Due Diligence: A Thriller (46 page)

“You have towel?” said the clerk from downstairs.

“I don’t think so,” said Emmy.

“I check.”

Rob let him in. He went into the bathroom.

“No. I come back.”

The clerk went out. A couple of minutes later he knocked again. Rob opened the door and the clerk handed him a couple of towels.

“Thanks,” said Rob.

“Is nothing. You come from States?”

Rob nodded.

The clerk grinned. “Ahhhh.”

Rob sighed. “You? Where are you from?”

“Poland.”

“Very good,” said Rob. “Well, good night. Thank you for—”

“My name is Waldemar. Here everyone say ‘Wally.’” The clerk laughed. “Is funny, yes?”

Rob shrugged.

“I study,” said Wally.

Rob sighed.

“What do you study?” said Emmy, coming to the door.

“English. In Poland, I am engineer. Civil engineer. Yes? Road. Bridge.” He held his arms out, as if showing the span of the bridges he had built. “Yes? I come here to study English. Is easy for me here. Poland is in EU. I work, I study.” Wally grinned. “Maybe after I go to States. Like you.”

“Good,” said Emmy. “Good for you, Wally.”

The clerk nodded.

“I’m kind of tired…” said Rob.

“Okay! Sure! Good night, Mr. Smith. Good night, Mrs. Smith.”

Rob locked the door again. He tossed the towels on the desk.

“He’s nice,” said Emmy.

“He talks.”

“He’s lonely. He’s here all by himself working a night shift at some shitty hotel.”

“Well, whatever…”

“I’m going to take a shower.” Emmy grabbed a towel and went into the bathroom.

Rob sat down on the bed. He thought about that knock as he heard the shower go on. It had put that image back into his head, the one of Greg opening the door of his apartment. Only it wouldn’t have been some Polish hotel clerk outside with a towel in his hand.

He got up, trying to drive the thought out of his mind. He pulled back the curtain and looked down on the street again. Rain fell through the light of a streetlamp. He saw someone hurrying past under an umbrella. The footsteps echoed. Rob watched until the figure had passed the hotel and turned out of sight farther down the street.

He let the curtain fall back.

It was okay. They were safe here. Apart from the British immigration service, no one knew they were in London. And if they did, they’d never be able to find them.

He glanced at his watch. Midnight. Nine more hours. At nine o’clock, he would make the call.

Emmy came out with the towel around her. “Refreshing,” she said. “You’ve got about a minute before the water goes cold.”

He had a quick shower. When he came out, Emmy was in bed. The mattress sagged as he got in. He turned off the light. Streetlight filtered in through the net curtain. He reached around the window in the shadow and found a curtain and pulled it across. It was dark now. He lay down again.

The faucet was dripping in the bathroom. He got up to try to stop it, but as soon as he got back into bed, it kept dripping. He turned over. The bed creaked.

“Rob, relax,” said Emmy. She kissed him and searched for his hand under the blanket. “Good night, honey.”

“Good night.”

They lay in silence. He tried to ignore the dripping faucet, tried to let it recede into the background.

“You asleep?” said Emmy after a while.

“No.”

“I keep thinking about Greg. I keep thinking about you finding him.”

Rob didn’t say anything.

She was silent again for a moment, and then she turned to him. Her fingers caressed his face. Then her lips searched for his, at first tentatively, brushing him, then pressing hard, demanding, hungry. They made urgent love, the bed creaking under them as if it were going to break.

“I’m sorry,” said Emmy afterward. “I don’t know why I wanted that. I mean, Greg’s dead, and I was thinking about that.… It seems wrong.”

“No.” Rob shook his head. “No.” He turned to her, and she nestled into him, face nuzzled into his neck, arm across his chest.

He listened to the faucet, and her breathing, as she fell asleep. Gently, he moved her off him.

He envied Emmy her slumber. She was one of those people who always seem to be able to sleep when they need to. He wasn’t. He needed sleep now, if only to release him from the thoughts of Greg that kept coming back. But his body clock was in New York and sleep wouldn’t come.

Eventually he checked his watch again. Seven more hours. Seven more hours until he could make the call.

In London it was two
A.M.
on a cold, wet night. In New York it was only nine in the evening.

48

In Baton Rouge, it was eight o’clock. The piano player at Nagel’s on the River was playing a soulful blues number. Mike Wilson and Ed Leary were at a window table. Wilson had asked Stella to make sure that Everard, the maître d’ at Nagel’s, knew he needed a secluded placing.

Ed was drinking a martini as he studied the menu. Wilson was drinking bourbon.

“You want to try the ribs, Ed,” said Wilson. “No one does ribs like Nagel’s.”

Leary nodded. “What about the … ah, steak here, Mike? They do a good steak?”

“You can’t ever go wrong with a Louisiana steak, Ed. Alligator, right?”

Ed Leary laughed. He sipped his martini.

A waiter came over and took their orders. The sommelier came for their wine.

“Red good for you, Ed?” asked Wilson.

Leary nodded. “Order whatever, Mike.”

Wilson ordered. The sommelier took the wine list and disappeared.

“Thanks for sending the jet, Mike.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Made it easier.”

“Well, I wanted to be sure we had this time to talk things through. You’re a busy guy, Ed, I know that. I wanted to make sure we have everything set for tomorrow.”

Leary nodded. He finished his martini.

“You want another one of those?”

Leary shook his head. “I think I’ll wait for the wine.”

“How’s Catherine, by the way?”

A shadow crossed Ed Leary’s face. “Not so good, Mike. It’s…” Leary shook his head. He sighed heavily.

“It’s a terrible thing,” said Wilson, giving Leary a frank, commiserating look.

“Yeah. Terrible.” Leary sighed again. “To see her now … Catherine was always so full of life. When the kids were young, she did everything. You know how it is. I was hardly around.”

Wilson nodded.

“I think about it now, I don’t know where the years went.” Leary gazed reflectively into his empty martini glass for a moment. “Well, you’ve gotta make the best of what you’ve got, don’t you?”

The wine came. Wilson tasted. The sommelier poured.

“Here’s to making the best of things,” said Wilson, raising his glass.

Leary smiled sadly. He raised and drank.

Wilson swirled the wine in his mouth. It was a heavy, full-bodied cabernet, just the way he liked it. He savored it.

“Speaking of good things…” he said. “We have quite a good one on the agenda tomorrow.”

“The due diligence checked out?”

“Beautiful.” Wilson opened his briefcase and took out a portfolio. He laid it on the table. “I’ve brought a copy of the report for you. Don’t worry about the way it looks—it was faxed down to me this afternoon. You’ll get a bound one tomorrow, but have a look over it tonight when you get back to the hotel. Ed, you couldn’t ask for anything sweeter. Okay, their projections have been a little bullish, but whose isn’t? Don’t tell me yours never were.”

Ed chuckled, taking the portfolio from Wilson and resting it on the floor against his chair.

“Everything else…” said Wilson. “It’s looking real good. Their balance sheet is just as strong as we thought. If anything, it’s stronger.” Wilson leaned closer. “Ed, you wouldn’t believe what they’ve got there. Hell, they’ve been piling so much cash away you’d think they’ve been using it to prop up their houses.” Wilson laughed. “Things are going to change.”

He stopped. The salads arrived.

“What about them?” asked Leary. He crunched into a piece of celery. “They happy with us?”

“Yeah. I spoke to Bassett this afternoon. Their report’s fine. Their board’s meeting tomorrow, just like we planned. They start at eleven their time.”

“Great. Well, I can’t see any issues for us tomorrow. Could be a short meeting.”

“Yeah, we’ll see if we can get you out for a round at Emory Point in the afternoon.”

Ed Leary chuckled. “That’s one fine golf course.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Wilson watched Leary for a moment. “The other issue, Ed, about the loan. Good news there as well. Dyson Whitney’s just about got the bridge taken care of. When you see the details, I think you’ll agree they’ve done a hell of a job. Six-point-two-five billion isn’t a trivial sum.”

“Four-point-two billion, Mike.”

Wilson shook his head. “Six-point-two-five, Ed.”

Leary’s fork stopped halfway to his open mouth, carrying a lettuce leaf.

“I had to go to half cash in the offer.”

Ed Leary put down his fork. He frowned, genuinely confused. “Didn’t we agree on four-point-two when we approved?”

“I said,” repeated Wilson slowly, “I had to go to fifty percent cash. That makes it six-point-two-five.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“There wasn’t time.”

“But you said Dyson Whitney’s got it taken care of. If they’ve had time to—”

“Look, Ed. Is it relevant? Does it matter? I had to do it to get the deal done. I had to make the decision there and then at the table.”

Leary shook his head disbelievingly. “Fifty percent in cash? How are we going to—”

“I told you, Dyson Whitney’s organized it. When you look at the schedule, you’ll see they’ve done a pretty good job. I had my doubts for a while, but…” Wilson nodded emphatically. “They came through.”

“Well, that’s…” Leary’s voice trailed off. He didn’t know what to say.

“I must admit, some of the covenants are pretty stringent. And there’s a premium, of course. But, as you say, it’s a lot of cash these guys are handing over.”

“A premium?” asked Ed Leary. Almost whispered it. “What kind of premium?”

By way of reply, Wilson opened his briefcase and took out a copy of the loan document that had been prepared for the board. He laid it down on the table beside Ed Leary’s salad. Then he sat back, watching the other man as he took it in.

Leary’s eyes went wide. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Mike!” He looked up at Wilson in disbelief. “You’re putting the whole company in hock.”

Wilson continued to watch him. Silent, waiting to see just how far this was going.

Leary was shaking his head quickly. “No, no, no. You can’t do it. It’s too much. Look at this. And this. We’re junk! Mike, no. No. No, no, no—”

“Their balance sheet is strong, Ed.”

“Not that strong.”

“Strong enough. So are their revenue streams. The banks can have their premium. It’s not forever. Over a few years, we pay it down. Ed, we can handle it. This is a deal in a lifetime. Short term, we pay a price. Long term, with the value we’ll create, it’s a price worth paying.”

Leary was still shaking his head. “Fifty percent? You offered them fifty percent? How could … Mike, you should’ve walked away.”

“From the deal of a lifetime? Ed, you don’t walk away from something like that.”

“We can’t … we can’t do this.”

“Ed,” said Wilson, giving Leary one more chance to get into line the easy way. “You’re not listening. Don’t look at the short term here. Think about the long-term position—”

“They suckered you, Mike. They suck—”

“No.”

“Yes, Mike. Jesus, they suckered—”

“Enough!” hissed Wilson.

Leary stopped.

Wilson glanced around. A couple of people at other tables were staring at him. They looked away.

Wilson leaned closer to Leary across their salads. “You disappoint me, Ed. I hoped you’d be able to see the value of this deal for what it is. The full value of it. I didn’t want to have to do it like this.”

“Like what?” asked Leary nervously.

“I don’t think you understand the situation,” said Mike Wilson in a low voice, locking the other man’s eyes in a direct, deadly gaze. “Let me put it to you directly. We don’t have a choice. We have to do this deal.”

“No,” said Leary. Suddenly he looked at Wilson as if he understood everything for the first time. “It’s your new contract, isn’t it? Twelve million in cash, twelve million in options. I never thought that kind of thing was right, giving you that kind of money for doing what you should be doing anyway. It’s wrong. It’s obscene.”

“It’s normal practice. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s market competitive. Hell, Ed, you took advice.”

“From Gordon. Gordon Anderton would do anything you say. He’d recommend us to pay you fifty million if that’s what you told him.”

“Anderton Doolittle is a respectable human resources company,” said Wilson impatiently. “Hell, Ed, it’s got a whole fucking remuneration practice.”

“Twenty-four million,” muttered Leary. “It’s obscene. It’s immoral.”

“Spare me your thoughts on morality,” growled Wilson.

“Tell me, Mike. Did you have this deal in your back pocket when we negotiated the contract?”

“You’re missing the point,” said Wilson quietly.

“Huh? Were you already talking to Bassett? Because if you were, and you didn’t make the board aware of it…”

“What, Ed?” Wilson stared at him with a cruel, unforgiving smile. “What are you going to do?”

Leary stared back at him for a second, then looked away.

“It’s got nothing to do with my contract,” said Wilson. “Let’s just get that clear.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Leary looked back at Wilson defiantly, shook his head. “I’m voting against this deal tomorrow, and I’ll be recommending the other directors vote against it as well. We’ve been friends a long time, Mike, but there are some things I won’t do even for friends. I’m not going to let you put the company into the pawn shop for the sake of padding your pockets. I’m sorry, Mike, but Ed Leary does not—”

“Ed Leary will do what he’s fucking told!” hissed Wilson. Leary stared, bug-eyed, as if Wilson physically had his hands around his neck. Wilson leaned closer. “It has nothing to do with my contract. That’s not the issue. Get it straight. It’s the company, Ed. You think I’m putting the company in the pawn shop? Without this deal, there’ll be no company.”