Джон Макдональд - The Last One Left

“Do you know what Sunshine Management was offering?”

“I believe Squires’s expression was ‘interesting enough to merit consideration.’ ”

“Eight million seven hundred thousand.”

“My word! That would have been a waste of time. I see no reason why we should go lower than ten million five. Kayd knows that was our firm figure.”

“He was confident your Board would accept it.”

“Rather a fool then, what?”

“I don’t think anyone could safely call Bixby Kayd a fool. I did some legal work for him a few years ago. When I finished it up, I refused to do any more work for him. He was a little too tricky for my taste. He believed your Board would accept the offer.”

“But what could give him that impression?”

“I believe, sir, he had a certain amount of faith in the eight hundred thousand dollars he was carrying in cash aboard the Muñeca. It was to be a little private gift, as I understand it, for Mr. Squires and some of the others on your Board.”

Sir Willis Willard placed his little hands palm down against the top of his desk. He stared at the far wall of the room, high above Sam’s head.

“I congratulate you, Boylston. You have indeed startled me. Very cunning indeed. And quite merciless, of course. Aside from myself, three other men are quite well situated, and they are willing — as I would be under other circumstances — to take their losses, recoup a sizeable portion of their investment and put it to work elsewhere. I have voted against them because the other seven, including Squires, are not in a position to absorb such a percentage loss of investment capital. And so, to swing it, Squires would need only to corrupt two other men. It would give him six votes in favor. And it would mean a very serious loss to the other four men I have been trying to protect. Excuse me a moment, please.”

He opened a drawer in his desk, took out a folder, pencil, scratch pad. He turned to a tabulation in the folder, then did some rapid computation. “Certainly!” he said. “Assuming Angus Squires would take four hundred thousand for himself, and give two hundred thousand each to — the two I suspect would be most susceptible, accepting an offer of eight million seven would give Squires nearly a quarter of million of your dollars in profit, and give his friends fifty thousand net profit each. And by getting it all for a total of nine million five, your Mr. Kayd would be undercutting our rock bottom offer by a million dollars.”

“My informants told me Kayd had evidently been dealing quietly with Angus Squires for some time,” Sam said. “On the same day the cruiser was reported missing, Kayd was going to rendezvous with Squires at a fishing lodge Squires owns on Musket Cay in the Berry Islands. I’d guess Squires would want to make certain Kayd had the money, and perhaps take some of it along to bring here to Nassau to turn over to the men who’d agreed to sell their vote. I suppose that after the deal went through here, Squires would get the rest. He’d want some sort of safeguard. Dealing with Kayd can make anybody uneasy. My sister was a guest aboard that boat, Sir Willis. And there was over three quarters of a million dollars aboard. Four women and three men and money for a bribe. Bribe money has no past. It doesn’t appear on the records. And if nobody is left to report it missing...”

“But evidently someone is .”

“I got my information from two men who — go into things like this with cash the revenue people overlook. There were — certain reasons why they were willing to talk to me. But they won’t want to raise a fuss if it’s gone forever. They took a chance. The return was going to be high. They’ll moan a little, lick their wounds and keep their mouths shut. If somebody did go after the money, I can’t believe the information came from them, or from Kayd. I am curious about Squires. If he might be in so much financial trouble he would take — a bigger risk.”

“Who knows about all this, Boylston?”

“You and I, sir. Squires. The two men I questioned. And perhaps the two men on your Board who were going to go along with it.”

“And Rodgers?”

“I didn’t talk about it to him. My guess would be no. Kayd wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t have to know.”

“If Kayd had mentioned it, I am quite confident Rodgers would have terminated representation and come immediately to me.”

“Sir Willis, do you think Angus Squires could have...”

“Done them all in? Highly unlikely, I would say. If he needed money badly, he would have gotten more out of the whole thing by going ahead as planned. And, as you know, we have no tax upon income here. I was a bit dubious of his coming in with us on this Ventures thing. Heard some rumors, you know. But no proof, of course. He’s one of the Canadian chaps who got in on that Freeport arrangement in the beginning. And, if you meant could he have mentioned it to anyone capable of violent acts, you must remember that Squires would not talk freely about anything so certain to damage him should it come out. As it has, of course.”

“How much could it damage him?”

“Badly. Both him and the others involved. You Americans have taken quite a fancy to the phrase ‘power structure.’ Ours here is small, but very strong. One generally knows who might be doing what, and how well they are managing it. I shall merely trap the likely ones into revealing Squires’s plan and activities. It shouldn’t be at all difficult.” He smiled, made a small chopping gesture with a small hand and said, “Then we shall make quite certain everything they touch from now on shall turn out very badly indeed. Squires and friends accepted that risk. And lost. I am grateful to you for a most interesting talk.”

“Could I ask a favor, Sir Willis?”

“Of course!”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I would like to know Squires’s movements last Friday, Saturday and Sunday — where he went and who might have been with him.”

“No trouble at all, my dear fellow. And I should like to know as well. Ring me here at — this same hour tomorrow and I shall have it for you. I have been wondering, and perhaps it is none of my affair, if the authorities might conduct a — a more productive investigation were they to be told of the money carried aboard?”

“If it’s possible, Sir Willis, I’d like that kept quiet. If — it was taken, and there was a lot of publicity about it, it might drop out of sight for a long time. And it seems to me it is getting a lot of publicity right now. I had a television team with a movie camera and lights trap me just outside the Harbour Club this morning. From a Miami station. They wanted a statement. It would seem to me that — a public mention of the money would compound the confusion. And anybody with any useful information might get lost in the crowd of crazies who would come forward. I’d like to go at this quietly. If, in the future, I think a lot of new attention would help, then I can bring it up. Sometimes — special information can be a good lever.”

“And if whatever happened had nothing to do with the money?”

“I have to keep remembering it might have been that way. It’s hard to think clearly when — you’re emotionally involved.”

Sir Willis appeared to look more attentively at Sam Boylston. “Forgive me, Boylston, but I’ve rarely been exposed to Americans who make that distinction. Makes doing business with them a bit of a bother at times. Judgments based on emotions are quite valid, of course, if one happens to know what he is doing and why.” There was, Sam felt, a considerable power in this pink and white doll-man, a knowledge of the flaws in others and himself, a readiness to take any kind of advantage so long as it did not offend his own image of himself as an ethical man.