Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

Some of Brevizin’s friends had been caught up in the Edders and Petersen swindles; Brevizin remembered it well. Had some client of his now been doing something iffy in the market? “We’ll talk to him second,” he decided. “This afternoon. Richard Curtis first. Let’s try for eleven-thirty, after my tea.”

Richard Curtis was as Brevizin had imagined him; a tough man, exuding power and energy. He dressed casually but well, and his eye and handshake were firm. Brevizin, in his enquiries over the weekend, had heard a few faint hints of shakiness in the Curtis empire, but nothing drastic and nothing solid. The man himself seemed solid enough, and not at all shaken.

They sat together where on Friday Brevizin had talked with George Manville, and Curtis got immediately to the point: “I believe you had a conversation last Friday with a friend of mine, George Manville.”

Brevizin smiled amiably. “A friend of yours?”

“We’re friends now,” Curtis said, taking no offense. “And I believe we’ll stay friends. This little flurry is over.”

“Flurry.”

“George told you what we’re doing on Kanowit Island?”

“The destination resort, yes.”

“And his technique for reshaping the land.”

“Yes,” Brevizin said. “I won’t claim I understood it, but he did tell me.”

“Fine.” Curtis sat back and spread his hands. “It is George’s technique, more than anyone’s, I’ve never denied it, and it’s brilliant, and I’ve never denied that . And I pay well for it. George is a top man, and he gets top wages, or any one of my competitors would steal him away in a minute.”

Curtis paused, as though Brevizin might want to comment on that, but Brevizin merely continued to smile at him, so he went on, saying, “I’m afraid George got greedy, decided he wanted more than top wages, he wanted to be a partner, to own a piece of me . I don’t work that way, Mr. Brevizin. I’ve had operations with partners, where each shared the same financial risk, put the same amount in the pot, took equal shares out. Expertise is not enough. Expertise does not get shares, it gets wages. You, for instance, are very well known in corporate legal circles in Australia. George chose well.”

“Thank you,” Brevizin said.

“You bring great expertise to your clients,” Curtis said, “and in return they pay you very high fees.”

“They do.”

“But they do not give you pieces of their companies.”

“Point taken,” Brevizin said.

“That’s what this whole thing has been about,” Curtis said. “George made his demands, I turned them down. He didn’t know how to get at me, force me to agree, and he concocted this little scheme. I told you he’s brilliant, which doesn’t mean he’s practical. He thought he’d play hardball with me by running down my reputation, and continue to smear me until I came around. Spread rumors that I’d gone bust, for instance, I don’t know if he gave you that one.”

Brevizin smiled, and waited.

Curtis shook his head, waggled a hand. “I’m sorry, no,” he said, “I wasn’t asking you to repeat your conversations with a client. I’m merely saying this is the sort of rumor he was trying to spread within the industry, and he might have done it with you. No matter. The point is, the rumors got back to me, as they will, and as he wanted them to.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can play hardball, too,” Curtis said, and he looked as though he very well could. “I don’t need my reputation smeared, I don’t need him spreading wild stories about what a desperate man I am — you wouldn’t believe the things that have come back to me—”

“I might,” Brevizin said, “but as you say, no matter. You decided to play hardball as well.”

“I cooked up a charge against him,” Curtis said, almost defiantly, as though challenging Brevizin to say he’d been wrong. “Industrial espionage.”

“Well, well,” Brevizin said. “You do surprise me, Mr. Curtis. On Friday, Mr. Manville insisted the charges against him were made of whole cloth, and I said then I found it improbable that a reputable businessman like yourself would lie under oath in an affidavit about such a thing. And now you yourself tell me you did.”

“Because I knew I could undo it at any time,” Curtis said, “and because I knew no one would ever be able to prove I lied. Because it was the one way to bring George Manville to heel.”

“I’d wondered about that announcement over the weekend,” Brevizin said, “retracting the charges. I’d wondered if you’d been forced to reverse yourself, but you say no.”

“George gave up his rebellion,” Curtis said, “as I’d thought he would. He’s back in Singapore now, at my main office, where I’m headed this afternoon. It was always more ego than greed, in any case, with George, and we’ve worked out a compromise. A clearer demonstration of the value I place on him. Change of title, better staffing. The truth is, Mr. Brevizin, I think I was taking George too much for granted, there was wrong on both sides, and it won’t happen again.”

“Then the story he told me last Friday...”

“Was a pack of lies. Well, no,” Curtis amended himself, “it was half a pack of truth plus half a pack of lies. We were in dispute, that’s true. He is the creator of the technique we used on Kanowit Island, that’s true. I did knowingly falsely accuse him and deliberately put him in a very difficult position, that’s also true. But the rumors of my poverty and desperation, well — what did Twain say? ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration.’ ”

“And the girl he told me about? Kim Baldur?”

Curtis made a sour face. “Yes, I’m afraid George did hook up with those Planetwatch people for a while. Trying to get at me any way he could, of course. Those people are insane, I really believe they are. They’re likely to say anything .”

“Some of my clients have crossed their path,” Brevizin said, “and I must say their reaction is much the same as yours.”

“It takes a very particular kind of person, it seems to me,” Curtis said, “to believe it’s your job to rescue something as large as a planet.”

Brevizin laughed. “I must repeat that,” he said, “to one or two friends of mine.” Manville, he was thinking, had been very glib and plausible last Friday, and Curtis is being very glib and plausible today, with utterly opposed stories to tell. Either could be lying, anything could be the truth, but Brevizin found himself leaning more toward Curtis’s version, for two reasons. First, the fact that Manville was unquestionably back working with Curtis again, something he’d be unlikely to do if he really believed Curtis was trying to kill him. And second, the fact that Curtis’s story didn’t have any melodrama in it.

“But now,” Curtis said, “as to why I’m here. George was very impressed by you, so that’s why you’re the one I’ve come to.”

“Thank him for me.”

“I will. What’s happened is, we’ve had another problem, out of the blue. The captain of my yacht had been using it, when I wasn’t around, for smuggling. We don’t yet know what, or who he was dealing with, only that he thought he was about to be exposed, and last Friday he killed himself. Here, in Brisbane. The ship is here—”

“The Mallory .”

“Of course, George would have mentioned the ship. The investigation into Captain Zhang is just getting underway; in fact, I had a conversation yesterday with the policeman in charge, Inspector Fairchild.”

Brevizin smiled and nodded. “I’ve heard the name,” he said.

“My ship has been used,” Curtis said, “without my knowledge or permission. In an ongoing criminal enterprise. I don’t know what legal ramifications this could hold for me or the ship, in Australia. In some countries, the ship would be impounded. Now, I must get back to Singapore today. I would like to retain your firm to represent my interests in connection with the Mallory , for so long as she remains here.”