by Davis Bunn
CHAPTER 7
The dreams savaged Buddy all night long. It felt as though they had already arrived before he settled his head on the pillow. Soon as he shut his eyes and gave in to the severest case of exhaustion he had known in years, the dreams attacked. His father rose like some mythic beast, tall as a volcano, filled with burning wrath. All night Buddy ran and ran. But he could not get away. Not even when he rose before dawn and staggered into the kitchen. Not even when he slipped out the back door and ran into the empty starlight. The monster followed, raging and nipping at his heels. He could never get away.
Sixteen miles later, he returned sweaty and footsore. He did his calisthenics and stretched, then showered and eased into the courtyard’s empty whirlpool. He leaned his head against the concrete tile and wondered over what was chasing him. He was as free as he had been in his entire life. His mother, the only draw that could ever push him to reenter the home he had fled, had spent the night in an efficiency apartment Buddy was determined to get her out of that afternoon. He had one job offer on the table. He might land another this very day. He had everything going his way. He didn’t need to ever see his father again. He was free.
Buddy had experienced such nightmares many times. But always before, the beast wearing his father’s face had come and gone in a flash of panic and shuddering wakefulness. Buddy had never known anything like the previous night. Buddy rubbed the place on his left shoulder, where the claws had held him down, keeping him from jerking awake, while the beast had bathed him with flames.
“Well, hey there, stranger.”
He was so lost in the recollections, he had not even heard her approach. And there she was, the beauty from across the courtyard, smiling down at him while she slipped off the too-short kimono.
“Mind if I join you?”
Buddy was already moving. “It’s all yours. I have to be going.”
“Aw, don’t let me chase you off. I won’t bite.” She wore a bikini as red as her lips. She had a fabulous smile. And the body to match. “You’re Buddy Helms.”
“How did you know?”
“I checked. I mean, a guy with your looks, always single, a girl can’t be too careful these days.” She smiled. “Now is the moment when you ask who I am.”
“I’ve already named you,” Buddy replied. “You’re Raven.”
She rewarded him with a smile that dimmed the morning. “I like that. Just the one word?”
He did his best to hold his gaze up above the level of the bubbling water. “Raven was enough.”
“Like a superhero. You better be good, or Raven will make you sorry.”
“Something like that.”
“Are you always this serious, Buddy Helms?”
“Afraid so.”
“And out of practice on the dating front, am I right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, that will certainly be a change from the wolves my so-called friends have been setting me up with since I moved up from LA.” She made changing her position into a magnet for his gaze. “I work for the local television channel. I’m what they call a wannabe talent.”
“I’d watch you,” Buddy said. “All night long.”
Then he realized what he had said, and would have crawled under the water, except for the way she smiled. “How sweet.”
“It didn’t sound that way to me.”
“But that’s how you meant it, right? Sweet. So tell me, Buddy Helms. Why don’t you have a girl?”
“I live for my work, it’s the simple truth. What about you?”
“I got tired of being chased by wolves.”
“I understand,” Buddy said, “better than you will ever know.”
The timer clicked off, the water stilled. Buddy gripped the rail and started up the steps. “I better be going.”
“Go where?” She turned over in the water like she would on a bed of roses. “Go why? The only rules you need to follow are the ones you like the most. That’s the modern world.”
“It’s not my world. It never has been.”
“Then poor you, Buddy Helms.” She rolled back over and closed her eyes to the dawn sky. “Be a Boy Scout and make the water froth again.”
* * *
Hazzard Communications occupied a central bastion of Santa Barbara’s old downtown. The moneyed LA crowd had polished Santa Barbara until it shone like an oceanfront jewel. But it was groups like Hazzard that kept the young people in town. They transformed the former sleepy bedroom community around the university into a high-tech powerhouse. Hazzard Communications was a major owner of radio stations. They also held controlling interests in regional television groups and newspapers. They specialized in small communities that other conglomerates considered second-rate or beneath notice. What the major holding groups failed to realize was, these small stations and newspapers remained highly profitable. They might generate a smaller revenue stream, but their customers remained loyal.
Hazzard modernized, they consolidated, and they kept their head down. Until the day they acquired the central coast’s largest television channel, and then three weeks later saved the San Luis Obispo newspaper from bankruptcy. Both sizeable acquisitions were made for cash. Even the Wall Street Journal took notice of that move.
Cliff Hazzard was everything Buddy’s father was not, and yet very similar just the same. Which was probably why Jack Helms had loathed the man on sight. Cliff Hazzard was bluff and hearty, and hailed from a small town between Dallas and Austin. Cliff was tall and red-faced in the manner of a man who fought against high cholesterol and even higher blood pressure. Cliff tossed heavy-handed scorn whenever he disagreed with someone, his power so great most people claimed they did not mind. He wore London-tailored suits with hand-tooled boots, and liked to think he made the best friend in the world. And the worst enemy.
Cliff resembled Buddy’s father most in that he did not lead his group so much as dominate it by force of will. Beneath Hazzard’s bonhomie was a fierce determination and unshakeable confidence that his opinion was the one that mattered most. He knew the way forward. Either his team got on board, or they were shown the steel tip of his boot. The streets of California commerce were littered with careers wrecked by Cliff Hazzard. But still they came, eager for the chance to work at Hazzard Communications because Cliff rewarded those who pleased him. He shared the wealth with a Texan’s openhanded generosity.
The building’s top two floors had been carved into a vast high-ceilinged duplex. It housed the boardroom, a private lobby, and Cliff Hazzard’s inner sanctum. Buddy was ushered through gilded double doors and directed into a sitting area separated from Hazzard’s desk by a hundred feet of mahogany floor and Persian carpets. Cliff Hazzard waved to him, a phone attached to his ear, his boots on the desk; three gray-suited attendants seated on the other side watched with tense expressions. Cliff boomed a few times into the receiver, then set it down and said, “Forty-five mil and not a cent higher.”
“They won’t budge from sixty,” the senior attendant declared.
“Yeah, they just sang me that same tune. But that’s my price.”
“I hear they have a hedge fund interested in the whole package.”
“You know what? I think they’re playing the LA version of Texas hold ’em. They made sure you heard about this so-called offer. But that don’t make it true.”
“And if the other buyer really exists?”
“Then we fold. Either way, I’m going with the chips already on the table.” He swung his boots to the floor. “We’re done here. See if the lawyer fellow is ready.”
The lawyer fellow was the senior partner of Santa Barbara’s largest firm, and a member of the Hazzard Communications board of directors. Stanton Parrish was urbane, where Cliff was rough-hewn. But the two men held the same calculating gaze as they seated themselves across from Buddy.
Cliff asked, “How’s the old man?”
“Not here,” Buddy replied.
“You into cars, Buddy? Of course you are. E
very kid your age is. You catch an eyeful of my new machine downstairs?”
Buddy knew the proper response was to praise the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost parked in the fire lane directly in front of the garage elevators. But he couldn’t be bothered. He had no idea why he felt so contrary. Perhaps the disturbed night. Or how the beautiful Raven’s words still bounced around his brain, about there being no rules except the ones he decided to follow. What he heard himself say was “I’m not a kid.”
“Your age says different. How old are you, anyway? You look about nineteen.”
“If your researchers haven’t already told you, I’m wasting my time.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out here, isn’t it, boyo? Whether we’re wasting time or not.”
“The answer is, I’m old enough to have tripled my firm’s revenue and saved the group from bankruptcy. Twice.”
“Well, now. We know Helms has been growing. The question is, who’s behind it? You or the old man? ’Cause I got to tell you, I don’t need somebody else’s puppet.”
“No,” Buddy replied. “You’ve got enough of those already.”
A predatory gleam entered the man’s green eyes. “Name one.”
“The head of your advertising group. He’s been riding your coattails since you acquired his firm four years ago.”
“They’ve made a profit every year,” Cliff shot back.
“Only because you discount your advertising space in print and on air. If he’d even half tried, he could have parlayed his position into a domination of the regional market. But he’s fat and happy. Which is why you’re looking for a replacement.”
Cliff crossed his legs, flicked an imaginary speck off his boot, and changed course. “I’m still trying to figure out who it is exactly we’re talking to here. You, or your father’s son.”
“I’m the guy who could make this advertising group actually pull its own weight. But you already know that. What I’m trying to figure out is why you feel a need to play the bully.”
“You got some mouth for a punk—”
“All right, that’s enough.” The lawyer spoke for the first time. “Back off, the both of you. Mr. Helms, your attitude is surprising, to say the least.”
Buddy did as Stanton said, and settled back into his chair. “You’re right. I apologize.”
Cliff started to speak, but the lawyer halted him with an upraised hand. “Let me ask you a personal question, Mr. Helms. What is behind this head of steam you brought in here with you?”
Buddy met the CEO’s agate gaze. “You are enough like my father to pull my trigger. But you’re not him, and I should give you a chance. I didn’t. I was wrong.”
The lawyer looked at Cliff seated beside him. “Takes a man to admit he made a mistake, wouldn’t you say?”
Cliff Hazzard caught the message and didn’t like it. “You’re not suggesting I did anything left-handed.”
“No. Of course not.” The lawyer’s smile said it all.
Buddy found he was not finished. “There’s something else. I received a job offer yesterday. When I approached Bernard and asked him to set up this meeting, I thought there was no place on earth I’d rather work than here.”
Cliff didn’t like that, either. “If your thinking’s changed, why are we fitting you into an overpacked day?”
“It’s not that. I still think I could make a hit here, and I think I’d be the best man for the job. But . . .”
Buddy found the same tight constriction wrenching at his chest as had afflicted him through the night. Only now, he was awake and could fight back. The two men must have caught some sense of his struggle, for they granted him a silence long enough for him to forge a decent breath and continue. “This is the first time I’ve ever even thought of working for someone other than my father. I didn’t even know the other group was going to make me an offer. Now I have two possibles.”
“We haven’t said a thing about what you could do around here,” Cliff objected.
“You’re right. But still.” Buddy shook his head, struggling to identify what it was that still held him in a tight grip. “It’s just . . . right now I feel like I’ve wasted eight years of my life.”
“You would have had to pay your dues somewhere,” the lawyer replied.
“Sure, okay. But it would have been on my terms. No, that’s not . . . I could have seen what I could do without relying on my father’s name.”
The lawyer glanced at his CEO, but Cliff had leaned back as well, his expression guarded. The hunter was taking aim.
Stanton Parrish turned back and asked, “What changed?”
“Bringing in the Lexington account.”
“You did that on your own?”
“Me and my team. My father didn’t know anything about it until I dropped off the paperwork Friday night.”
“How many are in your team?”
“Nine, plus two secretaries.”
“They loyal to you?”
“And I to them. If you take me, you take them.”
Cliff grumbled, “I have all final say on hiring and firing.”
Buddy looked at the man. Really looked. Saw the fierce combativeness and the love of the game. Cliff Hazzard was indeed very much like his father. And at the same time, very different. “I’ll have to think about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Before we met, I had planned to parlay this other offer into a demand that my division be completely independent. Under my authority alone. Your only choice would be to hire or fire me.”
Cliff’s face turned thunderous, but again the lawyer halted him with a slight gesture. Another major difference between the two leaders. Stanton asked a second time, “What changed?”
“Sitting here. Needing to look beyond the fences I’ve raised. If I trust you, and if I am loyal to you, then I need to think carefully about which in-house battles are worth fighting.”
The two men gave that a long moment. Finally Cliff said, “So, why don’t you tell us how you’d run this gig.”
CHAPTER 8
The rooming house where Beth Helms now resided stood in what once had been the most genteel neighborhood of old San Luis Obispo. Now it was only a step or so away from being seriously seedy. In an effort to keep the city’s bad sections from creeping any closer, police cars rolled past on a regular basis. The brick exterior was framed by granite that had been carted in by ox wagon, a trek over roadless frontier that had taken almost two months. Four generations of a local family had called the place home, until the latest lot of spendthrifts brought them to the verge of bankruptcy. When threatened with foreclosure, they carved the home up into apartments and now lived off the proceeds.
Buddy learned all this from an old man creaking on the front-porch rocker, while Buddy waited for his mother to answer the door. When Beth Helms finally appeared, Buddy declared, “We have got to get you out of here.”
She addressed her first words to the old man. “Don’t pay my son any mind, Josiah.”
“Truth never bothered me none,” the old man replied. “If I had a choice, I’d already be gone.”
Beth pushed open the screen door. “Come in, dear.”
Buddy entered to the smell of fresh paint and the sight of his sister sliding a roller up and down the parlor walls. Buddy said, “I thought we agreed—”
“Don’t you start,” his sister snapped.
“I like it here,” his mother said. “I’m staying.”
Carey dipped her roller in the paint and shrugged at Buddy.
The furnished apartment consisted of three rooms. The kitchen was barely large enough to hold a linoleum-topped breakfast table, the parlor was only a foot or so wider, and the bedroom was so small the queen-sized bed and scarred wardrobe forced the occupant to walk sideways around to the bathroom. The bathroom had probably not been touched since the 1950s. The fingernail-sized floor tiles were cracked and the grout turned gray with age. The place shouted genteel poverty. “Mom, you
can’t be serious.”
Beth was already back on her knees, scouring the oven with a wire brush. “It’s not your decision, son.”
“Come live with me. Please.”
His mother leaned back and used one wrist to swipe a strand of hair from her forehead. “Perhaps in time. But not now.”
“I’ve got two empty bedrooms, and I’m hardly ever there.”
“You have your own life. Besides, it would not be right.”
Carey had stopped painting. “Why not, Mom?”
“Children, I don’t expect you to understand. But I do expect you to mind. The whole point of this separation is to wake Jack up. He’s spent almost nine years staying stubbornly blind to the changes he’s gone through. For this to work, it’s important that I be on my own.” She raised her gloved hand. “That’s all I intend to say on the subject.”
Buddy went out to his car for the set of gym clothes he always carried in his trunk. The whole thing was baffling. According to his sister, his mother had rented this bizarre little apartment several months back. Which meant she had known Buddy was going to leave the Helms Group long before the thought had even entered his head.
As he returned up the wretched front stairs to where the old black man rocked and smiled at him, Buddy recalled the previous evening and his mother’s quiet earthquake of a departure. Beth Helms had directed her children to carry out an assortment of cases and bags. Then she’d propped a note on the dining-room table. Dinner had been warming in the oven. The house was neat as a pin. Like she was stepping out for a bridge game.
As he set his gym bag on the bed and shut the bedroom door, his phone rang. He was tempted not to answer, but when he saw the number, he knew he had no choice. “This is Buddy.”
“Cliff Hazzard. Have I caught you at a bad time?”
Buddy scanned the cramped little bedroom with the yellowed walls and the cheap dime-store light globe dangling from the ceiling. One pane of the narrow window was cracked. The flimsy curtains looked filthy. “What can I do for you, Mr. Hazzard?”
“My buddy Stanton was right, much as it pains me to say it. You weren’t the only one who came into that meeting raw from hidden issues.”