Dot Com Murder

by Emma Lathen

  Albert saw John had reached his conclusion. Becky did as well and silently slipped away as John and Albert sat together companionably with their 2 unfinished brandies.

  Chapter 14

  newport

  There is only now, not yesterday or tomorrow

  Chuck was happily ensconced in his place just north of Newport. He decided to wait at least a few more days before pushing off to his place across the lake in Magog, Quebec. From there he could take Route 10 into Montreal and go anywhere.

  He had always thought the Banff National Park area would be good to live in so had bought a small place near there on about 20 acres of non-valuable but handsome property. He had quietly gone up a few months ago to stock it for this possible occasion. A few years before he had accepted a cash payment from an Italian company for everything.com services.

  Pietro Romano had known Chuck some time and had asked about the possibility when Chuck was in Lake Como. Chuck asked how much he had in mind, “$7 Million USD and $3 million CDN.”

  Chuck liked the idea of cash from a foreign source, free from all encumbrances. It was not the tax he was trying to avoid; that was dangerous to do and silly with his wealth. No, it was the fact he could fund his separate identity when or if he needed it. After suitable negotiations, Chuck gave in. Chuck was willing to take the money at face value, but knew Pietro would find this unacceptable so thought of what else he could ask for.

  Pietro had seen him thinking and let him do so. His investor would be delighted. The man was tainted, but not too much. Pietro liked to grant him favors. The man had approached Pietro in a roundabout way and asked if he could pay Romano the equivalent of $10 million US in US and Canadian cash and be repaid in a check in Euros.

  The man was trusted because he always gave people who helped him something else, and equally important protected them from danger including himself. And this would be no exception, “Pietro, I helped you early and you appreciated it; I would appreciate this,” the man had said.

  That was enough, more than enough, for Pietro. “Certainly,” Pietro had nodded respectfully. “It will be done.”

  “Pietro, you know I deeply appreciate your quick agreement. You have always left it to me to decide what I got for my investment, and other such things. You are doing it again. I appreciate it.”

  “You are welcome. You have been a wonderful supporter. Now tell me where this money is so I can figure out how to unload it with your approval. I must have your approval for my unloading. You must approve. If my first suggestion doesn’t work, we will keep working at it until you like one.”

  “Wise of you as always, Pietro. $7 million is in US dollars and $3 million in Canadian dollars, both in the US; Canada is a smaller country but somehow we do better there. I hope that is OK.”

  At this stage the man was anxious so Pietro wanted to give him a quick solution. It didn’t take him long to figure out Chuck would do it. And he told the man about Chuck. He did so at some length. The closing argument was, “Both my mistress and wife adore him. Isn’t that something? My wife lets him stay over when I take my supposed business trips, which is in code, and she is fine with. They eat at the kitchen table. He speaks Italian. He likes it. He is the respectful son neither of us ever had,” and the man laughed, always a good sign.

  The man added, “You must be a second family to him?”

  “No, not exactly, not precisely. He is like Daniel Boone or Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson. He can be with people but he is more comfortable by himself, a loner with others, but always a quiet handsome loner.”

  “In other words, Pietro, totally trustworthy.”

  “Yes, now that I think about it I would almost stake my life on it, but not quite,” and they laughed together and the deal was done.

  Then the man grew serious and said, “What can we give this Chuck in thanks? Certainly not more money I suspect.”

  “I think I know. We set up a Cayman Island account for his use with all the taxes properly paid for by us there. We let him use that to pay his bills in any way he wants. If he is who I think he is, he will want to go off on his own someday. His partner Jack is the frontman, but not one to be able to function without a Chuck. And the Chucks are rare as we know. Jack is jealous of him which is a terrible sign as you know; I met Jack; he is more like me in many ways, but not satisfied with today, always wanting more like a greedy child. No, that will come to bad ends. That’s how we can help Chuck.”

  “How much from me, Pietro?”

  “My friend, we have always done business simply. You decide that; you set up the account; you fund it.”

  “OK, but if we do more I will have to pay more.”

  “Only if you choose, only if you choose to do so. I have a test to verify for you what I believe; I will short change him a little; Chuck checks everything. He will know. But he will never say anything. If he says nothing then you know I am right; if not, then he is like the rest of us.”

  “I would be furious.”

  “Yes, you would, and I would. But that is why the Americans own the world. They fought the Italians didn’t they? But immediately became our friends afterwards. They hold no grudges; they let things go. That is their secret sauce; they do not carry around wounds; they let them heal.”

  “Interesting man your Chuck.”

  “Yes, and I don’t think he quite sees that but why should he? He is a man who truly lives in the present. You can see it when he eats or drinks; he enjoys just that, not what is next or what was before. Normally those people hang out in cafes and fail. He doesn’t. But he is the only one of that type I know who has succeeded in business. Many succeed in life, according to their own analysis. It is odd.”

  “I see. If he splits from Jack, he will have to remove him, as we say in my business. Jack won’t let him go quietly and might try to remove him first,” and Pietro nodded.

  The man continued, “So he will have use for this money. That is another reason to give it to him. It sounds as if he doesn’t know he is in the removal business,” and Pietro agreed, realizing he had learned a lot about Chuck’s future, which in fact would come true, but he never shared his advance knowledge. The man would arrange the cash delivery as instructed by Pietro, set up the Cayman account, and that would be that.

  Pietro informed Chuck; the US and Canadian money was delivered by arrangement in a U-Haul truck at an anonymous New York Thruway stop. Chuck had gotten the truck and drove it to his Newport house and buried it in a crypt he had built for that purpose in his woods. He counted the money and found the US money $25,000 short. Exactly $25,000 short. He wondered if that was a test; it surely was. Pietro was not careless and knew he was not. There must be someone else involved he correctly concluded. He would remain silent now and forevermore about the shortage.

  He returned the U-Haul later the same day. The $3 million CDN was intact to the dollar. Interesting Chuck thought; the fine Italian hand, the fine Italian hand he thought. Out of his league for sure and he would leave it that way.

  Pietro Romano was an immensely rich Italian who owned many things. His specialty was to create relationships early with emerging people and firms. He did this through LCs and now prepayments in the Internet days. He understood the Americans; they liked to be liked. Italians never understood that; Italians liked to be thought of as shrewd and sly, often outfoxing themselves.

  The secret to dealing with Americans was to be simple, clear, fair, and pay on the dot. And they would overpay for that. No, Romano thought, no; their overpaying was a form of insurance. Who would you ship first? Who would you deal with first? The guy who paid you on the button or some Greek who would chisel you for sport? The Greeks were no fools; but they didn’t understand what they valued put off others. Americans seeming naiveness was why they owned the world and certainly the cyberspace.

  Pietro stayed active because his rich retired friends grew fat, lazy, stupid, and worst of all boring. He did not want to go down that road. A secret of Pietro’s is he knew h
e, too, was vulnerable to all human vices and had to remain vigilant to control them the best he could.

  Romano liked Chuck because he let Pietro be himself. He never begrudged him his negotiations, rantings, objections, carryings on, mistresses, and more.

  In fact, his most passionate mistress always asked when Chuck was coming over next. She had been useful as well as gorgeous as well as rich and care free due to Romano’s generosity, what Chuck would call his basic fairness. But even Chuck did not have the nerve to call, no accuse, Romano of being fair. Pietro would have been offended at such candor and praise, and this from a man who seemed candid.

  When the 3 of them went out together the first time Chuck treated Pietro’s mistress like the lady she wanted to be but could not afford to be since the mistressing job paid better and gave a woman more freedom in Italy. She loved the way he spoke literate Italian that she was sure Dante himself would have admired. And the payoff for Romano was she was incredibly passionate and wonderful for the rest of their weekend together.

  Romano’s wife liked Chuck because she knew Pietro would be safe with him. As with many Italian wives, she had sex for children not for sport. She left the sport to Pietro and his mistresses who worked far harder at that than she ever had as a wife or mother.

  As a result, Chuck was one of the few business associates of Pietro that she warmly invited into her house, as she thought of it, and made a house guest. When Pietro would leave for a business weekend, thinly veiled for one with a mistress, Chuck would stay over if in town and they would eat quietly at her kitchen table. The house was elegant as befitting an Italian Robber Baron as she thought of her husband. But she preferred the kitchen as did Chuck.

  Romano knew why his mistresses and wife both liked Chuck. He was some kind of female dream. He was handsome, if not gorgeous, respectful, and not pushy. He had a knack of letting others do the approaching. Above all he let people be themselves and enjoyed letting them be so. The man could have been Daniel Boone, he always thought. A true American loner, though Boone was more in image than in reality he had learned when reading more about him.

  Chuck knew the Italians liked to negotiate, in fact hated it when one didn’t. Although Jack had the charisma, the Mediterranean customers preferred Chuck because he was capable of enduring cumbersome negotiations and Jack was not.

  Chuck had created a separate identity complete with US passport and photos, and all that goes with it. It cost him a handsome sum but it did handsome work. He had been working on the profile for some time. He chose the name John Miller because there were lots of them. It had worked to date. He now had credit cards, library cards, and more. He had also created an almost brother, Jim Miller, who had the same set of documents but for Canada, which he occasionally used as well.

  Since many things in Canada were free that cost money elsewhere, they were more complicated. So Chuck had started a little Canadian company, paid Jim Miller as an employee to get his Canadian equivalent of social security going, his national health card, and more. He had also bought a nice condo in Vancouver as another place to go when the weather got tough in Banff, which it did in the winter in the Canadian Rockies.

  Chuck knew that people thought it was safe to go deep in the wilderness but he knew better. Any outpost got to know you fast because so few people passed through and seeing a new person was an uplifting thing, not the nuisance it was for most storekeepers in town.

  He had his plan. First Newport. Then Magog. Then on to Banff by train. Then on to Vancouver by train. And on to Honolulu by ship. He could run the businesses from wherever. Janet Brown indicated she would stay with the business. So she could run Simply. The other division would be tucked under Simply and he could let her run both.

  No he paused in thought as he walked quietly around his property. He was the fox and they were the hounds. They didn’t know where his lair was. The last thing he should be doing is moving. Deer froze in place. The human eye saw what moved. It was time not to move. And what did that entail he wondered?

  He had 6 months of supplies stocked away in Newport. He had 2 weeks of fresh things. He would forgo the fresh and stay in his lair for 6 months. As he had learned in preparation for his new adventure as he thought of it, statistically the police either got their perpetrator quickly or not at all usually. In his case, though, they would figure out it could only be him as the candidate, the logical candidate, which he added to by leaving and ratified further by being unavailable so their odds of capture had to be better than average in his case.

  He had learned through Internet backdoor ways there was no warrant or subpoena out for him. They were looking but had no justifiable cause to get formal court sanctioning for doing so. Good for him. Each day that passed would be a good one; each day that passed would put other cases in front of his.

  He had bought a section of land around his Newport place under different names, using a Wyoming savings bank to pay for them. Nail that stick up get hammered hard, he thought, not for the first time. Multiple owners purchasing at different times did not cause the town clerk to gossip about a rich property owning flatlander in town. And if so, then it would be a Wyoming guy, not a Northeast flatlander.

  Under the Wyoming identity he had hired some wilderness landscape people to craft and clear out subtle trails that were fun to walk. 640 acres provided lots of walking room. He couldn’t really buy more even with surrogates or it would stand out as too much open space to go unnoticed, especially with new mapping tech.

  As he walked further, he realized that he needed to simplify the business not complicate it. He had enough cash and equivalents out of the business to last him 10 or more lifetimes as a spendthrift and forever with his personality and predilections.

  He had invested $10 million in each Walmart, Dollar Tree, Apple, and Amazon. Walmart dividends had started out at about 2% of market value or $200,000 per year; Apple, Dollar Tree, and Amazon had not yet started paying dividends but the stocks had increased multiple times since his purchase. He thought Apple would start paying dividends soon. Walmart, Dollar Tree, and Apple also had stock repurchase programs in place to put a floor under the stock by having fewer shares to pay dividends on if they paid them or later if they decided to pay them. And, of course as he knew, by buying their own stock, which they knew, they didn’t buy something new that they did not know and distract themselves as Jack so often had.

  So to trim his sails he decided on his walk, as he looked at the beautiful Rousseau like Swiss vista of Northern Vermont, he would consolidate his large division under the Simply umbrella. He would not ask Janet Brown to run it. He would let her stay retired as she had said she wanted to, for negotiation purposes he suspected, and he was right about that.

  Simply was a simple sustainable business with no cost of goods for current titles; about 150 had author splits, but only after money was received. He could judiciously buy out most if not all of those authors which would further simplify and privatize matters. Over time that was done.

  As for the other niche lines, they emphasized basic products in apparel, sports, shoes, hardware, and home goods. They competed with Amazon which was not good, but generally had better prices than they did since they focused on the lower price part of the market not the higher end where most cyber companies were and wanted to be, including Amazon itself.

  Yes, that was it. He would start tomorrow. As he smiled while walking, he reminded himself all he had was now, not yesterday or tomorrow. And that would be true as it always is though most people were unmindful of that simple truth, he mused.

  Chapter 15

  Lunch

  Patience and time are the ultimate warriors

  George and Joyce were looking forward to their second meeting, drinks, and dinner. It was a lovely break from everything else in their lives. They had taken the day off, kind of a Sunday as they thought of it, with a nice party at the end to top it off.

  Albert loved entertaining; Elizabeth and John were thoughtful. They had discussed it
earlier and came to no firm conclusions but some suggestive ones.

  Elizabeth came over to lunch with Albert and her father. They all enjoyed getting lunches started together; they worked amiably together in the kitchen getting a salad done; and fish to justify the night’s upcoming steak and potatoes extravaganza Albert and John liked so much.

  When they sat down, Elizabeth said, “Dad, I have been following everything.com since yesterday. Things are going smoothly there. Things are smoother than before of course since the unprofitable division has been pawned off on IBM who was desperate for top line growth.”

  “Yes,” thought John. “Being private means you can concentrate on the money. IBM can’t do that. Becky, since we are Dad, Becky, and Albert now, give us the run down as of right now.”

  “As you know, increasing positive cash flow tends to be more positive and negative cash flow more negative than planned. This situation at Simply and everything.com is no exception. Let me give you the details,” as she paused to have a bite of the orange and strawberry salad they had all just made.

  “This morning we were notified that all the sites would now come in the marketplace through the Simply umbrella, saving the complexity of multiple site payments. The consumer will see all of the sites separately; but the back office will be cleaner, crisper, simpler, and therefore cheaper.”

  “A revised corporate masthead shows only Chuck as an officer and the Sloan as agent. As you know that is perfectly legal; but we thought Janet Brown might be included and she wasn’t. That probably means no new staff. In any event, when we got ready to setup the first week’s payroll we learned there would be no employees so no payroll.”

  “No employees in a $900 million business? Isn’t that risky?” John said.

  “Not if there are no employees, Dad. Now here is the second part of it. When queried about office rents, warehouses, and such things, which the presale company had, we were told that IBM owned and controlled them all now, not everything.com.”