Текст книги "The Villiers Touch"

Автор книги: Brian Garfield

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12. Mason Villiers

The limousine turned up Third Avenue from Forty-seventh Street and cruised slowly with the lights. Taxis darted past, jumping the traffic lights, and along the window-lit sidewalks male prostitutes cruised with brazen, casual arrogance. In the back seat of the limousine Villiers became irritated with the bedraggled whine of Tod Sanders’ complaining voice and said, “I’m sick of hearing about your mother. Shut up.”

Sanders didn’t say another word until he eased the big car in at the curb in front of Villiers’ hotel. Then, blank-faced, Sanders turned in his seat and said, “You want a girl? You want me to send for a girl?”

“No, to hell with it. You go on home and sit up with your sick mother.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Tod Sanders was perpetually nodding, nervously pretending agreement before he could possibly know what he was going to be agreeing with; he was like a student-there was one in every classroom-whose head bobbed up and down the whole hour long.

“I’ll need you here at nine in the morning with the ear.”

“Yes, sir.”

The doorman had the limousine door open; Villiers stepped out and went into the hotel lobby. He glanced at the row of elevators but went on to the cocktail lounge. Drunk businessmen were crowded loud at the bar. As he moved past them, he saw a slim attractive woman sitting alone; her glance touched him, direct and interested. He sized her up as an easy lay.

She had a warm, slow smile.

He sat down and spoke: “Staying here in the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“In town long?”

“I live here.” She was still smiling.

“Work here?”

“Well, I’m sort of between jobs, you know. I do a little dancing, and I model a little. I’m just sort of-around, you know?”

He nodded. “Expensive?”

“Some gentlemen don’t think I am.”

“Go on,” he said.

“Two hundred.”

He laughed quietly and gave her his room number and walked out to the lobby.

At nine-thirty in the morning he entered the offices of Hackman and Greene and went back through the corridor without waiting for the English receptionist to announce him. He found Sidney Isher in Hackman’s office; the broker himself was nowhere in sight. Isher said, “George must be stuck in the traffic. It’s murder out there in this Goddamned heat. You want a cup of coffee?”

“No.” Villiers settled on a chair in the cool blast of the air-conditioner.

The red-haired lawyer coughed; his eye tic winked steadily. “I swear the pavements are starting to melt out there.”

Villiers said, “Take a pill or something-you’re nervous.”

“I guess I am. We’ve got a problem.”

“I’m listening.”

“It goes by the name of Arthur Rademacher. He’s James Melbard’s brother-in-law-this’ll take a minute to explain. You see, Melbard Chemical has about one and a half million shares of capital stock. As you know, there’s only about a hundred thousand shares outstanding on the open market-the rest belong to the Melbard family and a few insiders, and the twenty-three percent that NCI and Elliot Judd own together. The idea, as I understood it from you, was to tender an offer to Melbard to get a controlling interest from the Melbard family, in an exchange-of-stocks deal with Nuart Galleries. This was supposed to-”

“I’m losing interest,” Villiers snapped. “Get to the point.”

“I’m trying to.” Isher kept crossing and uncrossing his legs. “You want to buy a controlling interest in Melbard, right? The only way to do it is to buy eight hundred thousand shares of Melbard stock, right? And the only place you can buy that many shares is from Melbard’s family, because nobody else owns that much. But what I’m trying to tell you is, there’s a hitch we didn’t foresee. It seems this old bastard Rademacher owns a quarter of a million shares in his wife’s name-she’s James Melbard’s sister-and he’s also got options on another quarter of a million shares which James Melbard owns at the moment. You get the picture now? James Melbard can’t sell his stock to you unless Rademacher releases him from the options. For all practical purposes, Rademacher controls half a million shares of Melbard stock, which is better than thirty percent of the whole lot. Without that block of stock, you can’t get control of Melbard Chemical-not unless you can buy NCI’s block, and I doubt you could.”

“I don’t see the problem,” Villiers said. “If Rademacher owns it, then buy it from Rademacher. What’s so difficult about that?”

“Difficult? Nothing. It’s dead simple. Rademacher won’t sell.” Isher assumed a pained smile and made a vague gesture. “Just like that.”

“How do you know? Have you tried making him an offer?”

“Of course I have. What the hell do you think I’m talking from-pure guesswork? As soon as I got your call telling me Mrs. Hastings had agreed on the deal, I put my people to work on the Melbard group. I got a report from one of them this morning. Rademacher flatly turned us down. His half-million shares are too big a block for us to buck.”

“Maybe-if he isn’t bluffing. Who says he’s actually got control of that many shares?”

“Believe me. I checked it out.”

“Have you talked to him personally?”

“I put in a call. He wouldn’t talk to me.”

Villiers squinted at him. “People who refuse to talk usually have something to hide.”

“What’s that got to do with it? He’s got the stock, he refuses to sell it. That’s all there is to it.”

Villiers smiled gently and murmured, “Sidney, you haven’t got the balls of a Chihuahua. I’ve told you how high you could go, bidding for the stock-all you need to do is make Rademacher an offer he can’t turn down.”

“You told me to go as high as twelve dollars a share. That’s six million dollars-just for Rademacher’s stock. At that price you’d have to put eight or nine million dollars in to gain control. You haven’t got that kind of money.”

“Of course I’ve got that kind of money. What did you think this was, a penny-ante deal?”

“Don’t pull my leg. Where do you come up with nine million dollars?”

“Let me worry about that.”

“I will. I will-but you’re trying to grow too fast. You’ll get caught, or you’ll fall apart. I’ve watched you for years-can’t you ever take advice? You’ve only got two speeds in your engine-full speed ahead and full speed reverse. You’ve got to slow down on the corners.”

“All right, Sidney, you’ve exercised your mouth. Now I’ll put in my fifty-one percent worth. You’ll make Rademacher an offer he can’t refuse. If he won’t come to the phone, then don’t mail the offer, have it delivered to him by personal messenger, and put a little note in the envelope with it. Give it the friendly touch, and throw in a hint that you’re willing to grease him with options to buy a few blue chips below market price.”

Isher hawked, cleared his throat, and growled, “You give me a pain, Mace.”

“Take something for it.”

“Okay, so it’s an offer he can’t refuse. Suppose he refuses it?”

“Then use pressure. Everybody’s got something in his past he’s a little ashamed of-everybody’s scared of something. Find Rademacher’s soft spot.”

“I’m no detective.”

“You can hire them.”

Isher’s eyelid was winking rapidly with tension. “I don’t like it. You’re getting too ambitious too fast. You can’t just-”

“Don’t lean, Sidney. I’ve been leaned on by heavier men than you. Just do your job. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Isher flushed. He slid forward until he was sitting on the edge of his chair. “Hold it right there,” he said, his voice under stern control. “You’re not talking to a six-thousand-a-year lackey. Okay, so I’ve seen you order bigshot executives around as if you were a hung-over topkick yelling at recruits, and they let you do it because you’ve got enough clout to destroy them. You’ve never been bothered by leaving your cleat marks on people’s backs, and I suppose up to a point that’s good-it works, it’s helped you claw your way up to seven figures. But listen to me, Mace, you can’t treat these people the way you treat your boiler-room marks, with that world-is-my-ashtray attitude of yours. And you can’t treat me that way either. I know what you probably think of me, but-”

“What makes you think I think of you at all?” Villiers inquired, breathing evenly.

“-but don’t forget I know you pretty well. I make allowances because, hell, a few years ago you could hardly spell Manhattan, and now you’re close to owning it. I’m not such a hypocrite I won’t admit I’m greedy. Okay, so your star’s rising, and I hitched my wagon to it. But this time you’re getting tense, I can feel it myself, and a tense man makes mistakes. Now, you can go ahead and sling insults at me, because I’m used to that, but when it comes to legal counsel, you’re going to pay attention to me. That’s what you pay me for, and I do a good job of it. Now, in this Melbard thing you’ve got ideas fixed in your head and you think you don’t give a damn what I think. But I’m telling you for the good of both of us. You’re taking a plunge in this thing without even knowing if there’s water in the pool. You’re too rigid, Mace-too stubborn. It’s your great weakness. The inflexible man is always easiest to defeat. Look, the world is not a candy store. You’ve run into a dead end on this one, and I’m telling you to back out and find another way around.”

Villiers had waited him out. Now he said, “A little more of that, Sidney, and you could be ending a promising career.”

“Mine-or yours? Do you think I’m talking for the pleasure of hearing my own voice?”

“You are cram up to here with principles you haven’t earned, Sidney-you’re a snobbish prig. I told you to keep a rein on that conscience of yours.”

“You just don’t listen, do you? I’m not talking about conscience. I’m talking about a stone wall you’re up against. You won’t budge Arthur Rademacher. Certainly not with bribes, and I doubt you’ll find anything in his past strong enough to use for blackmail. He’s a crusty old son of a bitch, but he’s a powerful man-he’s a pillar of society, sits on half a dozen corporate boards. God knows he doesn’t need your money. To budge him you’d have to start talking in seven-figure sums, which is ridiculous. You haven’t got it, and it wouldn’t be worth it even if you did.”

“You’re wrong. It might.”

“For Melbard Chemical? Who are you kidding? The whole organization isn’t worth fifteen million at the outside.”

“It is to me.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Villiers gave him a long scrutiny. Sidney Isher sat coiled like a taut-wound watch spring. His eyelid fluttered. Villiers said, “I’ve got to have control of Melbard before NCI starts thinking about bidding against me. Understand? Your mandate is clear and simple-go thou and keep piling the chips on the table in front of Arthur Rademacher until he comes across. I don’t care what it takes.”

“Sometimes chutzpah isn’t enough, Mace. And-”

The door opened, and George Hackman came in beaming. Isher broke off and directed a resentful stare at him. Hackman’s red face streamed with sweat, but he grinned with triumphant self-satisfaction. “The top of the fucking morning to you both,” he said, and slapped down a briefcase violently on the corner of the desk nearest Villiers. “Help yourself. Merry Christmas.”

Villiers waited for him to sit down before he said, “What is it?”

“Colonel Butler’s signature on all five copies. I caught him at the airport. He had a few words to say, but he signed.”

Villiers opened the briefcase and had a look through the contracts. George Hackman was laughing. “Son of a bitch nearly dropped his pants. He thought it was going to be weeks before we’d have the papers ready. It never occurred to the stupid bastard we had the papers all typed up and ready for his signature before he even heard about the deal.”

“Satisfactory,” Villiers muttered, making a neat stack of the contracts and dropping it on the desk. “But it shortens your deadline, Sidney. I’m buying Colonel Butler out with Melbard stock, and I don’t own any Melbard stock. Until you get it for me.”

“I told you you were moving too fast.”

“Nuts. Just do it-quit whining.”

Hackman was punching up the Quotron, reading its market announcements. He looked at his watch and grunted. “Good enough. The Dow Jones is up three points over yesterday’s close-market index up eight cents.”

Villiers said, “Never mind that. I want the two of you to look around for a man to put in nominal charge of Heggins Aircraft-somebody with an air of respectability who can be controlled. We’ll have to juice up their accounting, they haven’t been depreciating things fast enough. We’ll put out a slick report with plenty of expensive artwork. The first thing for the new administration to do is shave the operating costs-I want all superfluous personnel fired, particularly at the management level. The company’s topheavy with Butler’s retired Air Force cronies and sixty-year-old executives. I’ll spend the weekend going over the books, and by next week I’ll have a set of goals mapped out for the next quarter. One thing I know already-Heggins has a fleet of repossessed obsolescent cargo planes in mothballs in the desert down in Arizona. I want those planes fixed and sold-there are plenty of markets in the Middle East and South America. I want Heggins’ balance sheet to be in the black by the end of the year, with or without government contracts.”

Sidney Isher said, frowning, “You sound as if you want to keep Heggins operating. I thought you planned to strip it.”

Villiers shook his head. “The company’s no good to me dead. One thing our new management will have to do right away. Heggins has been paying rent to one of its own subsidiaries for the use of runways and test-flight ranges in Nevada. One of Butler’s cute ideas-the rent boosted Heggins’ operating expenses and cut its earnings, so Butler could defend his applications for higher government research fees. He never applied the subsidiary’s dividends against Heggins’ operating costs-he allotted them all to stockholders, and he’s the principal stockholder outside of Heggins itself. I don’t want the money going into Butler’s pockets. Heggins will have to buy back the runways and close down the subsidiary. That way we’ll increase the assets on the books and cut the operating expenses. It should show a big rise in paper profits by the end of the year, and that’s what we’ve got to have-the appearance of strength in the company.”

Sidney Isher said, “Mind telling us why?”

“My reasons are complex, and there’s no need to go into them all. I might just mention one item. Certain parties have been selling Heggins stock short in big bundles. If we can improve Heggins’ image in the market, the price will go up and the short-sellers will be caught in a tight bind, which is exactly where I want them to be.”

“Who are they?”

“Does it matter? They’re people I mean to squeeze, Sidney. That’s all you need to know.”

The lawyer did not bother to conceal his resentment. Villiers stood up, ready to leave; he said to Hackman, “Any word from the Wyatt kid?”

“Not yet.”

“He may need to be leaned on.”

“Just let me know,” Hackman said.

Villiers glanced at Sidney Isher, who did not meet his eyes, and left the office. He felt very good-taut, alive, expectant, the way he used to feel at fifteen when he was lining up a particularly complex and tricky shot on the green felt of a pool table. He gave the English girl his handsome smile on his way out.

13. Russell Hastings

Quint had probably been born fat-generous, good-natured, and often childish. His huge torso, contained in a dark vest, seemed to need a golden watch chain. He was a pink flannel-and-tweed man with thinning brown hair and a guardsman moustache; his face was big, with deep square brackets creasing it right down past the mouth into the big dependable jaw. He liked to act bumbling and vague, as if he were unaware of the events that surrounded him. It was an effective pose; it put his adversaries off their guard.

His office commanded a view of Foley Square. His desk ashtray, full of cellophane candy wrappers, was an abalone shell.

Russ Hastings sat in a wooden armchair listening to him growl. As Quint spoke, the bow tie bobbed up and down at his throat. “I don’t know, Russ, you come into this business full of spice and vim, and before you know it you’ve been flattened and dried out by the damned bureaucracy of it all. I sit at this desk trying to work out my plans of action, and all day long I get phone calls from one fellow talking about personnel and another fellow talking about budgets and vacation schedules and some unhappy clerk who wants to resign. The chap from two offices down the hall drops in to ask for information about this and that. Salesmen get past the secretary and unnerve me about office supplies. One inconsequential interruption after another, and before you know it it’s the end of one more day, and you don’t know what the devil’s happened to it, you came in red hot and raring to go in the morning, and you never got a chance to start. It makes me wonder what the hell I’m ever going to accomplish.”

It was a speech Hastings had heard before, with variations; he said, “Why don’t you burn the whole place down and start from scratch?”

Quint grinned and waggled a finger. “Don’t mind me, old boy. There aren’t many sympathetic ears hereabouts. Forgive me if I lean on yours now and then.” The English accent, added to the guardsman mustache, gave Quint a Blimpish aura-one kept expecting him to refer to his wife as the memsahib.

Quint put on his stern down-to-business face. “All right. You said you had a request.”

“I want your authority to make a few waves.”

“To what end?”

“Maybe to squash a raid. Maybe nothing. It’s still too vague to write up a bill of particulars-but somebody’s playing Ping-Pong with Northeast Consolidated stock.”

Quint said, “A few days ago that was a hunch. Is it anything stronger than that now?”

“It’s getting there. I’ve collected lists of NCI trades from the floor specialist and a dozen big brokers. When you compare them, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Too much Canadian activity, too many anonymous Swiss accounts and dummy front men-all buying NCI. Small lots, but steady buying. Just the kind of thing you’d do if you wanted to accumulate a strong position but didn’t want to alert anybody or inflate the price. Whoever he is, he’s collected better than half a million shares in the past six weeks.”

“Is that a firm figure or a guess?”

“A little of both. Some of the Canadian purchases may be legitimate. It’s impossible to tell the difference until we’ve traced every stock certificate by number from source to buyer. That’s going to take time. But in the meantime this fellow’s still out there buying. It’s my opinion if we wait for guaranteed proof with all the t’s crossed, he’ll get there ahead of us.”

Quint unwrapped a ball of hard low-calorie candy and popped it in his mouth. “Any idea who this mythical chap is?”

“Not yet.”

“Suppose it turns out to be Elliot Judd?”

“I’ve thought of that.”

“Of course you have,” Quint mumbled. “It would make you look a bit of an ass, wouldn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to. That’s why I want to stir things up. I want to take the wraps off-let our man know we’re tracking him.”

“Whatever for?”

“It may frighten him off,” Hastings said, and watched the fat man for a reaction.

Quint shifted his seat on the uncomfortable wooden chair. Finally he said slowly, “No. I’m afraid we can’t have it bruited about.”

“It’s the only way I know to-”

“Let me finish, please. That technique may have worked for you in investigating political corruption. Let a malfeasor know he’s being watched, and he’ll very likely back away from the trough. I understand your tactics. But they won’t work here. We inhabit an asylum of paranoid sensitivity, Russ. To reveal we’re investigating a security as big as NCI is to shake public confidence in it. If public confidence falls, the price of the stock falls, and if a blue chip like NCI falls, the whole market may fall with it. Our only weapon against that sort of disaster is our power to force the Exchange to suspend trading in the stock. But we’re not permitted to exercise that power unless we have substantial and cogent reasons-reasons we can explain to the satisfaction of all concerned. Do you see? Wall Street couldn’t be more fragile if it were perched on the lip of a seismic fault. We all have the same responsibility, to do nothing that threatens to set off the earthquake.”

The fat man crumpled the cellophane wrapper in his huge fist and dropped it in the ashtray. “Request denied,” he concluded.

Hastings nodded. “I understand all that. But I’m beginning to think it may be worth the risk. After all, the company’s too big to take very much of a beating in the market. Everybody knows it’s sound. If we begin to drop hints there’s a raider moving in, it may even raise the price of the stock-after all, if it’s attractive to a raider, there must be something in it.”

“Risk,” the fat man replied, “has to be measured not in terms of what you’ve got to gain, but in terms of what you’ve got to lose. Look, Russ, I don’t mean to trample your enthusiasms. You’ve convinced me there’s something afoot that bears investigating. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to go on conducting the investigation by the book. The idea doesn’t appeal to you? There was a time when I was too impatient to go by the book too. But everything in the book was put there for a reason. You’ll go right ahead and dig, with my blessings, but you’ll do it discreetly, and you won’t broadcast any warnings. I trust I’m making that abundantly clear.”

“About as unmistakable as a giraffe in a bathtub,” Hastings agreed. He stood up. “I guess you’re right.”

“You bloody Americans are always ‘I-guessing.’ It’s not one of your more endearing habits of speech.”

“You’ll get used to it. The first hundred years are the hardest.” He turned to the door.

“Russ.”

“Mmm?”

“Not one man in a hundred would have had the hunch you started with on this thing. Not one in a thousand would have played it. I’m not unmindful of that. Don’t take my schoolmasterish scoldings as criticisms. You’re worth any five other men in this office-and if it comes to it, I’ll support you right up to the lynching. But you must play this one close to your chest.”

“I understand.” He gave Quint a smile and went out into the hallway.

When he entered his own office, Miss Sprague looked up from her desk and said, “Mr. Burgess is waiting in your office. And there was a phone call from a Miss Cynthia MacNee.”

It stopped him in his tracks. He frowned at her. “Did she say what she wanted?”

“Only that she’d call again within a half-hour. She specifically asked that you don’t call her back-she said she’s not at the Nuart office. She also said it was very important, and she hoped you’d wait for her return call.” Miss Sprague gave him an arch look of speculation and turned back to her typewriter.

Puzzled, he went into the office and greeted Bill Burgess. The lawyer from Justice was a harried-looking sort with dark blond hair and a square face with a short nose and good jaw. He spent Wednesday nights playing poker, took his wife to neighborhood Italian restaurants and movies on Saturday nights, and spent summer Sundays at Jones Beach. He had limp shirt cuffs, blackened around the seams by soot and too much wearing; his shoes were very old and assiduously polished; the seersucker suit was baggy. His smile was fond with the warmth of old friendship.

“I know,” Hastings said, going around behind his desk and seating himself, “I didn’t show up at the poker game, and you’re sore because you missed a chance to nip me for fifteen bucks.”

“Yah. We need new blood in the game.”

“What you mean is, you need a fish.”

“You’re not all that bad,” Burgess said, packing his pipe. “Listen, you’ve made a lot of work for me. Ever since you called and dropped that name in my lap I’ve been going around in circles.”

“What name?”

“Salvatore Senna. The Canadian stock buyer you wanted to know about.”

Hastings sat up straight. “You’ve got something.”

“Yah, I confess. The name kept kicking around in the back of my skull, and I knew there had to be something. I started checking things out yesterday, put a girl on the files, and spent an hour of overtime digging. Came up with some interesting stuff.”

“Then unload it. Or does it come with a price tag?”

“This job makes cynics out of them all, doesn’t it? Okay, so there’s a price tag. Some of the stuff I got for you had to come out of FBI files, and they want reciprocation from you. Anything you get on Senna, they’d be obliged if you’d turn it over to them.”

“So I was right about him.”

“Uh-hunh. Cosa Nostra up to his eyeballs. Eight arrests, one conviction. Sullivan rap, concealed weapon. That was nine years ago, a little before my time. He’s been in Canada since he got out of Sing Sing five years ago, which is why I didn’t tumble to the name. But the FBI likes to keep tabs on them wherever they go. Anyhow, here’s the gen. They call him Little Sally, which is to distinguish him from Big Sally-Salvatore Civetta, who as we all know is Vic Civetta’s younger brother. Senna was a button in the Civetta mob before he went to Canada. His background maybe explains why he’s turned into a stock-market investor. He used to enforce the money rackets for Civetta in Queens-loan-sharking mostly, and the numbers. Evidently he got interested in stocks and bonds when he was serving time at Ossining-there’s a note in the file that he took out every book the prison library had on securities and investment. Since he went to Montreal we haven’t been keeping an active file on him, but according to the FBI he’s been fronting a boiler-room operation up there. Want details?”

“Go ahead,” Hastings said. “I’ll yawn if I get bored.”

“Well, it’s a stock-market confidence game. I guess you know that. Senna’s got a big crew of professional con men. They work the phones eighteen hours a day, selling stocks by long-distance high-pressure pitches to widows and housewives and retired pensioners all over the States. You understand these stocks they sell are legitimate over-the-counter stocks, not fake paper. But the boiler-room boys sell them at twenty to fifty times their real value. Don’t ask me where they find suckers stupid enough to fall for it, but they do-in droves. Technically, it’s a crime-fraud. But they don’t run much of a risk. How can a victim identify a swindler he’s only talked to on the phone, never even seen? The boiler rooms used to operate out of lofts in the Wall Street area, but we cracked down on them, and most of the big operations moved to Canada. Gives them a good base to work from-the Canadian cops have a tough time with them because the victims aren’t Canadians and aren’t even in Canada at the time the crimes are committed. The cops try to harass them up there, but most of-”

The buzz of the intercom interrupted him. Miss Sprague’s voice, full of disapproval, said, “Cynthia MacNee is on the line. Shall I ask her to hold, or do I tell her you’re in conference?”

“Put her on,” Hastings said to her, and to Burgess, “Don’t move, I want to hear the rest of it.” He picked up the phone. “Hello, Cynthia?”

“Dahling,” Cynthia MacNee drawled, “it’s not really necessary to sound so overjoyed to hear my voice.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“My deah, that tone of voice will never get you elected to office. I want to see you-it’s important. I’m in the East Village in a telephone booth that’s full of broken glass and the scent of piss, so I won’t prolong this delightful conversation. I’ve just spent an hour looking at the most hideous paintings in the world and I’m prepared to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, but en route to it I could tell the taxi driver to stop at Foley Square. I can be there in ten minutes. Have you got a few moments to spare me?”

“I’m kind of busy. But you said it was important?”

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

“You’re insufferable,” he said.

“I know. Isn’t it wonderful? It is important, lover, and I’ll see you in ten minutes. Hasta luego.”

He cradled the phone, rearranged his thoughts, and said to Bill Burgess, “And Salvatore Senna runs one of these boiler-room operations in Montreal?”

“He appears to. I doubt he owns the operation-he’s fronting for somebody. Maybe it belongs to one of the mobs. Anyhow it’s worth pondering. When you get a mobster nosing in on the legit securities business, it spells Cosa Nostra and that starts with ‘C’ and that rhymes with ‘T’ and that stands for ‘Trouble,’ according to the impeccable logic of Professor Hill. We’ve traced some sizable stock-theft hauls to the Mafia, and I suppose the dons must own chunks of blue-chip stocks, but your interest in Senna is one of the first hints I’ve seen that they might be muscling in on the market itself. Have you got anything for me?”

“Nothing worth broadcasting. Senna bought a block of gilt-edged a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been curious to find out why.”

“If you do turn up anything, let me know so I can pass it on to the hotshots over at FBI.”

“I’ll have to clear it through Quint first.”

“Sure, I know.” Burgess was out of his chair and moving. “I’ll hold a chair for you at the game Wednesday,” he said, and went.

Cynthia swept into the office with imperious clumsiness and came around the desk to deposit a smacking kiss on his cheek. “Dahling!” she cried at the top of her lungs; she grinned impudently and settled asprawl in the chair Burgess had vacated a few minutes earlier. “That was for the benefit of your sterile secretary,” she said under her breath. She wore a ridiculous hat; her dress, a loud print, was girdled under her abundant breasts. There was a great deal of irrepressible mischief in her face, but-it always surprised him-it was essentially a very lovely face, an ivory shield surrounded by long dark hair, as fine and straight and liquid as an Oriental’s, falling softly to her big shoulders.

She said, “You look fine, Russ. You look like a surfer. You must like your job here.”

“It has its points. What’s up?”

She nodded. “You didn’t want to see me. I guess I understand that-you don’t want reminders. In the terminology of the pulp magazines, you’ve still got fresh scars that haven’t healed over. Am I warm?”