Authors: Trust Fund
“You'll be back,” Laird said quietly.
Bo looked up at this small but encouraging comment. “You think so?”
“You're too valuable. J. L. knows that.”
“Thanks for saying so.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Jesus, Counselor, Iâ”
“J. L. has asked me to make certain arrangements to facilitate your transition away from Connecticut. I simply want to know how long I have.”
Bo exhaled heavily. “I thought at first that it was going to be today,” he answered, watching the sun's first rays glaze the lake's surface. “But I've been given a oneâday reprieve. Meg and I have until tomorrow to leave.”
As Laird rose to go he dropped a copy of the
Daily News
on Bo's lap. “You'll be interested to read about your exploits of the other night in the Society section on page fifty-two.”
Bo pushed the newspaper off his lap onto the ground. “So nice of you to stop by, Counselor.”
Laird stopped when he reached the veranda door. “For what it's worth, Bo, I told J. L. I thought it was a bad idea to turn Warfield over to Frank Ramsey.” Laird sidestepped Dale Stephenson, who was coming out onto the veranda, then ducked inside.
“Hi, Bo.” Dale Stephenson ran Warfield Capital's private equity operation and reported directly to Bo. The private equity group negotiated the purchase of significant stakes in large nonpublic companies and bought divisions of Fortune 1000 companies usually in partnership with those divisions' management teams. Over the last five years the private equity group had been one of Warfield's most successful entities, consistently selling its investments at five to ten times the initial purchase price.
Bo gestured for Stephenson to take the seat Laird had just vacated. “Thanks for coming out on such short notice.” Bo had awakened Stephenson at his Short Hills, New Jersey, home with a 4:00
A.M.
telephone call. “Sorry for waking you up at such an ungodly hour.”
“No problem.” Stephenson was accustomed to Bo's relentless work ethic. He assumed that Bo had identified another attractive investment opportunity for the private equity group. Bo's referral network was immense and he was constantly sourcing opportunities before other investment groups did. In the private equity world you had to move quickly because the other groups had their networks as well and would ultimately find what you had found. The trick to the business was striking a deal with the management team or the young Internet entrepreneur before the other people arrived. “Got another deal for us?”
Bo kicked at the early edition of the
Daily News.
“I wish.”
Stephenson heard Bo's dejection. “What's wrong?”
“I'm going away for a while, Dale.”
“Away?”
Bo shut his eyes. “I'm âtaking a vacation,' as Jimmy Lee so eloquently put it. He and Paul have decided that I've become a liability to Paul's campaign.”
Stephenson had heard rumors to this effect since last weekâRamsey had been dropping hintsâbut he hadn't believed that they could be true. Bo was a hard drinker, there was no denying that, but he was the mastermind and without him Warfield would be rudderless. “I can't believe it.”
“It's true.” Bo dropped his cigarette to the granite, then glanced at Stephenson, a pasty-faced man who could structure a massive leveraged buyout on the back of a napkin. “Meg and I leave tomorrow for a ranch Jimmy Lee bought in Montana. I don't know when I'll be back.”
“Who willâ”
“Frank Ramsey,” Bo cut in, anticipating the question.
“That's ridiculous. We can't trust thatâ”
“What's done is done.” Bo checked the veranda door to make certain no one was listening. “I need your help, Dale,” he said, lowering his voice.
Stephenson nodded. Bo had made him a multimillionaire over the last few years. More important, he liked the man. “What do you need?”
“Jimmy Lee has forbidden me to have contact with anyone at Warfield. I told him I needed to close the loop with you this morning on the transactions that are currently in process and he agreed to let me see you, but after this meeting I am officially exiled.”
“Bastard.”
“I have to stay in touch with someone about what's going on at Warfield, Dale. I can't just walk away from what we've built and trust that Ramsey will take care of it while I'm gone.”
“I agree,” Stephenson said hesitantly. He knew what was coming and it scared him. You didn't disobey a direct order from Jimmy Lee without considerable deliberation, because you knew that the punishment upon discovery would be swift and severe, and he'd become accustomed to earning his millions from Warfield Capital.
“You and I will maintain contact, Dale.”
Stephenson grimaced.
“We'll keep it very quiet,” Bo assured the other man, taking note of the reluctance in his eyes. “We'll work out a system of communication that doesn't make you vulnerable.”
Stephenson took a deep breath. “You're a good friend, Bo, and you've made me a wealthy man. My family and I owe you a great deal. Jimmy Lee scares me, I'll be honest.” He paused. “But of course I'll do what you want.”
CHAPTER 4
April 2000
“
B
een drinking tonight, Bo?”
Bo reclined against the side of the Jeep, massive forearms folded over his barrel chest. “No more than usual, Sheriff Blackburn.”
John Blackburn aimed his flashlight into the Jeep. “There's no need to be so formal.”
Emergency lights blazed across Bo's three-day stubble. “Just the same, Sheriff.”
“Where's your wife?” Blackburn asked, concerned. “Where's Meg?”
Blackburn was a wiry man of medium height with curly red hair and a bushy mustache that looked too big for his angular face. He never carried his service revolver on his hip, but kept it back in the patrol car. He was a commonsense lawman who was more concerned with taking care of his townspeople than intimidating them.
“Where's
your
wife?” Bo retorted. “Where's Katie?” Meg and Katie had become good friends over the last year, during the Hancocks' exile in Montana.
“At home,” Blackburn said calmly, keeping his annoyance in check, recognizing that Bo wasn't himself. “Now where'sâ”
“Meg's back East seeing her family,” Bo answered.
“Who's that in the passenger seat?”
Blackburn's only problem was that he asked too many questions. “A friend.”
“I don't recognize her.”
Bo knew better than to engage a police officer in conversation during a
traffic stop, even an officer as good-natured as Blackburn, but he couldn't resist the
temptation to start something. As a child he'd always been the one to stir up trouble.
Always the one to hurl a rock at a hornets' nest or commandeer a canoe out onto the lake without adult supervision. “Do you have to know everyone, Sheriff?” he
asked.
“Libby, Montana, is a small town,” Blackburn said evenly. He
was aware of what Bo was trying to do. They'd played enough poker last winter to understand each other very well. “I like to know everyone.”
“Even visitors?”
Blackburn aimed the flashlight at the woman. “Especially visitors.” He turned the flashlight beam into Bo's bloodshot eyes, inspecting the crimson road maps leading to sapphire irises. “What's her name?”
Bo shielded his face. “Tiffany.”
“Where's she from?”
“Missoula.”
“What's she doing in Libby?”
“Participating in the local service economy.”
“What do you mean?”
“She's working.”
“Doing what?”
“Guiding on the Kootenai River,” Bo replied, getting annoyed at the third degree.
Blackburn snickered. “I doubt she even knows what a fly rod
is.” He aimed the light into the Jeep again. “Judging from those red high heels,
that skirt, or more accurately the lack of it, and that pallid skin, I'd say she's active in another sector of the service economy.”
“What's your point?”
“Are you and the boys at it again in the back room of Little
Lolo's?” Blackburn asked, chewing on a toothpick.
“Now, Sheriff,” Bo answered cordially, “you shut us down for the fishing season, remember?”
“Uh-huh.” Blackburn gestured at his patrol car. “Why
don't you take a quick walk with me?”
“Am I under arrest?” Tonight was the third time Blackburn had pulled Bo over in the last month. Bo had avoided arrest on each occasion.
“You must be drinking vodka, Bo, because I can't smell a thing on your breath.”
“Am I under arrest?” Bo repeated.
“And if I say yes, what then?”
“You know the drill. I'll request consultation with my attorney.
Once I make that request you can't do anything to me until he arrives. That is my right.”
Blackburn kicked at a pebble. “I suppose it'll take him a few hours to get here from Kalispell.”
“At least a few.”
“You'll be stone sober by then, won't you?”
“Give me a little credit, Sheriff. That's a trick question. I'm not going to incriminate myself.” Bo watched Blackburn exhale heavily. At this point Blackburn had to arrest him without administering a test, or let him go.
“It's just a damn good thing most people aren't as familiar with the law as you.” Blackburn patted Bo on the shoulder. “All right, you can go, but be careful and watch your speed. Slow and steady.”
“The speed limit in Montana is âreasonable and prudent,' ” Bo replied, hauling himself behind the steering wheel.
“Not anymore,” Blackburn corrected, leaning into the Jeep through the open window, looking for a bottle or a gun, both of which lay concealed beneath the seat. “We changed that.”
“All right, all right. Seventy-five.”
“Sixty at night.”
Bo squinted at the sun, half hidden by mountain peaks on the west side of the valley. “It isn't dark yet.”
“I mean it,” Blackburn said firmly. “Take it easy.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Blackburn took a deep breath. “When you first got out here to Montana a year ago, you were a model citizen. I never saw you take a drink, let alone get behind the wheel of a vehicle with alcohol in your system. Now I hear things.”
“Oh, you hear things, do you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have spies out there checking on me?”
“People talk and I can't help but overhear them. You can throw a stone from one side of this town to the other.”
“What do you hear?” Bo asked impatiently.
Blackburn knew about the Hancock family wealth. The rest of Libby's natives thought Bo was just an everyday Wall Streeter who had come to Montana looking for something ethereal they knew he'd never find, and who would go home after the second or third winter. They assumed, as they did about most Easterners who lived in large houses in the middle of huge tracts of land, that Bo was rich, but they had no idea how rich. Blackburn knew because he'd done his research on the Internet, and because he'd been cautioned by an anonymous telephone call that the long arm of the Hancock family could easily reach Montana if Blackburn was too much of a pain in Bo's ass. Then there'd be a new sheriff of Libby, Montana, the caller had warned. Still, Blackburn was a man of honor and he had a duty to the citizens of Libby to uphold the law, and a duty to protect a man from himselfâat least one he liked.
“They say you've been drinking,” Blackburn said. “Drinking a lot.”
“Your spies are misinformed,” Bo countered defiantly.
Blackburn spat his toothpick to the ground. “I don't think so,” he said confidently.
“I'm
telling
you so.”
The sun had almost disappeared behind the mountains now and Blackburn had accomplished his goal. Bo would be forced to obey the sixty-miles-an-hour limit or risk being pulled over again. “Bo, besides being small, this town is poor. There isn't much of a tax base in our county, especially since the paper mill shut down last year. So when that new community center went up in the fall, I was surprised and I did some digging. I found out who donated the money for its construction. You did a good job of covering your financial tracks, but I figured out what had happened with some help from a banker friend of mine in Bozeman.”
“You're crazy.”
“And I know what you did for the Schmidt family when their daughter was diagnosed with cancer. If that little girl hadn't made it to the Mayo Clinic when she did, she wouldn't be with us any longer. I know how generous you've been.”
“You don't knowâ”
“Ease up, Bo.” It was noble that the man didn't want any credit for his acts of kindness, but Blackburn knew with certainty about the two donations, as well as a dozen others Bo had made over the last year. “I'm trying to help.”
“Can I go?”
Blackburn was still tempted to haul Bo into townâfor his own good, and the woman'sâbut he was the only officer on duty tonight, and he needed to be out on patrol in case there were emergencies. And though Bo had clearly been drinking, his ability to drive didn't appear to be impaired. “Yes,” Blackburn said. He glanced at the young woman and touched the brim of his hat. “Evening, ma'am,” he said, stepping back.
Bo shoved the Jeep in gear, then looked up and smiled. “Bring Katie and the kids over to the ranch for dinner one night this week,” he called after Blackburn, revving the Jeep's engine. “I've got a saddle I want to give you. It'll be perfect for your older boy.”
Blackburn laughed despite his frustration. Bo had that way about him. You liked him even when you wanted to kick his ass. “You know what, Bo?”
“What?”
“Dealing with you is like trying to herd rabbits. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind about running you in.” Blackburn turned away as he heard a call coming in over the patrol car's two-way radio.
“Goodnight, Sheriff!” Bo shouted as he raced off, spewing gravel at the patrol car. He was dying for another taste of vodka.
“You seem to know that cop pretty well,” Tiffany observed. She was a tall platinum blond with a mole above her upper lip.
Bo glanced over at her. She had high cheek bones just like Melissa's, he noticed, studying her by the greenish glow of the dashboard lights. He checked the rearview mirror. Blackburn had extinguished the patrol car's cherry-tops, but Bo could see the vehicle's headlights pacing them several hundred yards back. “Yeah, I know him. We've been friends for a while. He's a good man, but he's got a den-mother complex. He feels like everybody in town is his personal responsibility.”
Bo retrieved the vodka bottle from beneath his seat and held it up, considering what Blackburn had said about too much drinking. “Screw it,” he muttered and took a long, defiant swig, then handed the bottle to Tiffany. “He thinks that being a law enforcement officer gives him the right to intrude without restraint.”
“I hate it when the government sticks its nose into our lives,” she said indignantly, grabbing the bottle. “We shouldn't have to worry about them digging into our private affairs all the time.”
“Amen, sister.” Bo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, watching bubbles rise in the bottle as Tiffany drank. She was pretty, in a hard-edged way, but there was a desperate look about her too. Like life had dealt her more than a few bad hands and there weren't many chips left on her side of the table.
She gasped as the liquor hit her hard. “You don't go long without a drink, do you, Bo?”
“Well,” he drawled, “some people say I'm an alcoholic, but I think they're just jealous.”
Tiffany laughed. She had met many men in her line of work, but never one like Bo Hancock. “It's pretty up here,” she said, gazing through the twilight at the scenery.
To their right was the Kootenai, a wide, fast river that cascaded out of British Columbia into northwest Montana, then turned around and retreated as if it hadn't found the United States to its liking. Majestic pine-covered peaks rose from both banks of the river, and the virgin forests were inhabited by elk and moose, as well as the mountain lions, wolves, and grizzly bears that hunted them. Towns in these parts were isolated and small.
“Very pretty,” she repeated, hoping that the tiny, needlelike microphone she had attached to the dashboard during the traffic stop was transmitting. She had followed her instructions to the letter.
“Yes, it is.”
“What kind of name is âBo' anyway?” she
asked.
“It's short for Bolling.”
“Oh.” Tiffany gave the bottle back to him, then put her hand on
\his thigh and squeezed. “I'm chilly,” she said, shivering.
Bo flipped on the heat. It was early April, and when the sun went down there
was still a bite in the air. Winter hadn't released its grip on the territory yet.
“Are you from Montana?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“No.”
“Where, then?”
“Out East,” he answered evasively. Even after a year out here
the instinct to protect still kicked in automatically.
“You know, getting an answer out of you is like paddling upstream on
that river over there,” she said, pointing into the darkness. “Will the tips be
good tonight?”
“Should be.” He thought he saw her look of desperation
deepen. “Ought to be quite a crew there.”
Sheriff Blackburn had sized up the situation precisely during the traffic stop.
They were heading for Little Lolo's, a tavern located in a lonely spot fifteen miles east
of town beside a long bend in the river. Tiffany would be the entertainment in the back room
this eveningâas long as Blackburn didn't show up and spoil the fun. The sheriff
had put a stop to exotic dancing at Lolo's last week.
Each summer, fishermen traveled to Libby from around the world, and Blackburn didn't want his quaint Montana town developing a nasty reputation on the Internet as a rowdy place full of seamy strip bars. However, the boysâan eclectic group of locals Bo had befriended last fallâwere already starved for female entertainment. Bo had picked Tiffany up this afternoon from a strip bar in Missoula, promising her a thousand dollars plus tips in return for the hundred-mile journey to Libby and a Saturday night performance.
Bo patted Tiffany's icy fingers reassuringly. “Don't worry,” he said gently. He could see she was scared. “You'll be fine. I'll take care of you. I'll drive you back to Missoula tonight when you're finished,” he promised. “I won't let anything happen to you.”
“Thanks.” Tiffany smiled. She had been impressed with Bo's nonchalance in the face of arrest. “So, what do you do?”
It was nice to be in a part of the country where people had no idea who he or
the Hancock family was. “I'm semiretired,” Bo answered. Though not for much longer, he thought. He'd had enough of MontanaâPaul's campaign be damned.
“You don't look old enough to be retired.”