The Money Stones

by Ian St. James

  'Your other boys on their way?' Pickard asked when he rejoined me. His speech was so fast that I had to replay it in my mind to make sure I had the sense of it.

  'Any minute,' I looked at my watch. 'I believe you said twelve noon, Mr Pickard, it's a couple of minutes to.'

  'Swell - Vince by the way. You want a drink or something?'

  Harry Smithers, McNeil and Emanuel arrived in time to give their requests to the white-coated steward and, while we waited for the drinks, we did the grand tour all over again. Pickard may have been hidden behind a CIA style security screen but he took his responsibilities as a host seriously. Everything was explained - the computers, the video satellite with Pittsburgh, the charts, statistics, and the unceasing flow of telex messages arriving from every corner of the globe.

  The tour ended at a cold buffet table set up in a small dining room. 'You men help yourselves,' Pickard waved at the tables. 'All I have for lunch is a piece of cheese and an apple.'

  Our meal was more substantial and having served ourselves we sat around a low table and did the business small talk bit, world trade, the American economy, that sort of thing - until Pickard could restrain himself no longer: 'Mike's partner tells me you boys can help me with my problem?'.

  'Maybe,' Harry answered for all of us. 'How big's the problem?'

  'Big enough to bury me,' Pickard's grin dared anyone to try. 'Harry, I'll tell you - unless I find a guaranteed source of fifty thousand metric tons of processed sulphide every year for the next five, I'm in big trouble.'

  McNeil's eyes popped. 'Starting when, Mr Pickard?'

  'Like I said - Vince. Starting any time. But not later than a year from now. 'Course that means tying up contracts a whole lot sooner.''

  'What price structure did you have in mind?' Emanuel asked.

  'You tell me.' Pickard grinned, too wily to be first bidder at an auction.

  Emanuel avoided telling him any such thing and it was one-way traffic for a while as Pickard listed his requirements and rapped out answers to our questions. It was an impressive performance and we showed badly by comparison, Harry and McNeil especially vague at times. Of course I knew why - without an agreement with Pepalasis in our pocket we could hardly play it any other way - but Pickard grew visibly irritated when his open way of doing business wasn't reciprocated: 'For Chrissakes, what's the problem? It's a straight choice who you get into bed with me or those shits at the Metals Exchange.'

  McNeil glanced anxiously at Harry. 'Delivery could be tight, Vince. We've got a lot of construction work to contend with, building a processing plant, you know how delays crop up.'

  'Is that all? Shit, we won't argue over a couple of lousy months. Give me warning and I'll work round it. If you fall short at the start you'll make it up, won't you? Say by the second year?'

  'So no penalty clauses in the contract?'

  'Screw you if you come in late? Where's the percentage? I want sulphide not blood. Guaranteed prices and total delivery over five years. Gimme that and I get my new plant.'

  And Hallsworth gets his order I thought.

  Harry looked pleased. 'So we write a contract at today's market price. Two thousand pounds a ton, with, say, a ten per cent per annum price riser and an escalation clause to take care of any increase in world freight costs.'

  Pickard's face was expressionless. 'All other cost increases, your problem?'

  Harry nodded.

  I held my breath while I multiplied tonnages by price and sagged with the weight of the answer. If Pickard said yes, we had stitched together the biggest deal of my life in less time than an average housewife would take to buy a week's groceries.

  But Pickard didn't say yes. Instead he unleashed a battery of questions about our ability to meet his requirements which left us gasping. Answering was like feeding a computer. Black eyes blinked at each reply and stored it away in a memory bank. Until finally he asked Harry: 'You really got that much nickel?'

  'We think so.'

  'Who's we?'

  'Well, Kirk here has just completed the initial survey.' Harry wilted under the steady gaze. 'I don't know if you're aware of Mr McNeil's reputation-'

  'Yeah, we've checked him out. You're good, McNeil. At least everyone says so. But the rest of you guys are money men, aren't you?'

  Emanuel shrugged. 'We're businessmen, Vince.'

  'Yeah, I know. Just trying to make an honest buck.'

  There was a murmur of faint laughter while we waited for him to continue. 'Tell you something though,' he said thoughtfully. 'You've sure got yourselves a valuable piece of real estate. Wherever it is.'

  We had refused to divulge the location of our source, but the pressure of his questions had trapped us into revealing its off-shore potential. And he stayed with it like a dog sniffing a bitch on heat.

  'Howie!' Pickard raised his voice and the whizz kid appeared in the open doorway: 'Get yourself in here a minute will you. And bring Charlie - there's maybe something you can do for me.'

  Charlie astonished us by being a well constructed brunette with a notebook and a hemline that swivelled our eyes as she took her place next to Pickard.

  'Boys, I'm turning you down.' Pickard didn't surprise, he stunned us. 'And I'm real sorry. How's that saying? It hurts me more than it hurts you? Never more true. Let me tell you what I don't like about it. Apart from McNeil here there's not a mining man among you - which makes me vulnerable. Sure, you'll bank-roll the operation. Mike's partner's already vouched for that. But the whole thing hinges on McNeil getting stuff out the ground. And how well he sweet talks you when things go wrong. Suppose you get knuckle-headed? Argue about more cash when he comes in over budget? Cut back on his expenditure requirements?' He pulled a face. 'See what I mean? Who needs it?'

  Of course we protested - McNeil could hire all the technical expertise he wanted, we'd be receptive to his needs at all times, and a lot more besides - but Pickard had made up his mind.

  'On the other hand,' he rewarded us with a quick smile. 'You're all men of integrity so when you say you've discovered a field with my kind of quantities, I believe you. The nickel's in the ground and I want it bad enough to cry. The trick is to get it at minimal risk to me and allow you boys a profit - right? So I'll put it to you straight. I'll buy you out. I'll buy all rights in your field. Outright purchase. And maybe some kind of royalty deal above certain output.'

  It was so obviously the best possible outcome that we kicked ourselves for not seeing it to begin with. We'd neither have to raise working capital to go into the mining business, nor to be involved in the risks that went with it. And U.S. Steel would have their own source of nickel under their own control. Everybody gained. And our profit came fast - the simple difference between buying from the Greek and selling to the Americans. With maybe royalties to come later as the icing on the cake.

  Pickard was talking to McNeil when my mind refocused on the conversation: 'Kirk, if we can deal on this basis I'd sure like you with us. Get that field under your management and our control and that's real muscle at work. And I tell you this - we've a way of looking after our own that beats running your own cat house.'

  We spent half an hour batting the idea round before Howie interrupted: 'Mr Pickard - your next appointment -'

  'Yeah? Already? Oh shit!' Pickard pulled a diary from an inside pocket and began leafing through its pages. 'Harry, if you're interested in doing things my way here's how it runs. Monday afternoon I leave for Frankfurt, then Turin for a week and on to Osaka for another week. So I get back to Pittsburgh on the twenty-third and my big meeting's on the thirtieth.' He snapped the diary shut. 'So if we're going to put a deal together, it's gotta be this weekend. My feeling is that a letter of intent oughta hold it until I get back Stateside. Then why don't you and the boys here get out to Pittsburgh for say the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, and we'll wrap it all up then?'

  It was a lifeline and we grabbed it. The weekend to clinch agreement with U.S. Steel and then three weeks to patch a deal together
with Pepalasis.

  'Now you keep real quiet about this, Mike.' Pickard squeezed my elbow as he walked us back to the reception hall. 'That's a condition - understand? Whatever we put together I want under wraps until I get back. So top secret, eh? A lot of people would like to see me fail with this project and I wanna see their faces when I pull it off.' He turned to Howie. 'Know who I mean?'

  Howie was still ecstatic when we left, having arranged to return at eleven in the morning.

  We spent the evening discussing tactics, closeted in my office at Hill Street until the overpowering fug of tobacco smoke drove us out in search of fresh air and food. It was an education for me. The economics of mineral recovery are very different from the more predictable areas of industrial activity. Some of the figures are staggering. Texaco for instance, spending two hundred and fifty million on the Tartan oilfield. Shell laying out one thousand, two hundred and fifty, million on one field alone in the North Sea. Of course, nickel's not that rich, but it's got its good points. Like the States importing four hundred million pounds worth of processed ore every year because they've none of their own.

  But negotiating with Pickard and his 'in house' lawyer Clem Atkins was like chewing leather, and there was a point on the Saturday when I thought we'd never reach an agreement. So after eight hours of it we adjourned until the following morning.

  Sunday began well. Emanuel got a price of seventy million on the table, based on McNeil's qualified estimate of the likely yield, and we started from there. By noon were arguing between Pickard's highest offer of forty million and our 'sticking point' of sixty. And half way through the afternoon we reached the inevitable compromise. U.S. Steel would buy the island for fifty million pounds outright and we would waive any claim to royalties. Once again I was on the road to a fortune. After all, as McNeil said on the way back into town, 'All you've got to do now, Mike, is to buy the islands from Pepalasis.'

  Part Four

  One

  The very next morning, Monday, Hallsworth and I opened negotiations with Pepalasis. It went badly, worse than I'd feared. The Greek was furious. McNeil and I were accused of finding diamonds and not disclosing them. He'd taken us for gentlemen and we'd taken him for a ride. And a lot more in the same vein. It was a bit too near the truth for comfort but there was damn all I could do about it. Especially as Hallsworth had come down heavily on Emanuel's side concerning the need for total secrecy.

  The three of us lunched together, Pepalasis glowering, me defensive, and Hallsworth as smooth as silk. And after the meal Hallsworth took me to one side and quietly suggested he'd make more progress without my help than with it, so with a sigh of relief I left them at the Dorchester and retreated to Hill Street to get on with other things. Until the evening, when I went to Windsor to keep my date with Sue.

  Jean knew where I was going. It would have been difficult not to tell her, what with me having as good as moved into the Fulham flat. The previous evening, on the way from St Albans to Jean's place, feeling tired and mangled but triumphant after the marathon session with Pickard, I had rehearsed how I'd handle it. Just slip it in. Casually. Between news.of Pickard and everything else that was going on. But Jean had prepared my favourite dinner; the wine was chilled and she looked enchanting. And it seemed a pity to risk spoiling a perfect evening. So I left it till later. When we were in bed, dozing in that relaxed twilight which exists between lovemaking and sleep.

  'Of course you must go,' she'd said, wide awake suddenly, and using a voice straight from the deep freeze. 'I know you'll have a lovely time. See you at the office shall I? On Tuesday morning.'

  I groaned in the darkness, knowing that I'd planned to return to Fulham afterwards. But there seemed little point in prolonging a discussion about it. So we sighed our way to sleep, restlessly, instead of drifting into it in the way we were getting used to.

  I went to Windsor and Sue turned every head in the bar when she arrived. And the kiss of welcome she gave me left every man watching it gasping for another drink, me included; so it was another half hour before we moved to the seclusion of a corner table in the restaurant. By then I'd told her all I could think of about the visit to the island, but nothing of what had happened since.

  'So, your adventure's over?' she asked, grey eyes as round as saucers. 'Poor darling. All that work for nothing. And the risks you took! Mike, that awful man could have got you killed in that dreadful place.'

  I spent a while defending 'that awful man' until I could put it off no longer. 'Sue, I'm getting married.' I wasn't sure whether I was or not - really I'd not thought that far ahead. But 'getting married' seemed to have the ring of finality needed at that moment.

  'Oh?' Her slate eyes registered surprise, shock, even doubt. But thank God, she didn't break into hysterics, or cry, or any damn fool thing like that. 'How sudden,' she said coolly, and moved her knee away from mine as if she had just diagnosed something contagious.

  'Well - yes - in a way. But not in another. You see I've known Jean for four years. I mean it doesn't seem sudden when-'

  'Jean? Your secretary?'

  'That's right.'

  I got the strangest feeling that the news alarmed her. Not me getting married - it seemed that after all I could have married anyone without breaking her heart - but marrying Jean appeared to worry her. For a moment or two she was almost angry, a small spot of red touching her each cheek before she got herself in check again.

  'So, no overnight case tonight?' Her earthy humour came to the rescue, peeping out from beneath lowered lashes, while I, like a bloody fool, said: 'Well, it's not that I don't - ' and shut up, having made things even worse.

  She laughed then, a low chuckle with a touch of brittleness in it somewhere. 'Well - we've always been just good friends, haven't we, Mike - so stop being so damned embarrassed about everything.'

  It got rid of the awkwardness and we both cheered up, relaxing enough to have a couple more drinks to take us well over the legal limit. Of all things, she seemed curious about Jean, wanting to know how much I told her about my business life and things generally. Had I, for instance, told her where I was going tonight? And then, just as we were leaving, she said: 'I'm sorry, Mike. Sorry now, that it was you. Remember that, eh?'

  I puzzled about that all the way back to town. Sorry? Not sorry that we were perhaps seeing each other for the last time. Not sorry that I was getting married. But 'sorry now, that it was you'. Strange thing to say. Still I suppose there are times when the words don't quite come out the way we mean them. Especially when we're embarrassed, or upset. Or something.

  Looking back, those weeks seem like a view glimpsed from a speeding train. Everything happened so quickly. For the first few days Hallsworth kept after Pepalasis, returning to Hill Street every evening after long sessions at the Dorchester, tired and talked dry, but far from dispirited. And the breakthrough came on Thursday, when the Greek conceded that he might sell if the price was right. Establishing just how right took another day, so it was Friday evening when I heard about it.

  'Thirty million? Pounds?' I was shattered. 'It's a hell of a lot more than we'd bargained for.'

  'It's a hell of a lot less than he wants,' Hallsworth retorted hotly, as if detecting criticism of his handling of the negotiations. 'But I think it's what he'll settle for.'

  Normally it would have ended there. I'd have said ditch the whole thing. But not when we were sitting on U. S. Steel's written offer of fifty million. We were still looking at a profit of twenty million! If Pepalasis was being greedy, so were we. So we stifled our disappointment and Hallsworth held the Greek's hand while Emanuel and I got on with the job of raising money. Even today, thirty million's a lot of cash, and finding it quickly and quietly is damn difficult. But we had a few things going for us. Like Harry's original consortium sticking by their commitment for twenty million, and of course just having Harry around helped. A twenty-year track record as good as his was something that investors liked rubbing shoulders with. And something of the same coul
d be said for Emanuel's bank. Even me I suppose, to a lesser extent.

  But what usually clinched it was the letter of intent. The one Pickard delivered by hand following our Sunday meeting at Marlborough House. Generally one look at that was enough to swing the waverers. Typed as it was on U.S. Steel letterhead and signed by Pickard as Vice President and Clem Atkins as legal advisor to the board. Even Poignton was convinced that it was a binding, provided we delivered our end of the bargain by the thirtieth of the month. Of course Pickard's letter contained some provisos, but not many and the only one of importance was a warranty about the minimum nickel content of the site. That one really put McNeil on the spot. Naturally he would have preferred to make another visit to the island, normally he would have sought a second opinion, ideally he would have saturated the site with a whole team of experts. But Pickard's deadline and the need for secrecy killed those options stone dead. So McNeil spent the best part of two nights on the phone to the most experienced quantity surveyors in Australia until the general opinion emerged that the location of his nickel discoveries had been so far apart, both laterally and vertically, to suggest a field of enormous dimensions, at least four times larger than Pickard's minimum qualifications. So, given that, we all breathed a sigh of relief and got on with chasing the money.

  Emanuel's bank came in with two million on their own account, and some of my clients formed their own 'mini consortium' to provide another one. I flew out to St Tropez for a day, interrupting Tommy Richardson's holiday to persuade him to bring the Leppard Peplow crowd in for two more. Mind, there were strings in Tommy's involvement. He agreed to commit his money if Townsend and Partner put money in as well. So I pledged Hallsworth's million and flew home to get his approval,