Oh, so that was it. Buddy was the driver, but Mac the natural leader. Mark remembered it had been Mac, from the rear seat of the Taurus, who’d said, “I think we should do it.” Therefore, addressing Mac more directly now, Mark said, “No, indeed, we didn’t work for Monroe Hall, at least we were spared that. However, we did invest with SomniTech.”
To Mark’s left, Os made that little grr sound he’d often make when about to lose control at tennis. Patting that knee—it quivered a little—Mark went on, “It has been our hope, since pitching our tent outside the Hall compound, to, one way or another, recoup our losses.”
“Us, too,” Buddy said.
Surprised, Mark said, “You invested?”
“Everything,” Buddy told him. “Life insurance. Health insurance. Pension plan.”
Oh, those things. They hardly mattered in the grand scheme of existence, after all, but Mark could just see that Buddy and his friends might treasure them more than they were really worth. Symbolic value, and so on. Sympathy at full bore, he said, “So you see, we are in a similar situation.”
“I’m Ace,” abruptly said speak-no-evil, sitting up straight like a drum major, frowning massively at Mark.
Mark smiled upon him. “Welcome to the group, Ace. Have you something to add?”
“How do we know,” Ace demanded, “you aren’t a cop?”
The limo, rented, like the Navigator, for its flash effect, traversed a climbing curve. The view outside, lovely enough, was sufficiently unchanging so as not to distract from the conversation within. His most open and boyish smile on his face, Mark said, “Ace, all I can tell you is, no one in my entire life has ever mistaken me for a policeman.”
Mac said, “Ace, these aren’t cops. These are—whatchucallit—venture capitalists.” Raising a thick eyebrow at Mark, he said, “That right?”
“Very good, Mac,” Mark said. “Yes, we are investors by trade, though at rather a low level, in comparison with some of the names you’ll read in the newspapers. We’ve had our wins and our losses, a nice win in a particular kind of rear window SUV windshield wiper, an unfortunate loss on a kind of nonflammable Christmas wreath available in every color except green—”
Os grred again, and Mark moved smoothly on: “But rarely have we trusted any company as much as we trusted SomniTech, nor any smooth-talking son of a bitch as we trusted Monroe Hall—yes, Os, we know—and I’m afraid we severely overextended ourselves there, so that our little company at this moment is in ruins at our feet.”
“Too bad,” Buddy said, though without what sounded like much real sympathy.
“Yes, it is bad,” Mark agreed. “Os and I are living on relatives, an unpleasant alternative in any circumstance. To make capital, as everyone knows, you must start with capital, and capital is just what we don’t have at this moment. All sources, familial and institutional, had already been exhausted before the final blow fell. Long after Monroe Hall was taking money out of SomniTech, he was still urging us to put money in. Yes, Os.” Mark patted that quivering knee once more, then told the trio, “It is only here, with our hands on Monroe Hall—yes, Os, on Monroe Hall’s throat—that we can hope to recoup, to raise the capital that will finance a few extremely promising opportunities about which we have been made aware, but I’m sure you’ll understand if I refrain from discussing in this venue.”
Os spoke for the first time, his throat partly closed by the intensity of his feelings, so that his voice had a rather clogged aspect: “It might be enough for you three to just beat the bastard up, but we need him to put the blood back in our veins.”
Mac said, “Beat him up?”
Oh. Had they been wrong about these three? Mark said, “Os and I, having been aware of you three for some time, had assumed simple physical revenge was your plan. Were we wrong?”
“That depends,” Mac said, belatedly being cagy.
“I know there are others in the neighborhood with that sort of idea,” Mark told them. “There’s a fellow sits in the lobby of the Liberty Bell Hotel down in Dongenaide with a horsewhip, tells anybody who’ll listen he’s a former stockholder, wiped out, intends to horsewhip Monroe Hall within an inch of his life. How he expects to horsewhip Hall in the lobby of the Liberty Bell Hotel in Dongenaide I have no idea, but there he is.”
Os said, “Not to kill him, though. I mean you three. I don’t want you killing him. Not before he lays the golden egg.”
Mac said to Mark, “You told Ace nobody ever mistook you for a cop. How many people you think mistake us for killers?”
“Point taken,” Mark said. “But you haven’t been hanging around here for your health. You have some scheme in mind. I tell you what. I’ll tell you ours, and then you tell us yours. Deal?”
The three looked at one another, then Buddy and Ace looked at Mac, and then Mac looked at Mark and said, “You go first?”
“That’s the proposal,” Mark agreed. “Right now, if you’d like.”
“Sure.”
As the Taurus three adjusted themselves, getting more comfortable because they were about to be told a story, Mark said, “Monroe Hall did not drain the life out of a large and viable corporation out of personal need. He did it out of an excess of personal greed. In truth, Monroe Hall was born rich, as his father had been before him, and his father before him. In truth, despite the devastation he has caused to all around him, Monroe Hall is still rich. Some of his relatives who trusted him have a bit less than the cushion they’d always assumed would be there, but Hall himself is sitting on a pile.”
Buddy said, “That’s what we want some of.”
“Good,” Mark said. “It is always a good thing when partners share a goal. Now, our scheme is dependent upon Monroe Hall’s offshore holdings, untouched by the federal prosecutors, untouchable by American courts.”
Mac said, “Offshore holdings? What’s that?”
“Bank accounts, real estate, government paper, all in places closed off to American law.” Gesturing at the tinted windows, Mark said, “You’ve heard of them as tax havens.”
Mac said, “And where those dictators stash their loot, before they get thrown out. Numbered accounts.”
“Numbered accounts, exactly. Untraceable, untappable, even unprovable.”
“Not,” the constricted Os said, “with our hands on his throat.”
“This is the idea, yes,” Mark said. “We know how these money instruments work. Once we get our hands on Monroe, we can force him to make irrevocable transfers from his accounts to our accounts.”
Shaking his head, Mac said, “The minute he walks into a bank—”
“No bank,” Mark told him. “In fact, no travel. Really, all the best banking these days is done on the Internet.”
“You mean,” Buddy said, eyes clouded with confusion, “hack into his bank accounts?”
“Certainly not,” Mark said. “That’s why we need the physical presence of Monroe Hall. Given Os’s volatile personality, as you have no doubt remarked it, Monroe himself can be persuaded to make the transfers. After all, he knows his passwords, his identification numbers, just where to access which holdings.”
Mac said, “You’re gonna put his feet to the fire, you mean.”
“We considered that as a method,” Mark said, “but it’s too hard to explain a fire in June. There are other ways. And Monroe knows Os, he can guess what he’s capable of.” As the trio soberly assessed Os, considering what he might be capable of, Mark said, “But now it’s your turn.”
Again they all exchanged looks. Ace asked his friends, “Do we tell them? There’s two of them, so they can be each other’s witness, if they wanna turn us in.”