F Paul Wilson - Sims 03 (7 page)

 
          
Russo glanced around. “Well, I must
say, your office is…unique.”

 
          
“And that elevator,” Redstone said.
“What an antique.”

 
          
“
It’s
steam
powered,” Patrick told them.
“Can’t be replaced because this
is an historic building.”
He had no idea if any of that were true but it
sounded good. “Shall we get started?”

 
          
He led them the short distance to the
conference table where Romy waited. He made the introductions,
then
indicated chairs across the table from Romy for the
Manassas
people. He sat next to Romy.

 
          
“What’s he doing?” Russo said
,
pointing to Tome who had situated himself on a chair
behind and to Patrick’s left with a steno pad propped on his lap.

 
          
“Taking notes,” Patrick tossed off. “Now,
before
we
—”

 
          
Russo was still staring. “But he’s a
sim. Sims can’t write.”

 
          
“It’s shorthand. He’ll type it up
later.”

 
          
He watched Russo and Redstone
exchange glances. Good. Get them off balance and keep them there. They didn’t
need to know that Tome would be making meaningless scribbles or that Patrick
was recording the meeting. He was sure they had their own recorders running.

 
          
“We’d like to get right down to
business,” Redstone said, pulling a legal pad from his briefcase.
“The nitty gritty, as it were.
To expedite matters I propose
that we drop all
pretense
and skip the verbal
jousting.”

 
          
“No trenchant legal repartee?”
Patrick said. “Where’s the fun?”

 
          
“Look, Mr. Sullivan,” Russo said, “we
all know what this is about. We know Ms. Cadman was injured, but we also know
the incident was set up.”

 
          
Patrick glowered at her. “You’d
better be able to back that up with proof, Ms. Russo.”

 
          
“No jousting, remember?” she said.
“Whatever it is you want, other than money, you’re not going to get. So let’s
just end this charade here and now. We are authorized to make the following
offer: Name a figure. Tell us the magic
number
that
will make you walk away from this, and we will pay it.”

 
          
Patrick had been expecting an attempt
to buy them off, but nothing this blatant. But if that was the way they wanted
to play…

 
          
“A magic number,” he said, tapping
his chin and pretending to ponder the possibilities. “How does an even billion
sound?”

 
          
Russo and Redstone blinked in unison.

 
          
Russo recovered first. She cleared
her throat. “Are we going to have a serious discussion or not? Did you call us
here to waste our time or—”

 
          
“Whoa,” Patrick said. “First off, you
called us. Secondly—let me check with my assistant here.” He turned to Tome. “Didn’t
they say, ‘Name a figure, any figure’?”

 
          
The sim consulted his steno pad and
said, “Yes, Mist Sulliman.”

 
          
Tome had been instructed to say that,
no matter what Patrick asked him.

 
          
“There, you see? ‘Name a figure.’ And
I believe a billion is a figure.”

 
          
“You can’t possibly expect a small
company like Manassas Ventures to come up with a sum like that,” Russo said.

 
          
“Why not?
It
owns billions worth of SimGen stock. But maybe it doesn’t have the stock
anymore. I’ve learned that it’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Meta Ventures,
based in
Atlanta
, so maybe the
stock went there. Or perhaps it traveled further up the ladder to Macro Ventures,
a Bahamian corporation. But Macro Ventures is owned by Metro Ventures in the
Caymans. Maybe that’s where the stock ended up. Wherever it is, we know one of
these companies has the financial wherewithal to pay Ms. Cadman’s ‘magic
number’ in a heartbeat. So don’t cry poverty to me.”

 
          
“This is preposterous!” Redstone
sputtered.

 
          
“Not as preposterous as you two
trying to keep me from having my day in court,” Romy said.

 
          
Patrick had instructed her to play it
sincere, and she was doing fine, because she was genuinely outraged.

 
          
“Oh, please—” Russo began but Romy
cut her off.

 
          
Here it comes, Patrick thought.

 
          
“All I wanted was a little
information,” Romy said. “Nothing complicated. I simply wanted someone to
explain why a truck leased by Manassas Ventures in
Idaho
was driving around the SimGen campus in
New Jersey
.”

 
          
He scrutinized the two attorneys,
watching their reactions as Romy dropped her bomb.

 
          
Patrick had gone half crazy trying to
ferret out the principals in all the subsidiaries behind
Manassas
.
Only the discovery proceedings of a lawsuit would give him a chance to pierce
their multiple walls of secrecy. But it still might take him years to reach the
end of their corporate shell game, and even then he might well come up empty.
So he’d decided to shake things up by tossing a live snake into
Manassas
’s
corporate lap.

 
          
But neither Russo nor Redstone showed
even a hint of surprise or concern. They either were clueless or had nervous
systems of stone.

 
          
Damn.

 
          
“Write that down,” Patrick said
irritably, pointing to Redstone’s legal pad. “It’s important.”

 
          
“What?”

 
          
“Your clients will want to know about
those trucks. Trust me.”

 
          
As Redstone made a note with a gold
mechanical pencil, Russo said, “Can we stop playing games? A billion is out of
the question.”

 
          
“Out of the
question?”
Patrick said. “Gee. And we haven’t even discussed punitive
damages yet. I was thinking at least another billion—”

 
          
Russo slammed her hand on the table
and shot to her feet. “That’s it. I see no point in prolonging this farce. You
two have an opportunity to be set for life. You’ve been offered the moon, but
you want the stars.”

 
          
“Very poetic.”

 
          
She glared at him. “When you and your
client come to your senses, Mr. Sullivan, call us.”

 
          
“It won’t be a call, it will be a
subpoena.
Many subpoenas.
A blizzard
of them.
The first are already on their way.”

 
          
“Send as many as you wish,” Redstone
said, snapping his briefcase closed. “You won’t see a dime.”

 
          
Patrick smiled. “Perhaps not, but
we’ll get what we want.”

 
          
They stormed out.

 
          
After the door slammed, Romy said,
“Wow. They’re taking this personally.”

 
          
“I’ve got a feeling they were offered
a big bonus if they got the job done.” He headed for the door. “Excuse me.”

 
          
“Where are you going?” Romy said.

 
          
“Down to the
street.
I’ll only be a minute.”

 
          
He took the stairs and beat the
Manassas
attorneys to the lobby. He waited until they were outside,
then
trailed them to the limo. When they opened the door he caught up and leaned
between them.

 
          
“You folks forgot to take my card, so
I brought one down for each of you.” He peered into the dim backseat and looked
into the startled blue eyes of a balding man, easily in his seventies, sporting
a dapper pencil-line mustache. “Hello,” Patrick said. “Have we met? I’m—”

 
          
“Get in!” the man said to the two
attorneys. He turned his head away from Patrick and spoke to the driver. “Go!
We’re through here!”

 
          
The doors slammed and the limo moved
off.

 
          
Who’s the old guy? Patrick wondered
as he took the stairs back up. He’d half-expected to see Mercer Sinclair or
perhaps that Portero fellow, but he’d never seen this guy before. Whoever he
was he hadn’t seemed at all happy that Patrick had got a look at him.

 
          
When he reached the office Romy was
just finishing a call. She snapped the PCA closed and turned to him.

 
          
“That was our mutual friend. I told
him about the meeting and he’s a little upset that we didn’t clear your idea
with him first.”

 
          
“I’m not used to having a nanny,”
Patrick replied. “Besides, we’re just stirring up the bottom of the pond to see
what floats to the surface.”

 
          
“He’s worried that mentioning the Manassas-Idaho
truck connection at this point might give them time to cover their tracks. Or
worse, precipitate a rash response.”

 
          
“You mean like running my car off the
road again? I don’t think so.”

 
          
Patrick didn’t think whoever was
behind
Manassas
would risk hurting
him or Romy. That would raise too many questions; might even prompt a Grand
Jury investigation.

 
          
“Still, he suggested that you invest
in a remote starter for your car.
Just in case.”

 
          
Patrick stared at her, his mouth dry.

 
          
Romy smiled.
“Joking.”

 
          
Patrick was about to tell her where
Zero could store his remote starter when her PCA chirped again. He watched her
face, expecting the usual lightup he’d noticed whenever she spoke to Zero, but
instead her brow furrowed as she frowned.

 
          
“Have you got a car available?” she
asked as she ended the call.

 
          
“I can get to it in about five
minutes. Why?”

 
          
“Road trip.”
Her expression remained troubled.

 
          
“Something wrong?”

 
          
“One of my NYPD
contacts.
He gave me the address of a house in
Brooklyn
.
Said they’d found something there that would interest me.”

 
          
“He didn’t say what?”

 
          
“No. He said I had to see it to
believe it.”

 
          
NEWARK
,
NJ

 
          
Meerm here some day
now.
Little happy here.

 
          
Still tired-sick
and hurt-belly-sick, sometime cold-sick and hot-sick.
No more
cold-hungry. Have place live, have food.
Lonely in day when
all sim go work.
Meerm try help by clean and make bed.
Must be quiet.
Not let man downstair, man call Benny, know
Meerm here.

 
          
Shhh! Benny come now. Benny come
upstair ever day.

 
          
Meerm rush closet. Hide. Peek through
door crack. See Benny walk round and open window. Come once ever morning.
Always talk self.

 
          
“Damn monkeys!” Benny
say
. “Bad enough I gotta play nursemaid to ’em all night,
but why they have to stink so bad?”

 
          
Benny
open
all window, then close all. Ver cold while window open, even in closet. Meerm
shiver.

 
          
Benny leave and warm start come
again. Meerm stay closet and wait.
Better when sim come.
Sim
laugh, talk, bring
Meerm food, not tell Benny.
Meerm lonely till then.
Wait Beece.

 
          
Beece friend.
Try
make
better when Meerm hurt. Beece say Meerm need
doctor. No doctor! Not for Meerm! Doctor hurt Meerm. No doctor! Beece say okay
but not like. Meerm can tell.

 
          
Meerm little happy
here.
Meerm stay.