Our meeting lasted about two hours. He had lunch brought in. Strictly high quality health foods. No alcohol. He didn’t eat much, didn’t seem interested in food. After lunch we talked a little longer, then he introduced me to one of his engineers, who filled me in on the situation in Belfast. DeLorean spent very little time there, no more than a day or two a month. Rather, he spent his days, and very busy days they were, flitting hither and yon in pursuit of deals, businesses, spin-offs, mergers, investments, partnerships…there wasn’t much he wasn’t into, or trying to get into. So the engineer was helpful, though he too had an arms-length relationship with the factory. He took me over to a woman in personnel who gave me the paperwork for my trip to Belfast—visa, temporary work permit and so forth. And that concluded business for the day.
DeLorean put me up overnight in a downscale hotel, for which he apologized. “It wasn’t long ago, you’d have stayed in the Waldorf across the street. It’s part of the economizing those pissant green-eyeshaders have forced on us. There will be better times ahead, you’ll see. You will share in it, mark my words. Those who stand with me will reap riches.” He gave me some suggestions of how to spend my evening in New York City, none of which especially appealed. “It’s the greatest place in the world,” he proclaimed. “The wealth, the social life, the names, the opportunities, the sheer, overpowering energy of the place. I could live anywhere in the entire world, and Christina and I choose to live here. I’d love to take you out on the town, but Christina and I are tied up for the evening.”
Christina was Christina Ferrare, the renowned high fashion model he’d married—a cover girl many times over, and a movie actress (she’d appeared in two). She was well-known around LA even before he married her; I’d seen her at parties. Imagining myself in the place of this high-powered pair of international celebrities, I could appreciate how he might see New York differently than I do. They’d never lack for dinner invitations, that’s for sure. Their wealth buffered them from the disturbing side of life here.
European flights typically leave in the evening and, flying against the time zones, arrive in the morning. I killed the next day sightseeing and gawking around town. Out on the West Coast we hear about so many things in New York, and it was interesting, if usually disappointing, to see them in person. Perhaps it would be different if I lived there, but it seemed to me New Yorkers pay a lot of money to live sorely deprived lives. Professionally it may be the place to be for people in theater, art, publishing, fashion and finance, but who but the super-wealthy would choose it for lifestyle? And most of that class bolt town for nicer places whenever they can.
DeLorean had me return to the office again in the afternoon for a last-minute briefing. It was mostly more goals, and frustrations, and roadblocks, and dreams, and visions. Then he said, “Jake, come with me. I want to show you something.” I followed him to the elevators, we got in and he punched the button for the 43rd floor, at the top of the column. We stepped out of the elevator and I found myself in what at first glance seemed to be an art gallery. Collector-grade paintings graced the walls. Chairs of red water buffalo hide, fronted by rugs of the same material, filled the white marble floor of the reception area. The wall behind the reception desk was a huge photo, in detail and glowing color, of his car, the DMC-12. Two elegant life-size dolls flanked the desk, modern sculpture of a sort. If ever a man could live up to that reception area, John DeLorean was that man. “Jake, this is the penthouse suite. This was the headquarters of DeLorean Motors until those assholes took over our finances last January. They forced us to move downstairs. I’m showing you this to bring you into the dream. When I’ve finalized my rescue of the company, our headquarters will be back up here where we belong. Count on it.”
I’ve seen enough of wealthy people to know that those in business to make money don’t waste it on glitz like what I was looking at here.
We returned to his office on the 35th for some more pep talk and bombast. But as a final word, there was this: “I have a man over there you’ll be working with. He’s there right now, and he’ll be on hand to brief you and get you up to speed. Roy Nesseth is his name.”
My flight over was another red-eye, but international flights are always cushier than domestic, even in economy class, where I once again sat. I arrived at London Heathrow none the worse for wear and caught a commuter flight to Belfast. The weather was socked in when we arrived. Ireland is called “The Emerald Isle,” and as I was to find when the sun pushed the clouds away, the moniker is warranted. Ireland boasts every shade of green on the artist’s palette. Credit that to the rain that falls frequently and a lot there, a contrast with California’s “golden hills.” Well, at sunrise and sunset the quality of light may tease out “golden,” but essentially those hills are yellow-brown most of the year. Blame our glorious, dry Mediterranean climate. You need rain to foster greenery. Belfast lies at about 55 degrees north latitude, much further up than Vancouver or Calgary and not very far south of Moscow, yet it has relatively mild weather. That owes to the Gulf Stream, carrying its wealth of warm water up from the Caribbean Sea, along the east coast of North America, then over across the North Atlantic and down the west coast of Europe, right past that continent’s furthest western reach, Ireland. Warm, moist air blows over Ireland, meets cool air flooding down from the Arctic and splish, splash.
Commuter flights mostly used the Belfast City Airport, situated right in town. The city lay around the end of a deep-water bay, with several channels branching in to form the best seaport on the island. The Airport sat along the east side of the harbor. A representative from the DeLorean factory, an American named Myron from personnel, met me the gate. As Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, my arrival entailed no customs formalities. We collected my suitcase and backpack and he guided me through light rain to his car, not one of his factory’s products. I asked him about that.
“We don’t use them,” Myron explained. “They’re not practical, you see. For one thing, no proper trunk space. We couldn’t fit your bags in it. Mr. DeLorean insisted that the area behind the seats should hold a set of golf clubs, said his car was designed for horny bachelors who’d made it. Not many of those in these parts,” he added glumly, glancing around.
The harbor looked up-to-date and busy. A huge crane loomed up over the shipyards. “It’s the largest crane in Europe,” Myron said. “Belfast has historically been a ship-building center. The Titanic was built here, a beautiful ship. Not their fault the captain ran it into an iceberg the first time out.” We passed by a staging area where sat rows of low, sleek sports cars, gleaming silvery even in the grey light. “Awaiting shipment,” he remarked. “The US ports of entry are clogged with them. Nowhere for these to go right now.”
“When I talked to Mr. DeLorean yesterday he told me that buyers were crying out for them. You’d think these cars would be moving.”
“If that were true, they would be,” he said. “The fact is, dealers can’t sell them as fast as previous buyers are returning them.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, Mr. Fonko, I shouldn’t be speaking against my own product, should I?”
The factory was to the southwest in the district of Dunmurry, so the drive took us through the city—about the same size as Newark, New Jersey, which it resembled in some unflattering ways. Trappings of wealth were scarce. More old buildings than new, some rundown blocks of rowhouses and flats, broad streets in bad repair. People on the sidewalks did not broadcast prosperity and good cheer, but rather resignation. Businessmen wore suits and ties under their overcoats, but a lot of other men on the street trudged along in black leather jackets or bulky sweaters. At least the place looked neat and clean, one thing
in favor of copious rain. And despite DeLorean’s warnings, it didn’t look like the war zone he’d described. Buildings and windows were intact, no charred wreckage clogging the roadside. Some of the poorer—Catholic—districts looked beat up, in various stages of demolition and renewal. On the other hand, Myron pointed out Protestant neighborhoods of neat brick apartment blocks.
Downtown Belfast had a subdued aspect, not helped by the weather. Building were grey stone, dingy plaster, brick, few taller than five or six stories. Closely packed small shops lined shopping streets, some of them brightly painted, with paneled glass display windows from yesteryear. Big wall murals here and there, revolutionary in theme. Graffiti, too, but political slogans and insignia, not ghetto gang tags or scrawled obscenities. We’d gone a short distance beyond the boundary of the harbor when a checkpoint drew us to a halt. A brace of burly, brusque members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in camo uniforms and black berets demanded our papers. They carried submachine guns and were in no mood for nonsense. Myron handed his over while I fumbled through my backpack for mine. Their manner eased when they found that Myron was with the DeLorean factory. I located my papers and forked them over. They deemed them acceptable and started to hand them back. It was a perfunctory exercise until the older of the two looked at my face again and did a double take. He pulled my passport back and examined that and the other papers more carefully. He looked me over again, hesitated, then returned my stuff with a shrug and a curt, “Thank you, gentlemen, and good day.”
“Keep those documents handy at all times,” advised Myron as we drove away. “This happens often, and the guys manning the checkpoints don’t have a lot of patience, or a sense of humor. Above all, don’t do anything suspicious with your hands. It’s just like a traffic stop in a bad area back home. They might get rough rather than take a chance.”
“Do these guys see much action here?” I asked.
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3 Page 48