by Mark Dawson
Alexander’s brow knitted and, after a moment, he shook his head. “Nah, man. Never seen him before.”
“You heard him,” the first man said. “Get gone.”
Milton sniffed the air. He could smell the acrid tang of crack drifting out of the window of the car. “I want to talk to you, Alexander. Hear me out. Ten minutes, then I’m on my way.”
Alexander blinked, and Milton could see that his words were making no sense to him. He was high. Milton assessed quickly and considered whether it would be better to beat a tactical retreat and return again tomorrow, when Alexander was better able to understand him, or whether he should stay.
The first man made the decision for him. “On your way, shitbird,” he said, stepping up, narrowing the distance between himself and Milton. That was his first mistake. He got a little too close, reaching a meaty paw and resting it on Milton’s shoulder. That was his second mistake. Milton’s response was hardwired, automatic. He straightened his fingers and jabbed the man beneath his chin, right on his larynx. His eyes bulged wide and then, as he recognised he couldn’t breathe, his hands went up to his throat and he dropped to his knees.
Milton was committed now.
He stepped around the man. Alexander had taken a step back, his mouth agape, and then he reached down to his waistband, his fingers fumbling with the butt of a pistol that he was carrying there.
Milton felt a scintilla of annoyance.
Alexander got his fingers around the handle of the pistol and started to draw it. Milton closed on him and chopped his hand down hard on Alexander’s wrist. He dropped the gun to the ground. Milton drew back his right fist and drilled him in the chin, accepting the burden of his dead weight as he slumped into his arms. He looped his forearms beneath Alexander’s shoulders and dragged him back to the hire car, opening the back and shoving him inside, face down.
The big man was on his knees, his breathing restored, his fingers heading for the gun that Alexander had dropped. Milton diverted quickly to him, lashed the side of his foot into his temple, and knocked him out cold.
He went back to the car, got in, started the engine and drove away.
Chapter Seventeen
JOEL BABINEAUX could have watched what he was going to do to Pierce Morgan from the offices of his bankers. He could, he supposed, have flown to New York and watched it from the offices of his brokers. He could have visited the Stock Exchange himself and, he conceded, that had been very tempting—to be a first-hand witness of the confusion and excitement that he was going to create. But he had decided that discretion was the most sensible course in the circumstances. He had watched in the boardroom, with C-SPAN on the large LCD screen. The denouement was scheduled for lunchtime, so he had instructed his chef to prepare him a lobster, and the waitstaff had served it in the boardroom. He sat there, alone, and watched it unfold.
There were two elements to the scheme. Both were simple, but, when combined, they had the potential to be very effective. The first part of the plan had been put into play last night. Babineaux’s lawyers had previously hired a firm of private investigators and they had found a number of disaffected employees who were prepared to go on record to state that they were aware of corners that had been cut in the building of some of Morgan Construction’s flagship properties. The investigators had found another ex-employee who accredited his lung cancer to the asbestos that he said he had been forced to work with. This man, wheezing eloquently into the camera of the local news affiliate that had been sent to cover his story, said that he was preparing to sue the company for millions and that he knew there were others in the same position as him.
The twin stories had been released in accordance with the terms of a carefully structured media plan. Palms were greased and favours called in, and what started as a series of small pieces rapidly gained traction, and, by the time two members of the Stanley Cup-winning Blackhawks team rang the opening bell at the Chicago Stock Exchange, a firestorm had been created around Morgan Construction’s stock.
The second part of the plan had been put into play at the same time as trading began. Babineaux Properties had acquired a small, but significant, amount of equity in Morgan Construction over the course of the last three years. The shareholding totalled 3.9% and had cost several million dollars to acquire, but Babineaux had foreseen the likelihood that he would come into conflict with Morgan at some point in the future, and he had decided that it was a sensible strategic position to take. The stock had been acquired by dozens of clandestine corporations and trusts that were, on the face of it, independent. None of them could be traced back to Babineaux or his corporation.
As soon as the bell had sounded, those shares had begun to be sold. It was slow at first—a third of a per cent here, a quarter of a per cent there—but as sale followed sale followed sale, the market began to take notice. The dispositions accelerated and then, as analysts were starting to report them to their investors, all of the rest were dumped at once. Connections were made with the media stories, and the market panicked. Within an hour, analysts were marking the stock with sell recommendations. Small investors were piling out and the price began to fall. As larger investors noticed the trend, they, too, began to sell. The price went into free fall. The biggest investors—the pension funds and the institutions—couldn’t ignore the trend and they, too, began to divest themselves of the stock.
Babineaux had waited until the perfect moment. He knew that the negative stories would eventually be managed, that Morgan’s bankers would be ringing around to decry them and to start to persuade investors that there was no reason to sell. He couldn’t wait for their efforts to bear fruit, but he didn’t want to start the third stage of the plan too early, either. He had to strike when the price was as low as it was going to go, just before it started to recover.
He used his instinct. His gut. It had always served him well, and it didn’t fail him now.
He waited until eleven thirty, and then he pulled the trigger.
Using the money that he had made when he sold the first shares at the top of the market, he started to buy back into the company again. Each share had been worth three dollars when he sold, but now three dollars bought ten shares.
He had ten per cent of the company.
Then he had twenty.
He authorised massive spending, using the war chest that the company had acquired over the years for precisely this purpose.
The stock he had offloaded this morning now bought him thirty-five percent of the company.
He kept buying.
Forty-three per cent.
The plight of the corporation became one of the big stories of the day. Reporters had been dispatched to Morgan Construction’s headquarters in Lafayette, where they had interviewed stunned personnel as they clocked off from the early shift. Efforts were made to speak to members of the board, but requests were turned down. The whereabouts of Pierce Morgan were debated. One rumour was that he was flying the country from investor to investor, trying to persuade them that the run on his company’s shares was false. It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. By the time the original story was debunked, the plan had acquired too much momentum to stop.
Babineaux reached over and tore off the claws of the lobster and used a nutcracker to break off the tip of the larger section. He prised out the meat. He pushed his forefinger into the opened tip of the claw and out of the larger open end. He discarded the antennae, antennules and rostrum, and then forked the sweet meat into his mouth. It was delicious.
His private phone bleeped. He wiped the grease from his hands, picked up the phone, and put it to his ear.
It was Dubois. “Jackson?”
“Tell me.”
“Fifty-one per cent. Congratulations. You are now the majority owner of Morgan Construction.”
Babineaux wouldn’t have been able to suppress the beam of pleasure that he felt even if he had been minded to try. “Very good,” he said.
“What would you like me to do?”
“Set up a meeting with Morgan tomorrow. Tell him I’ll fly to Lafayette.”
“You think he’ll see you?”
“He will.”
He activated the speaker, rested the phone on the table, and then picked up the tail of the lobster with one hand and the back with his other. He twisted the two sections apart, and then used his finger to push the tail meat out of the open end. He peeled off the top of the tail, removed the digestive tract, and scooped out the rest of the meat. “What else have you got for me?”
“I’ve spoken to the men about Salvation Row.”
“And?”
“They’ll be intimidating.”
“Enough to get rid of them?”
“I think so.”
“They better be. Now that Morgan is out of the way, there’s nothing else to stop the project. We need to see that they accept the offer. If they don’t, they need to know that things will get unpleasant for them.”
“I know. It’s in hand.”
“When’s it happening?”
“Tonight. I’m on top of it. You can leave it with me.”
“I know I can.”
Babineaux turned his attention to the carapace and picked out the small chunks of meat around the gills. He picked out the roe and ate that, too. He knew the value of things, and he didn’t like to leave waste. Those last small flecks of meat, only consumed by the most intrepid diners, tasted the best of all. He loaded the last morsels onto his fork and slid them into his mouth, sucking the juices off the tines.
Today had been a good day. The takeover could have failed at any number of moments, but he had planned it with his usual care, and it had been executed with aplomb by an expensive team of professionals upon which he knew that he could rely. What remained to be done was grubby and unpleasant in comparison, but just as important.
Babineaux knew that different tasks required different approaches.
Different tools.
Morgan Construction had been skewered by clever stock market manipulation.
Salvation Row would require something else.
He had tried to be civilised with the inhabitants of that street, and they had shunned his entreaties. That was their choice. America was a free country, and they could do whatever they wanted. Of course, by setting their faces against his generosity, they had narrowed the range of options available to him. Now he had a smaller selection of tools from which to choose. He had tried magnanimity, and he had been rejected.
Now he would use force.
Chapter Eighteen
MELVIN FRYATT brought the car to a stop and flicked off the lights. Chad was in the seat next to him. The two of them had met while they were doing time together. They had been in Angola, both of them up on drug charges. They were in the same cell and, given that Chad had a little bit of the feminine about his appearance and manner, Melvin had decided that he’d take him as his sissy. Chad had taken a little bit of persuasion, but Melvin had made it clear that he was acting in the boy’s best interests. A pretty guy like him, it was inevitable that he was going to get taken by someone, so he promised that he’d make it a whole lot easier than some of the sharks who would’ve gone harder on his skinny white ass.
“Which one is it?” Chad asked him.
Melvin squinted through the darkness and saw the number that had been fixed to the side of the door. “That one,” Melvin said. “Number two. In there.”
“How you want to play this?”
Melvin sucked his teeth, a habit he had when he was giving things some thought.
“We go up to the door, lay it out all nice and clear. They accept the offer for the house and move out.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we make it plain that they don’t have no choice. They move out, or we move them out.”
Chad nodded, looking anxious, his big Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“What’s up with you, baby?”
“Nothing.”
“You look nervous.”
“A little, I guess.”
“You want something to help?”
“You got anything?”
“Come on. You know I do.”
He reached into the pocket of his jeans, fumbled through the loose change and the junk, and pulled out the little baggie of coke that he had scored earlier that afternoon from a dealer he knew. He opened the top, unclipped his safety belt and leant forwards so that he could tip out a little onto the dash. He chopped out two fat lines, rolled his last twenty, and inhaled one of them. He passed the note to Chad and watched as he did his line. Melvin reached over and squeezed Chad’s leg. Boy was fine, he thought, kind of made it okay to ignore his good intentions to find a woman now that he was back on the outside again. He’d find a bitch eventually, that much was for sure, but there was no need to hurry about it.
“Let’s go,” he said.
#
ISADORA HAD been in the shower for fifteen minutes, washing off the sweat and grime of another long and difficult day. Her body ached from the hours of hard work that she had put in. She washed her long hair, the dirty water trailing away into the drain.
It was hard work, had been ever since she started the charity, but she had never been involved in anything that was as rewarding. It was a simple thing to look around and appreciate the things that they had achieved. There was the view out of the window, the row of beautiful houses that accommodated families who had gone through so much since Katrina had turned all of their lives upside down. And, as she drew her focus in, there were things in the bathroom that spoke of the attention to detail that pervaded the whole project: the perfect job that the tiler had done with the shower cubicle, the careful planning that had made the small footprint of the bathroom almost seem spacious. Everything she saw filled her with pride at a job well done.
Almost made her forget about her brother.
She dried herself and put on her dressing gown. She was brushing her teeth and gazing out of the window when she saw the car roll slowly down the street. It was an old Lexus LS400, dinged on the wing, and with the fender half hanging off. Her cautiousness would have alerted her to it in any event. They were probably gangbangers, rolling down the street looking for houses that might be suitable to burgle. Her phone was in her bedroom, but she hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary. The car would keep on rolling, and that would be that.
But it didn’t.
It stopped, right outside their house.
She looked more carefully and saw the two figures inside. One of them leaned over until his head was over the dash and then the other did the same. Then, the driver’s side door opened and a tall black man stepped out. The passenger door opened and a skinny white guy followed. The driver looked up and down the street, said something to the passenger, and then both started up the short driveway to the front door.
Isadora was tying the belt of her gown as she heard the knock. She opened the door and hurried along the landing, calling out, “I’ll get it,” but she was too late.
Her father was already there.
She heard the voice from outside. “Mr. Bartholomew?”
“That’s right,” her father said as she turned onto the stairs. “Who’s asking?”
“Doesn’t matter who we are. We’re here because someone wants to give you a message.”
She saw her father’s stance change. He straightened his back and squared his shoulders. She panicked, flying down the stairs, her wet feet slapping on the treads.
“They do, do they? Better tell me what it is.”
“Someone wants to buy this place, right? You gotta accept the offer. It’s generous and if you don’t say yes, it’s off the table. Next offer won’t be as nice. You know what I’m saying, old man?”
She came up behind her father and saw the man that he was talking to. It was the driver, the black dude. The white guy was behind him, shifting uncomfortably.
“Papa,” she said.
“I got this, baby.”
&nb
sp; “What you want us to say, old man? Yes or no?”
“You tell that son of a bitch that he can shove his offer up his ass. My daughter built this house. This and all the other houses you can see, you look left and right. Only way your boss is getting me out of here is in a wooden box. You tell him that.”
Izzy put her hand on her father’s shoulder, trying to gently manoeuvre him away from the doorway, but his blood was up and he wasn’t going to show weakness to the punks outside. He half turned to look at his daughter, started to say something to her, when the white guy pushed past the black guy and cold-cocked him with a hard punch to the side of his head. The man was skinny, looked like he couldn’t be more than a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, but he was built like a wiry Mexican featherweight, and he’d loaded his right fist with everything he had. Solomon’s legs crumpled and he toppled backwards, twisting at the waist, Izzy just managing to wrap her arms around his trunk so that she could lower him down to the floor.
Elsie Bartholomew appeared in the doorway to the kitchen and dropped the plate that she had been drying. It shattered over the floor.
Izzy stood up, stepping over her father to put herself between him and the two men outside. “Get away from him!”
“You must be the daughter,” the black guy said.
“Momma,” she called out. “Call 911.”
The black guy chuckled. “Like five-oh is coming down here, this time of night. Even if they do, how long you think it’s gonna take? Long enough for you and me to get better acquainted.”
She stood her ground. “You tell Babineaux we’re not going anywhere. It doesn’t matter how much he offers, no one on this street is moving. He wants to build his mall, he’s going to have to build it around us.”
“I got a message for you specifically. That court case you got going on, it’d be better for you if you let that go. You want me to spell out what ‘worse’ looks like, sugar?”
The porch light on Vinnie Hayles’ property flicked on and the door opened. Vinnie came out. “You all right, Izzy?” he called. Vinnie was a big man, played defensive end to a good standard when he was younger, and had run in the gangs himself until he had found God. He still looked like a player, with thick forearms and shoulders, an array of gang tattoos visible on his neck.