Garrett & Sunny: Sometimes Love is Funny

by Peter Butler

  Tim pretended to give this some thought. Eventually, he said, 'Okay, Frank. $5,000. The one other requirement we have is that the campaign must not start until after 4 p.m. tomorrow.'

  'Great,' Frank said. A pleased smile spread over his face. 'I'll expect a direct deposit before that time. Gary knows my details.' He slapped Tim heartily on the back. 'Now, I'll get one of the anonymous prepaid phones I keep for situations like this, and we can transfer those pictures across to it.'

  ***

  As Tim and Gary were flying back to Brisbane Truf was on hold on the phone. He had called Dr. John Mackintime's office earlier in the day, but the doctor was too busy to take his call. Truf explained it was a business call and had been instructed to call back at the end of the day. Around 7 p.m.. The doctor kept long working hours.

  He held the phone to his ear, forced to listen to a dreadful single note, pinging version of Greensleeves. Abruptly the pinging ended and a relaxed, confident male voice came on the line. 'John Mackintime. Who am I speaking to, please?'

  'Hello, Dr. Mackintime, my name is Robert Stonewall,' Truf said. He felt more than a little awkward using his actual name, and found himself pulling a face as he said it. 'I'd like to talk to you about purchasing your family trust's holding of Plutarch Resources.'

  Mackintime laughed when he heard Truf's plan. 'I think you've called the wrong office Mr. Stonewall. Dr. Davis, the psychiatrist, is one floor below me.' He chuckled some more. For him this was a rare and monumentally funny quip. 'I'm sorry, excuse me. It's been a long day. Those shares have been going nowhere but down Mr. Stonewall. Forgive my bluntness, but why would you want to own them?'

  'I already have a small holding in the company Dr. Mackintime and I too am very disappointed in the share price. I blame the current management. They're a bunch of fools. I need your share parcel to give me enough leverage to get voted onto the Board and change things. I'm a geologist and mining engineer, doctor and I know I can run the company better than this German idiot, Felix Geyer.'

  'Presumably, there are other parcels of shares you can purchase, Mr. Stonewall. From your enthusiasm for the project I suspect I might be better off holding on to my parcel and waiting for you to work your wonders.'

  'I'm afraid you are my only chance to do this quickly, Dr. Mackintime. If I try and accumulate a sizable holding by buying at market, Geyer will be forewarned. The other similar size share parcels are being held by long-term investors who have many cross holdings within the Coal Seam Gas industry. Quite frankly, they are waiting for Geyer to bankrupt the company, so they can have first option on taking over Plutarch's leases.' Truf wasn't comfortable telling these lies, but he was confident that the company would bankrupt itself in the near future the way it was going. So, it was only a partial lie.

  Mackintime said nothing on the other end of the phone. Truf did likewise, giving him time to ponder his options. Eventually Mackintime spoke, 'What is your offer, Mr. Stonewall?'

  'I'm prepared to pay 10 cents a share for your entire holding. I will email you a formal, binding offer after I hang up. The offer will only be good until 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. That is my deadline. After that, if you haven't accepted, I too will be a seller, and will walk away from Plutarch Resources.'

  ***

  I had slept well after my quick trip to Sydney. Needless to say my call to Sunny last night when I arrived back in Brisbane had gone straight through to voice-mail.

  Aside from my Sunny problem, everything was in place and the day ahead of me was looking quite empty.

  Waiting... Waiting... and then some more waiting. Time goes so slowly when you are watching the clock.

  Truf had explained the way he had handled Dr. Mackintime and I approved of his tactics. We might make a share trader out of this boy, one day.

  The first thing I had done in the morning was to get Sky to email Ling Mien and remind him our offer to purchase his 9.5% holding in Plutarch Resources at 9.5 cents a share would be withdrawn at 5:30 p.m.

  By late in the afternoon, Frank's negative publicity campaign should become active and if I was correct Ling Mien would be calling Sky within seconds of it hitting the news. By 6:00 p.m. tonight I'd be in effective control of a company.

  I hoped.

  I planned on visiting my new friend Hector, the retired doctor I'd met on the plane, to kill some time and also get him to suggest where I needed to go to get some anti-Bev blood tests done. Tim was also planning on visiting a doctor as part of our agreement.

  ***

  Sunny had spent a good portion of the night working at her home computer, until she had completed the necessary tasks. She had some missed calls and messages on her phone.

  In the morning she played Garrett's message a second time and detected frustration in his voice. She felt bad about how she was ignoring him but this business with Simon had messed up her mind and she didn't want to say the wrong thing or snap at Garrett. It was better this way. Cowardly, but better. She vowed to herself to make it up to him when he got back to the UK.

  Today was about getting even with Simon. She wondered about that - what could possibly even the score? Simon had raped her, entered her body without her permission - without her knowledge. What could possibly balance that ledger? The only way she could come up with would be for him to go to prison and experience the indignity and brutality himself at the hands of hardened criminals. The thought brought a shudder to her. No, she couldn't wish that upon anyone, not even Simon. She would have to settle with what she had originally planned. What she had in her bag right now.

  Sunny parked her car and braced herself for the coming confrontation. She headed towards the office noticing Simon's car space was empty as she passed.

  Damn! He must be still at home recovering from the drugs.

  Sunny entered the office and immediately knew something was up. The five girls who shared the office duties were huddled in a group around one of the desks.

  She walked up to the girls, who hadn't noticed her up until this point, and said, 'What's up, guys?'

  'Oh my god!' said Claire, one of the accounts girls. She was about nineteen and still prone to outbursts of "girlie" statements. 'Laugh out loud, Sunny. Bree came in first this morning and found the office unlocked and Simon stark naked on his couch.' All five girls giggled at the retelling of a story that was going to do the rounds for some time to come.

  Bree couldn't contain herself; it was her story after all. 'He was totally nude,' she giggled as she spoke, 'his thing just sitting there in front of me.' She made a face as she continued the laughter. 'I thought he might have been hurt, you know, mugged or raped or something. I called out to him but he didn't answer me, so I went over and poked his shoulder with my finger.' She grinned to her audience. 'He opened his eyes and he looked really weird. He looked at me like he didn't know me.'

  'Did he have any cuts or bruises?' Sunny asked, laying the grounds for a defense in case it was ever required.

  Bree just shook her head, not ready to give up the spotlight just yet. 'I said, "Simon... are you alright? Are you injured or sick?" He just stared at me. He looked confused. Then he realized he was naked and he yelled, "Oh shit!" and tried to stand up, but fell flat on his face on the floor. I tried to help him up, but he pushed me away.' She grinned at Sunny. 'He was crawling on his hands and knees towards his desk, where he'd left his clothes. I thought I'd better get out of there and let him get dressed, so I left,' she giggled to the girls and made a gesture with her finger and thumb, suggesting something small. The girls erupted into even louder laughter. 'A couple of minutes later he came storming out of his office. He was dressed, but I could see he'd made a bad job of it. He went straight out the front door without even looking at me. He looked furious.'

  'Wow! I wonder what the hell he was up to.' Sunny said, placing herself in amongst the shocked and confused office girls.

  Gradually the conversation about Simon began to run out of steam and everyone gravitated back to their own desk, and slowly the offi
ce took on its normal buzz.

  Today was a no-shoot day for Sunny so she settled in to a routine of budgeting for the upcoming scenes they needed to create. Her job meant she was involved in just about every aspect of the pre-production, shooting and editing. The only area she had no involvement in was the selling and marketing, they were the areas Simon looked after and the way she had decided, to best punish him. She had concluded that to continue working with him was impossible after what he had done. She could never trust him, never allow herself to be alone with him and she quite simply didn't like the man. He was a pig.

  She knew he should go to jail for what he had done, but the process of getting him there would be too horrendous for her. She doubted Simon would be capable of physically overpowering a woman; violence seemed to be out of his range of capability, he needed a cowards way to commit rape. She had his Rohypnol and she doubted, or hoped, he wouldn't be able to get any more. With that as her reasoning she had come up with the plan to blackmail him with the embarrassing pictures, to force him to get her a better job with some other company.

  On-camera would be the ideal area for her to move to, but she would take anything half decent just to put Simon Sexton into her past.

  Bree's description of him being "furious" was not a reaction she had expected. She was banking on reasoning and capitulation, two characteristics she already associated with Simon. Bad tempered and furious suggested Sleazy Simon had another side to him; one that he kept well hidden throughout a normal day. Hidden right beside his rapist personality.

  She hated the idea of her pictures wrecking a family, especially one with a young daughter, but she reconciled that with the thought that Simon wasn't a fit person to bring up a child of any sex. Simplistically, she had managed to convince herself that she wouldn't need to show the pictures to Simon's wife, Suzie, just the threat should be enough to get what she wanted. Time would tell.

  Sunny also had an alternate plan if Simon rejected her suggestions. She planned to scatter the pictures all over London, anonymously putting them in the letterboxes of people who did business with Simon, his friends, and especially any enemies, in the hope of destroying his career.

  Do not mess with this girl. You might win a battle, but the war will be long and hard, and fought on many levels.

  ***

  My morning with Hector turned out to be a lot of fun. He is a nice man and not only suggested we have lunch at a lovely local restaurant, he actually insisted on paying for the meal. That wasn't the end of his largess. It seems the retired doctor had kept his Medical Registration up to date. He claimed all his friends still needed prescriptions by the hundreds and it was the least he could do. I suspect it was more a reason to keep his rather good brain, active. Either way, Hector himself drew my blood.

  While he prepared his needle and tubes I told him my one and only doctor joke: A fellow goes to see his doctor. He says, "Doctor, I'm a kleptomaniac. Do you have something I can take?"

  Hector laughed politely as he removed the needle from my vein, but I could tell he had heard it already. I told the joke more to distract myself as he jabbed me, not that I needed to, Hector was very good at his job and I barely felt it go in.

  He promised to email the results to me in a day or three, when the pathologist had had a chance to do the blood-work.

  To reciprocate his gesture I broke a cardinal rule and subtly suggested if he had a spare dollar or two he might want to pick up some Plutarch shares. I might even have suggested he should wait for a day or so before he did it.

  I told myself it's only Insider Trading if you're actually on the inside. Denial is a cloak that is beginning to look good on me.

  It was now 2:45 p.m. and Tim, Truf and I were taking coffee on the Terrace, trying to relax while inside, we were all in turmoil. We each had our laptop in front of us, open on our email accounts. Our phones were sitting only inches away.

  Truf was the first to bag a winner. He opened an email and announced to us with a grin as big as a boomerang on his face, 'The Mackintime-Overly Trust has accepted my offer to purchase their 4.5 million Plutarch shares at 10 cents each.'

  'Well-done, you,' I said and shook his hand.

  Tim clapped Truf on the back. 'Great news. Congratulations Truf.'

  A few minutes later my phone began to ring. The screen advised me it was an "Overseas Call". I refused to get my hopes up on that alone as all calls at the moment came with that announcement. Never-the-less I raised my eyebrows and grinned nervously at the boys as I said, 'Garrett Nixon speaking.'

  'Indeed it is, I'd recognize that voice anywhere,' came a laid-back Yanky drawl over the phone. 'Wonderful to talk to you after such a long time. This is Johnson Noble from Ambic Investments, Garrett, You may not remember me but we met at a convention on a Mississippi paddle steamer, called the Robert E a year or two back. You managed to get me quite drunk on some Pommy concoction you were hot for at the time.'

  'Hey Johnson, I remember you. You wanted British grog so we tried Pimms, it was all I could come up with, which is a bit of a girls drink,' I laughed. 'We must have been really smashed that night.'

  'I think it might have been the scotch we did before that, that caused the damage. But I can still remember the night, so it can't have been totally devastating,' he joined in my laughter.

  'Just giving you a heads-up courtesy call, Garrett. We've just unloaded 5 million shares of a little Aussie stock called Plutarch Resources to a guy by the name of Oscar Barrymore. He stipulated that you needed to be advised that the transaction had been consummated. I'm not going to ask what you're up to Garrett, but good luck with it.'

  'Thanks, Johnson. Can I be nosy and ask how much you made the jerk pay?'

  'He paid 25 over. Seemed very keen to get 'em.'

  'Next time you're in London give me a call Johnson and I'll buy you a drink or two for that. Thanks for the call, old boy.' I disconnected and grinned at Tim and Truf, who were keen to hear the other half of the conversation they had been trying to piece together.

  'Barrymore has secured the 5% holding that Ambic Leveraged held,' I gave a big grin. 'They made him pay 12.5 cents a share.'

  'Things are going well,' Truf said. 'Only the 5% Samson-Jonkins own to go before Warra is a major shareholder.'

  Tim cut in. He was looking over my shoulder at my computer screen. 'Gary, check your inbox. That name has just come up on your screen.'

  I double clicked to open the email. It was from Meridith Jacoby, Director of Trading at Samson-Jonkins. I read the email out loud. 'Mr. Nixon. This is a formal advice to you regarding your client Mr. Oscar Barrymore. We have transferred 5 million shares in Plutarch Resources N.L. into his name this morning. Regards, M. Jacoby.'

  ***

  Simon never returned to the office, leaving Sunny wondering if she should start delivering the sixty photos she had in her bag. In the end she decided to give Simon more time before she made that decision. She knew that the local bars would be abuzz, tonight, with the story the office girls would be telling to every single person they knew, so her job was half done already.

  Nobody had actually put it together, yet. The consensus in the office was that Simon, either had hookers come in and he got too drunk and passed out. Or he was into some weird masturbation thing and passed-out. They were leaning towards the latter as there were no empty bottles or dirty glasses found in the office.

  They had looked. Even in the rubbish bins.

  He would be back in the office tomorrow Sunny decided and packed up for the day.

  As she drove home she had the thought of randomly throwing out handfuls of the pictures as she drove through London. She discarded the idea as wasteful and she didn't want any little kids picking them up.

  Sunny knew she had trouble when she pushed her key into her front door, only to have the door push open from the pressure her fingers provided trying to find the keyhole. The lock had been forced open with a jimmy. She could see the indentation in the door and the splintered wood around th
e inside part of the bolt-hole now that the door was open.

  She stood in the doorway and pushed it fully open. Her instincts told her to call the police and wait outside, but there was a problem, the sachet of Rohypnol pills was inside in her filing cabinet. If the police searched and found it she would be in a lot of trouble, and not able to easily explain why she had the drugs.

  She peered cautiously into the semi-darkened room. She could see it was a mess. Someone had turned her furniture upside down and scattered the contents of her cupboards and drawers over the floor. Was it a random robbery or something more personal? She noted that nothing seemed to be smashed, so it wasn't just vandalism it had been a methodical, thorough, but very messy, search.

  That seemed to narrow down the list of suspects. Simon must have worked out that she had drugged him using the Rohypnol and would have been unlikely to put it back in his filing cabinet. Therefore, there was a good chance it would be here in her home. He had come looking for it and she could see he hadn't been able to open the filing cabinet.

  She had to get it before she called for help.

  She hadn't made any noise so far. The door had opened on well lubricated hinges and she hadn't been stupid like some people, and called out something lame, like, 'Is anybody in there?'

  She scanned the room again from the doorway but couldn't see anyone hiding.

  There was no other way. She edged slowly through the doorway, ready to bolt if he suddenly appeared. The bathroom door and her bedroom door were both shut. This was a cause of great worry.

  Sunny poked her head around the door, ever conscious that a fist could come at her any second. Thankfully, nobody was hiding behind it and she let out a sigh of relief.

  She needed a weapon and she had one - a baseball bat she kept for that very reason, but it was propped up beside her bedside table in the same room as her intruder might probably be searching right now. She thought of getting a knife from the kitchen but she doubted she would have the strength and determination to actually use one in anger. No, she needed a club long enough for her to swing from beyond arms-reach. She scanned the room and found her best available weapon, her aluminum camera tripod. It was lying on the floor next to her desk and she made her way to it.