Brash Endeavor, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 3

by William Manchee

  Chapter 25

  THE CONFERENCE

  The following day I went by the bank but Kurt's money still hadn't arrived. When I got to the office there was a message from Mark Pointer. I tried to ignore it for a while but finally I picked it up and began dialing his number.

  "You got the money yet?" he asked.

  "Well, no. Not quite yet. I went by the bank but it wasn't there. I'm sure it will be there tomorrow."

  "Well, we need to have a meeting with you and the investors so we can get this thing straightened out."

  "That shouldn't be necessary, I'm sure the money will be there tomorrow."

  "Maybe so, but let's go ahead and set up a meeting for tomorrow anyway. We can cancel it if the money shows up."

  "Well, I don't know if I can line up the investors or not. They're not really my clients."

  "I'm sure you can arrange it. Ten o'clock at my office, okay?"

  "All right. I'll try to set it up."

  The conversation with Mark Pointer shook me up pretty badly. Suddenly I was faced with the prospect of having to contact all of the investors and explaining to them why they were being summoned for a meeting with the bank. Obviously they would have lots of questions. If I wasn't careful Kurt's scam would be uncovered and it would be all over. To make things worse if I made any statements that were untrue or said anything misleading at the meeting I would pay for it later if the truth came out. For a brief moment I thought maybe I should join Kurt in Brazil.

  There was no way I could tell Rebekah what was going on. She had enough to worry about with her own trial. After several hours of pondering my predicament I decided I could pull off the meeting if I just listened and didn't say much. I contacted the investors and gave them the bad news. They were all very upset but reluctantly agreed to the meeting. At precisely ten o'clock the next morning I walked into the offices of Pointer, Blasingame and Merrill for the meeting. Tom, Pete and George were already seated in the reception area looking pretty pale. They greeted me with a barrage of questions for which I had very few answers. Before long we were summoned into the conference room for the meeting.

  Mark Pointer was sitting at the end of the long conference table. He whispered something to Henderson and then began the meeting.

  "Gentlemen, thank you for coming today. As you may remember, I'm Mark Pointer counsel to Worldwide Savings and Loan. I think you've met Mr. Wylie. Here to my left is Howard Henderson from the FBI. We also invited Brian Walls, chief of bank security, and one of the associates in our firm, Paul Wize, to sit in on the meeting."

  Mr. Pointer paused for a moment and then continued. "As you know the bank has not received its first payment on the promissory note which was executed less than sixty days ago. When we contacted each of you about this it was explained that Kurt Harrison was supposed to be taking care of these payments. Unfortunately, Kurt hasn't made the first payment and soon a second payment will be due."

  "Now, Mr. Turner has advised us that he had managed to reach Mr. Harrison and a couple payments are supposedly due in momentarily. Unfortunately, we don't have those funds yet and frankly, I'm not convinced we'll ever see them."

  "I felt like the funds will be here," I said. "Kurt was pretty definite about sending the money."

  "I hope you're right, Stan, but I wanted to have this meeting to make sure the partners understood the gravity of this situation. Worldwide Savings and Loan is a federally chartered institution and any misrepresentations or fraud committed against the bank would be a federal offense."

  "I beg your pardon," Tom said. "Are you insinuating that we've done something wrong?"

  "No, not at all, but I want you to understand that if Kurt doesn't live up to his agreement with each of you, then you would be well advised to make these payments yourself. The consequences of a default of this loan at this stage could be quite severe."

  "What do you mean?" Tom said.

  "Well, the bank would be forced to assume there was never any intent to pay back the loan since not a single payment was made," Mr. Pointer replied. "That could only mean that the loan was fraudulent and merely a pretext to steal money from the bank. I honestly don't think any of you did that, but if no payments are ever made on the note that would be the only conclusion that we could draw. The net effect would be that we'd have to turn the matter over to the FBI. If that happens things will get ugly, believe me."

  "I don't know about the others, but I don't have sufficient income to make my third of the note payments each month. It's just not feasible. Kurt promised us he'd make all the payments," Pete said.

  "I think his plan was to use the income from the building to service the debt and just subsidize the project until it became self-sufficient," I said. "You guys wouldn't have to come up with the whole payment, only the deficiency."

  "That may be true, I don't know," Mr. Pointer said. "Anyway, will you all make these payments if Kurt doesn't come through in the next three days? That's what we need to know. If we can't get that commitment, then I'm just going to turn this matter over to Mr. Henderson right now."

  "That won't be necessary. Will it, gentlemen?" I replied.

  There was a brief pause and then Tom said, "I guess we don't have any choice. Somehow we'll have to make the payments."

  "Pete, George. Do you concur?" I said.

  "Yes, but I'm going to kick some Harrison ass if I have to sink any more money into this deal!" George said. "This is ridiculous."

  "That's right," Pete added. "Stan, you can tell Kurt that he'll be looking at a major lawsuit if he doesn't live up to our agreement. I can't afford to be pumping a lot of money into this deal. It's not right."

  "Good then," I said. "If Kurt comes through then everything's okay, if not then the partners will work something out to get the loan payments made each month."

  "Fine," Mr. Pointer said. "Then we'll expect to hear from you, Stan, real soon."

  "Yes, one way or another I'll be calling you."

  "Well, thank you, gentlemen for coming. I hope we don't have to meet again."

  "Tell me about it," Pete said bitterly.

  I left the meeting feeling like I had dodged a bullet. Now all I had to do was get Kurt to wire me the money like he promised and everything would be okay for a few weeks.

  The next morning, I went by the bank fully expecting the money to be there. I got in line at the teller's window and when it was my turn asked her, "Can you check and see if a wire transfer came in for me today from Brazil?"

  "Sure."

  I handed her a slip of paper with my account number on it and she went into the back room. After a moment she returned. "Nothing today, Mr. Turner."

  "Damn, I can't believe it. It was supposed to be here."

  "I'm sorry, if you'll leave me your phone number I'll call you when it comes in."

  "Oh, would you? That would be great."

  "Sure, no problem."