Courthouse (38 page)

“I take it, your brother Bob didn't like that?”

“Bet your ass he didn't.” Wainwright lit up another little cigarette.

“How did they get along before the breakup, your brother and Lord and Toni?”

“The best of friends,” Wainwright replied. “Lord was always with them, or them with him—on their boats, Lord's plane, traveling. He, was like horseshit, Lord was; he was everywhere.”

“Your brother and Lord were genuinely friends then?”

“Sure. Lord was always sending gifts from where he traveled, flowers to the wife, birthday presents, you know, always remembering special events. I told you he was a good con man. He was always doing the right thing.”

“And after the breakup, things changed?” Marc continued.

“Sure. Then Zack started seeing Toni, and Bob was really pissed off about it. But he never could handle Toni. She just pushed him around some more, gave him a line of bullshit. And he'd believe it, go get himself stinking drunk somewhere, then sleep it off for a few days.”

“Does Toni Wainwright now actually control the portion of Bob's estate that includes Zack's stocks?”

“We're fighting her in court,” replied Wainwright. “But the only leg we stand on is the case where you're defending her. If she's acquitted, she'll own most of Bob's estate.”

“What's your opinion of Lord's present business holdings?” Marc asked. “I don't think you answered me before.”

He thought a moment. “Well, let me put it this way,” Wainwright replied. “If you were asking me to invest your money now, I wouldn't put you into anything that Lord owned.”

“He's in that bad shape?”

“More like he's overextended right now. And with the national economy the way it's been for the last year or so, that's a bad position to be in.”

“I don't know much about it,” admitted Marc. “From the outside, Lord seems to own half the world. Villas, boats, planes. How could he be in rough shape and own or control so much?”

“Easy. It happened like this. First he owned and controlled a few businesses. Pretty successful businesses. Then we underwrote him, he went public, and he got big money. He takes over a couple of more businesses, larger businesses. Starts his conglomerate and his mutual fund. Then he starts taking over even more businesses, gave each of them a piece of his over-all holdings. You know how the conglomerate thing works, don't you?”

“Basically,” Marc replied.

“Well, it's like this,” explained Wainwright. “Lord, controlled some companies. He wants to take over other companies. So he gives the owners or stockholders of a new company a piece of the combined operation. The owners of the one company now own part of a much larger operation. They own, instead of a hundred per cent of their own single company, a smaller per cent of a much vaster, more valuable company. Everybody's happy, especially Zack, because he's growing larger and larger, taking over other companies, using their own money.”

“Their own money?”

“Sure,” continued Wainwright. “The new company throws in their business. What does Zack throw in? A piece of their own company, and a piece of a lot of other companies he took over the same way. He doesn't put up a dime. They only get back their part of their own business, and part of other people's businesses.”

“Okay,” said Marc. “How does that set Zack up in a troubled situation now? It sounds like it would make him stronger if he's been picking up the right companies.”

“That part's true, all right,” agreed Wainwright. “But then Lord started being an entrepreneur. Went into a lot of new ventures, with the assets of all these companies behind him. Lord got into construction, international hotels, for instance, and wildcatting for oil around the world, stuff that costs money. And he finances the new stuff by taking money out of one of his companies. Business A, for example. Now Business A might have good earnings, and been making a financial surplus. So he uses Business A's money. Then, Business A gets a little tapped out, as happens from time to time in any business, say at production time, or at a slow period, or vacation time. Well, since Zack took Business A's cash reserve to sink into one of his other ventures, he has to come up with money from Business B and sink it into Business A. Then when B needs money, he'd have to tap Business C, then Business D, and so on. After a while, each of the companies is leaning on the next one, and each becomes tapped out, and then what? You see what I mean? Lord's overextended himself, and he's built a pyramid of cards which can collapse at any time.”

“I'm with you so far,” said Marc, “except for the pyramid.”

“Easy. All the businesses are tied together now. The money from A is in B, and the money from B is in C, and so on. After all the businesses are interrelated with all the others, pull one out, let it collapse, and what happens to the rest of the companies? The one that collapses pulls down the one leaning on it. And the second one pulls down the third, and the third pulls down the fourth. Like that.”

“Is that the condition of Lord's empire right now?”

“In my opinion it sure is,” replied Wainwright.

“Bob thought the same thing?”

“He's the one who told me,” answered Wainwright “Bob saw what Lord was doing, and he started to get a little edgy.”

“Did Lord know how Bob felt?”

“I guess he was getting the picture,” said Wainwright. “Bob was trying to unload his holdings in Lord's empire, as you call it, a little at a time, so as not to depress the market. In other words,” Wainwright explained, seeing Marc's face reflect confusion, “Bob didn't want to dump forty-eight million dollars' worth of Lord stock on the market in one day. It would cause a panic, the stock would go into a nose dive, so would the price, and Bob wouldn't get his money out, Lord would be out of business, and like that. So Bob was easing his way the hell out of this Lord empire, a little at a time.”

“And Lord knew this?”

“I'm sure he did. He'd have to. He could easily find out whose stock was being sold. I mean, in everyday terms, Bob was selling fairly large lots.”

“And what your brother was doing, would it have enough influence in the financial world to really affect Lord's operation?”

“Sure,” replied Wainwright. “I mean, we're a prestigious Wall Street firm, if I say so myself. And these were some company-held stocks, in addition to Bob's personal holdings, that were being sold. Now, if Wainwright and Company show signs that we have no confidence in a stock that we originally underwrote, then people on the Street, other investors, get the idea something's wrong. You start them thinking, then doubting. And on Wall Street, panic spreads like a plague.”

“I guess that also means that Toni can affect Lord's fortunes once she has total control of your brother's estate.”

“If she gets to inherit Bob's estate, she sure could,” Wainwright replied. A look of great surprise dawned on his face. “You figure that that slimy weasel Lord is playing around with Toni to control the stock and keep his ass afloat?”

“I don't know too much about the financial world, Mister Wainwright,” said Marc. “I'm just trying to find out about a homicide case.”

“You bet your ass,” Wainwright exclaimed. “That Zack Lord is doing just that. That sneaky, slimy son of a bitch! First he tries to keep my brother wrapped up with birthday presents, and vacations together, flowers for the wife. And then he tries to take over his widow and the stock to boot.”

DeWitt Wainwright was still hissing obscenities when Marc took his leave.

26

Saturday, September 9, 3:20
P.M.

Foul weather had moved in quickly late Friday night, and Marc and Franco had spent a very long night fighting through wind and lashing rain back to port. Saturday morning had thundered angrily and darkly, and the weekend's sailing had been scrubbed. Which was a shame, for there weren't many good sailing days left. In the afternoon, a sudden wind blew the storm to sea and the sun came out, but by that time Marc had arranged an appointment to see Zack Lord.

At three o'clock Saturday afternoon, Marc, Franco, and Maria entered the nearly deserted lobby of the Hotel Louis Quinze. Maria said she wanted to meet Zack Lord so she'd have a firsthand impression of the situation. Marc, although he teased Maria about purposely causing the bad weather and the sailing being scrubbed, consented to her coming along. As he picked up one of the house phones near the front desk and asked for Zack Lord, Marc was envisioning billowing spinnakers and brisk winds. He spoke with someone in Zack's suite and was cleared to go up. The front desk gave the elevator operator permission to stop on Lord's floor.

“He lives on the same floor with his offices?” Franco asked the elevator operator as they ascended rapidly.

“Yes, sir,” replied the elevator man without turning. “To the right are the living quarters. To the left are the business offices.”

“He's got the whole floor?” Franco asked with an air of admiration.

“Yes, sir. The entire twenty-ninth.”

“Is that the top floor of the hotel?” Franco continued.

“No, sir. But that's the last occupied floor. The rest of the floors are just for machinery or hotel maintenance.”

The elevator stopped and the three of them stepped into the paneled reception area. A young man in a suit and tie was seated behind the desk.

“Marc Conte to see Mister Lord,” said Marc.

“Yes, sir, this way.” The young man rose and crossed the reception room, toward the right. He held open a door for Maria, then Marc and Franco. Once inside a corridor of blue, softly lit with small spotlights from the ceiling, the young man walked ahead of them and brought them to a closed door. He pressed the door buzzer.

“Is this Zack Lord's private apartment?” Maria asked the young man.

“Yes, ma'am.”

A man with a large on-the-rocks cocktail glass in his hand answered the door. There was much noise and laughter swelling out around him from the rooms inside. The man was dressed in white slacks, white patent leather shoes, no socks, and a blue sports shirt open down the middle of a hairless chest.

“This is Mister Conte and his friends,” said the young man. “Mister Lord said it was okay for them to come up.”

“There's always room for a groovy chick,” the man said, as he shrugged and waved them into the noise. He was a little drunk.

Marc's face quickly grew stern. Maria put a quieting hand on Marc's arm. “Take it easy, Marc. He didn't mean anything.”

The drunk had turned and walked ahead toward the noise and laughter. He stopped, sipped at his glass, and turned to see where they were. “Come on in,” he said. “The audition's in the living room,” he said to Maria. “You can change inside.” He turned into another corridor.

Maria looked at Marc, then Franco. Franco shrugged. The young man, remaining outside, closed the front door behind them.

Piano music could be heard more distinctly now. Marc, Maria, and Franco followed the drunk into a large living room. There was a fireplace surrounded by missive bookshelves against one wall. Another wall was all glass, leading onto a sunny balcony overlooking Central Park. The other two walls were hung with pictures. Beneath the pictures there were two couches in a large right angle.

Zack Lord, in slacks and an open-necked sports shirt, was seated in the middle of one of the couches. There were two other men on the other couch. They were all eagerly watching a girl with large, bare breasts, dressed only in a small bikini bottom. Her breasts were solid and erect and white, contrasting softly against the deep tan of the rest of her chest. She was in the middle of the large room dancing to the piano music.

Franco's mouth fell open.

“What in the world have we walked in on?” Maria asked in a whisper.

“I don't know. But it looks okay to me,” Marc kidded in a return whisper.

Maria gave his leg a healthy pinch.

“Oww … take it easy.”

“Behave, then.”

“Let's get out of here. This ain't no place for you,” Franco said to Maria.

“It's okay, Franco. I've seen naked ladies before,” she assured him.

As the girl in the center of the room cavorted, her legs kicking to the music, her arms swinging with the rhythm, her bare breasts were grotesquely shifting and lugging against the movement of her body. Marc watched, thinking as he did that when the female breast is unhaltered, stripped of its covering and molding garments, it is also stripped of its mystique, becoming merely a fatty, loose part of the body. There are “tit men” whose fascination stems from fantasies, not reality, but the female breast is far better suited to cheesecake, fondling, and sexual arousal than to bouncy dancing.

Franco stole a glance at Maria. He was embarrassed.

The dancing girl was in dead earnest, concentrating seriously on the music and her improvised dance routine. She paid no attention to her audience, except to look up and flash a strained, show-business smile occasionally.

While the dancing was in progress, many people could be seen through the glass wall, congregated around a bar set up on the balcony overlooking the park. Many of those on the balcony were young women; all wearing bikinis—both parts of the bikini.

“Good thing I came along,” Maria replied.

Marc. shrugged with feigned uncertainty. “You should have brought your bikini.”

Maria gave him another pinch.

“Will you be careful,” Marc whispered. “I'll be black and blue and that'll spoil my audition dance.”

The girl performing the dance was now going through a series of high kicks. She was really working hard. The piano was pounding out the music. The piano player had a cigarette curling smoke dangling from his mouth. Marc thought for a moment of that piano player and all the lessons he had to take in order to learn to play, all the visions of artistic betterment his mother must have had as she paid for those lessons. And here he was, playing burlesque music for a girl with flying tits.