Swimming to Catalina (32 page)
“Why doesn’t the studio sell it, move to the sticks, and build a new studio?”
“The costs of doing that, of building from scratch, would be nearly as much as would be gained by selling the land. Anyway, all the stockholders are deeply involved in the movie business; all of them—producers, directors, studio executives—know that what we have is unique and can never be re-created. They’re all wealthy people, so they don’t need a lot of money from the sale. There’s a traditional practice, but not a hard rule, that if someone wants to sell his stock, the studio will buy it back, with the price determined by a previously agreed formula. The same if someone dies—the studio will buy back the stock from the heirs. There’s no real market for small parcels of stock outside the studio family, so it worked for everyone. Whoever was behind this wanted to gain control by assembling a block of shareholders, ignoring the buy-back tradition, then buying out everyone else.”
“I see. But then the new owners would be in the same position as the old owners, wouldn’t they? They’d have a big asset that makes money and that would cost as much to move as to stay. They wouldn’t just close down the studio, raze it, and sell the land, would they?”
“Lou thinks there’s more to it. He thinks they’re using Century City as their example.”
“The big group of office buildings?”
“Yes. Century City was built on what used to be the back lot of Twentieth Century—Fox; they sold out to developers. Lou thinks the prospective owners—let’s call them Sturmack and Ippolito, since they already own a substantial minority of the shares—don’t want to sell the land; he thinks they want to do the development themselves, and with Safe Harbor and other money behind them they could do it. It would be worth billions in the end.”
“One bank could finance all that?”
“No. But there’s something else I haven’t told you.”
“Go ahead.”
“A couple of years ago, Oney sent me to a man named Barone, who runs some sort of financial services company. Barone asked me if I’d like to make a substantial investment for an absolutely amazing return, tax-free.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yes, but I didn’t see it at the time. I gave him half a million dollars, and every month a man delivered cash payment to me. I’d give the money to Barone and he would send it abroad, for a fee, where it would be invested in a company name.”
“He’d launder the money?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s what you’d call it.”
“Sounds like loan-sharking or drugs. Nothing else could bring that kind of return on an investment.”
“It was working out to about ten percent a month,” Vance said.
“Sounds like a lot. Vance, but if Barone was loan-sharking,
he’d be bringing in ten percent a
week.”
“I was stupid, I know. After a few months, I put in another million dollars.”
“They were digging you in deep, then.”
“Yes, very deep. So when I told Oney I wouldn’t be his television spokesman and that I was resigning from the Safe Harbor board and moving all my accounts, Barone came to see me.”
“I can guess what’s coming next, I think.”
“Probably. I told him I was pulling out of his investment scheme, too. He told me that I couldn’t—that if I tried, I’d be in deep trouble with the IRS, that the publicity would destroy me. I got pretty angry. I—I believe the expression is cleaned Mr. Barone’s clock—and I threw him out of my office into the street. I was about to call my lawyer when I got a call from David Sturmack. He asked me to wait twenty-four hours while he tried to sort things out to everyone’s advantage. I agreed. That was around one o’clock. Late that afternoon, Arrington was kidnapped. I got the first phone call around six.”
“Let me guess,” Stone said. “In all this, Ippolito and Sturmack can’t be directly implicated; they could deny everything, and it would be your word against theirs.”
“I realized that when I got that phone call; that’s when I decided to take matters into my own hands.”
S
tone listened to this with a sinking heart, having the strong feeling that a bad situation was about to get worse. “What did you do?” he asked Vance Calder.
“First, I talked with Lou Regenstein, and told him I planned to fight these people. He didn’t disagree with that, because he and his studio were under attack, and he was not inclined to just fold. He suggested we confide in Billy O’Hara, who is the head of security for Centurion.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Stone said.
“Billy was very sympathetic, and I was surprised, since he is a former police officer, that he didn’t insist that I go immediately to the police and FBI.”
“So am I,” Stone said.
“It was the first thing
you
said to me,” Vance said. “I expected the same from Billy, but he didn’t even mention doing that.”
“What did he suggest?”
“He suggested that I turn the whole thing over to him, that I let him deal with both the kidnappers and the business of the stock.”
“Is O’Hara a stockholder?”
“In a small way; he’s one of the valued employees who own small parcels.”
“Go on.”
“So the next time the kidnappers called, I told them that Billy would be dealing for me, and then negotiations began. Billy met with them, and brought me back a series of proposals. They included paying a ransom of a million dollars, which he knew I could well afford, selling my stock, keeping my money in Barone’s hands and giving him more, and…”
“Becoming a television spokesman for Safe Harbor and remaining on the board,” Stone said. “Now we’ve got them. That implicates Ippolito, though not necessarily Sturmack.”
“Yes, I suppose it does, under certain conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“That I become Ippolito’s chief accuser and testify against him in court. I should tell you right now that I will
never
do that. The only real leverage they had against me was Arrington’s safety, and now that she is safe, that is gone.”
“But, Vance…”
“No buts about it; I am not going to become publicly involved in this; there is simply too much at stake for me.”
“You’re forgetting something, Vance; they still have a great deal of leverage against you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your investment with Barone.”
“I will deny that. They have no contract, nothing
with my signature on it. All I have to do is take the loss of the million and a half dollars I invested, and then wash my hands of them.”
“It’s not going to be as easy as that, Vance.”
“What are they going to do? Report me to the IRS? They can’t do that without implicating themselves. If the IRS began to investigate me, I would just deny everything. The only way they could tie me to Barone is on Barone’s testimony and, in the unlikely event that he gave it, it would be his word against mine.”
“Vance, let me tell you, nobody ever achieved happiness by lying to the IRS. If they believed Barone’s story—or more likely, an anonymous tip—they could make life very difficult for you.”
“How?”
“Have you ever heard of a tax audit?”
“I’ve been audited three times; on each occasion they had to accept my return as filed, and on one occasion they actually had to refund nearly fifty thousand dollars. Let them try again, if they like.”
“It’s not going to end there, Vance; first of all, the reasons for the audit would somehow find their way into the press, and then your coveted privacy would be gone. At least half the people who read about it are going to believe you’ve done something illegal, which, of course, you have.”
Vance furrowed his beautiful brow, but said nothing.
“Moreover, if Ippolito and Barone want to sink you, they’ll do more than just make an anonymous phone call; they’ll give the IRS chapter and verse on your foreign investments. They’ll fax them copies of the offshore bank statements; they’ll do whatever is necessary, and you may be sure that none of the documents
will make any reference to Barone or Ippolito. It will be your word against theirs, all right, but the evidence will all point to you, not them.”
Vance was looking really worried now.
“You have to understand that the day you gave them that money, you kissed it goodbye.”
“But they did actually produce a return on my investment,” Vance protested.
“Which you gave back to them to reinvest, right?”
“Well, yes.”
“So, in fact, you gave them a million and a half dollars, and you’ve never actually collected a dime in earnings from it.”
“Well, not yet, I suppose.”
“Not ever, Vance. Somewhere along the line, Barone would have come to you, very apologetically, of course, and told you that the market in whatever your investment is had crashed, and you’d lost everything. He would sob that you’re not alone,
he
lost everything, too. He didn’t, of course, but that’s what he’d say. You couldn’t even take a tax loss, the way you could have if your investment had been legitimate.”
Vance looked slightly nauseous now. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “It was an investment, not a gift.”
“It was a scam, pure and simple, Vance.”
Now anger flicked across the gorgeous suntanned face. “The sons of bitches,” he said quietly.
“Makes you want to get back at them, doesn’t it? They’ve kidnapped your wife, robbed you, humiliated you, and tried to extort your investment in Centurion right out of your hands. And that would be only the beginning, if they’re allowed to get away with it.
Eventually you would end up as their creature, a puppet controlled by Ippolito, with Sturmack on the sidelines stroking you and telling you everything was really all right. Centurion would be gone, all those talented people would be out of work, and some of them would never work again. Lou Regenstein would be ruined, your career would be fatally damaged. In the end you’d be lucky to get a TV movie of the week. And Ippolito would own you—lock, stock, and the barrel you’d end up wearing.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Vance said wonderingly.
“Exactly.” Vance, Stone thought, is beginning to get the big picture. “Now, what are you going to do about it?”
Vance shone the full force of his persona at Stone.
“Whatever it takes!
” he said slowly.
“Will you bare your soul to the IRS?”
“Yes!”
“Will you tell everything about Barone’s and Ippolito’s financial dealings to the FBI?”
“Yes!” Vance was into his scene, now.
“Will you help me pull Ippolito’s and Sturmack’s little empire down around their ears?”
“Goddammit, yes!”
“Will you testify against them in court?”
Vance’s handsome face dissolved into consternation. “Absolutely not!” he said, outraged.
Stone sighed deeply. “Vance,” he said.
“Yes, Stone?”
“There’s a chance—just a sliver of a chance—that I can get you out of this without it becoming public.”
Vance beamed, revealing startling dental work. “I knew you could do it, Stone.”
“I haven’t said I
could
do it. I’ve said there’s a
tiny
chance I could do it. And it means you’re going to have to tell the IRS and the FBI everything.”
“All right, as long as it doesn’t get into the papers.”
“And it means that you’re never going to see
any
of your million and a half dollars again.”
“Really?” Vance asked plaintively.
“Really. And there’s always the possibility that the feds will simply subpoena you, and you’d
have
to testify.”
“I’d take the Fifth!” Vance said indignantly.
“Vance, that would completely destroy your reputation.”
“Oh,” Vance said.
Stone had hoped to bring Vance to the full realization of what faced him, but he was not sure he had succeeded. After all, the man
was
a movie star.
W
hile Vance took a nap in his suite, Stone tried to assess his position. He had a witness, an accuser, now, one who knew some of what was going on in Ippolito’s empire, but one who, in the end, would not testify in court. What was more, now that he had declared himself Vance’s attorney, he had lost some of his powers of persuasion, such as threatening to go to the tabloids with what he knew of the movie star’s dealings. He was going to have to sell part of Vance to the feds, and it was time to see what they would give Vance for what he knew. He called Hank Cable at the FBI.
“Hello, Hank, it’s Stone Barrington.”
“Hi, Stone.”
“Anything new?”
“I’ve got some codebusters working on what we’re hearing from the taps on Barone Financial, but our warrant is about to expire, and we’re not there yet, and I on’t know if we have enough to get an extension.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“I hope so. We’re pretty much at a dead end, unless the code boys come up with something startling.”
“Do you know the chief investigator for the IRS in L.A.?”
“Sure; we talk from time to time.”
“I’d like to meet with both of you, today, at the earliest possible moment.”
“If you’ll hang on a minute, Stone, I’ll see if I can get him on another line.”
“Sure.” Stone waited for a couple of minutes.
“You still there?”
“Yep.”
“How about lunch? You’re buying.”
Stone gave him his suite number at the Bel-Air. “In an hour?”
“See you then.”
Stone hung up and called Rick Grant. “Rick, I’m having lunch with Hank Cable and the IRS; will you join us in my suite?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I think there may be something good for you in all this, but I warn you, the feds are going to take the biggest helpings.”
“So what else is new?”
“Can you be here in an hour?”
“Sure, but can you fill me in a little before we meet the feds?”
“It wouldn’t do any good right now. What I hope you’ll do is just listen and back me up when I ask for it.”
“I’ll listen, and I’ll back you up if I can, but if we’re getting official here, I have my department’s interests to protect.”
“If it’s any consolation, your department is going to
get more than the feds would ever give you if I weren’t in the middle of this. At least I have something they want; I just have to see how bad they want it.”