“I’m afraid it does,” she said.
Before I could reply, Sam jumped in. “I told you, I used your money as collateral on a bigger loan. None of the regular banks would handle it, so the Syndicate loaned me enough to get this complex built.”
“And staffed,” said Ilyana. “Those are mostly our people out there, dealing at the gaming tables, working in the restaurants and shops and, uh … therapy centers.”
“She means Hell’s Belles,” Sam explained.
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into this!” I shouted.
“Too late, old pal. Now it’s time to pay the piper.”
I started to answer, but hesitated. All right, Sam had snookered me into this, true enough. But the complex was built. Everything was working fine. It could become a major tourist attraction and a big moneymaker for Rockledge. I reasoned that if I bailed Sam out on this stupid loan, it would be only on the condition that he relinquish all his interest in the resort. Rockledge would have the complex free and clear, which was exactly what the CEO and I wanted.
“How much money are we talking about?” I asked.
“Fifteen billion,” Sam said.
Before I could faint, Ilyana said, “Eighteen billion. You forgot this afternoon’s interest.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right.”
“Eighteen billion?” I screeched.
“Tomorrow morning it will be twenty point six,” Ilyana said sweetly. “The interest mounts rather steeply.”
“How steeply?”
“Forty percent,” Sam answered.
“Compounded semi-daily,” Ilyana added.
“That’s usury!”
Her smile turned pitying. “Rockledge owns a credit service that charges almost as much.”
“It’s still usury,” I insisted.
“Nevertheless,” she said, “that is what is owed. Sam doesn’t have the wherewithal to pay it, so you must.”
“Me? When elephants fly! Why don’t you just kill the little sonofabitch and be done with it?”
Ilyana made a little pout. “What good would killing Sam do? We want the money you owe us, not a corpse.”
“Besides,” Sam chimed in, “Ilyana and I are thinking about getting married, settling down. Right, hon?”
She blew him a kiss. The little rat! He’s romancing this Mafia princess to save his own skin while he’s putting my neck on the guillotine!
Ilyana turned back to me. “I’m afraid you must pay, Mr. D’Argent. You are Sam’s partner, after all, and responsible for his debts. Surely a giant corporation such as Rockledge can afford a few billions.”
“Over my dead—” Again I stopped myself short. Maybe she didn’t want to kill Sam, but I didn’t know how she felt about murder in general.
“Mr. D’Argent,” Ilyana said, almost pleadingly, “don’t make this difficult for us and for yourself. You must pay. Otherwise your board of directors will never return to Earth. Alive, that is.”
“You … you’re threatening the entire board?”
“And their spouses, I’m afraid,” Ilyana said, nearly managing to look sad.
“My wife …”
“Your spaceship will have a terrible accident when it leaves the Moon. There will be no survivors.”
“And no witnesses,” Sam added, almost cheerfully.
I glowered at him. “You’ll be a witness.”
“Ah, but I’m going to be married into the Family,” Sam said. “Right, Ilyana, my precious angel?”
She blew him another kiss.
Then she got up from her chair like a beautiful python gliding up a tree and said, “You two gentlemen will want to talk this over, I know. Sam, darling, please call me when you’ve decided what you’re going to do.”
Sam nodded vigorously. Ilyana went to the door while we both watched her, half hypnotized by her graceful beauty.
She opened the door, then turned back toward us. “Oh, by the way, the chairman of our board is staying at the hotel here and would like to meet you both this evening.”
“The chairman of your board?” I echoed.
“Yes. In bygone years he’d be called the capo di tutti capi. Or perhaps the Godfather.”
She smiled sweetly and left the office, closing the door behind her without making a sound.
For several moments Sam and I were absolutely silent. At last I said, “She must be marvelous in bed.”
“How would I know?” Sam replied, spreading his hands in a gesture of innocence. “For all I know, she’s still a virgin.”
“You mean you haven’t—”
“Not one finger. If I even tried to, a dozen goons would drag me off to her Godfather, who would hang me by my cojones and use my head for batting practice.”
I groaned. “Sam, Sam … how did I ever let you talk me into this?”
“That’s not important now. The problem now is, how are we going to get out of this?”
He had a point.
I couldn’t go to my CEO and ask for twenty billion dollars. The half-billion I had funneled to Sam had been a major strain. And I couldn’t face their Godfather without having the twenty billion to hand over to him. As I sat there sweating, Sam drummed his fingers on his desk.
“I’m pretty sure they won’t kill you,” he said at last.
“Pretty sure?”
“What good would it do them?”
“It certainly wouldn’t do me much good,” I groused. “Nor my wife. Nor the board of directors.”
“Let me think about this,” Sam said, scratching at his red thatch of hair. “There’s gotta be a way out.”
I thought of the line from Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus: “Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.”
My wife and I were scheduled to have dinner with the CEO, his wife, and several key board members at Hell Crater’s finest restaurant, The Fallen Angel. Ordinarily an invitation like this would have been a step toward promotion, perhaps even an opportunity to join the board. I should have been overjoyed and eager with anticipation. Instead, as I put on my tuxedo that evening and struggled with the shirt studs, what I felt was anxiety bordering on dread.
I explained to my wife that I had to have cocktails with Sam Gunn and a few of his associates before dinner. She frowned with distaste, but accepted the situation.
“Business before pleasure,” she said grandly. Then added, “So long as it’s not monkey business with that little womanizer.”
Sam’s reputation was known everywhere, even among corporate wives. Especially among corporate wives.
The Godfather’s suite was only a few doors down the corridor from our own. I gave my wife a peck on the cheek while she was deciding which of the necklaces laid out on the dressing table before her would be best to wear with the gown she had bought earlier that afternoon. She barely nodded as I took my leave of her. Good thing, too, because Ms. Chang opened the door to her Godfather’s suite when I pressed the buzzer. She was wearing an ankle-length sheath of glittering metallic black, its skirt slit up to her shapely hip. If my wife had seen her, real hell would have broken loose over my head.
Ms. Chang gestured me into the suite’s thickly carpeted sitting room. Four rather lumpy-looking men in dark suits looked me over as if they had X-ray eyes. No one spoke a word. I stood uneasily by the door for a moment. Then in came Sam from the adjoining room, with the Godfather at his side, both of them in tuxedos.
He didn’t look Sicilian. I mean, he wasn’t a heavy, swarthy, sour-faced man. Not at all. Don Guido Alexandreivich Popov was as slim as a saber blade. His thickly luxuriant hair was a light sandy blond; his eyes a piercing light gray. He wasn’t much taller than Sam, and several centimeters shorter than I. Yet he radiated power, a self-assurance that comes from having enormous resources at your command.