Джозеф Файндер - House on Fire

Cameron’s voice boomed, “You drove her to drink. Way you went around screwing everything in a dress. Blatantly cheating on her. Lied to her face.”

“Aren’t you the moral authority,” his father said. “You, who killed a young girl!”

“You know damned well that was right after Mom’s funeral. I was out of my mind.”

“That could have ruined your life. You should be grateful I knew who to pay off.”

“And you hold it over my head? What kind of sick person does that?”

“Don’t make me do it,” Conrad said.

“Fuck you, Dad,” Cameron said. A few seconds later he burst out into the hall and stormed out of the house.

When I returned, the family was arguing about me, about whether I should be allowed into the family meeting.

Sukie spoke calmly. “If you’re going to have a vote at all today, you’re going to let him in.”

Conrad was seated again at his place at the head of the table. “I told you already, it’s family only.”

“You know damned well that, per the articles of incorporation, you can’t hold a meeting with two missing principals. So if you don’t let Nick in, I’m going to bail, and you won’t have a meeting. Take your choice.”

I didn’t expect to be allowed into the family meeting in the map room, so I’d made other arrangements.

With Natalya, who believed Megan was leading a cabal to oust Conrad and keep Natalya’s hands off of Conrad’s fortune.

I’d asked Natalya to put a book on the shelves. It was a leather-bound edition of The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand. I’d selected the book from an antiquarian bookstore in downtown Boston, based entirely on the color of its binding. Which was based on reviewing the Architectural Digest piece on Kimball Hall.

The thing about rich men’s libraries is, the books are rarely opened.

Inside the book George Devlin had cleverly inserted a miniature video bug.

But as it turned out, I didn’t need it.

The meeting started promptly at ten. I sat next to Sukie at the round table. Minutes of the last meeting were read by a stenographer I hadn’t seen before, a mousy woman of around forty with thick glasses and short brown hair who showed up just before the meeting began.

Then Conrad Kimball cleared his throat. He began to speak in a hoarse but loud baritone, his West Texas accent as leathery as a worn rodeo saddle.

“We have a decision to make today,” he began. “Whether or not to be acquired by Tova Pharmaceuticals of Haifa. Which I think is a no-brainer. This way we’ll get to escape all these crazy lawsuits.”

Hayden interrupted. “You want to give away your legacy, Dad? You started Kimball Pharma. It’s your baby. You want it to just... disappear into some corporate behemoth?”

“If we do nothing, we’re going to get sued into oblivion,” Conrad said. “There’ll be nothing left. Now we have this Israeli pharmaceutical company that wants to acquire our portfolio of drugs. And they’re willing to assume our legal liabilities? To me, it’s an easy decision to make.”

An Israeli pharmaceutical company, I thought. That’s who would hire Black Parallel, an Israeli private intelligence firm. Of course they were interested in me, in what I was investigating, what I had. Because I represented a huge potential threat to their deal.

I was a threat to Tova Pharmaceuticals.

They knew who I was — or they’d found out — and they knew that as an investigator I was relentless. If there was something to be found out about Kimball, some kind of dirt, they wanted it. There were probably all sorts of clauses in their offer that would allow them to withdraw if they discovered anything bad, any illegality, any false information.

Hayden said acidly, “A division of a giant Israeli pharma company. Our name will disappear. We’ll be ordered around by some megalomaniac in Haifa. I for one think it’s a serious mistake. A really bad move.”

“Let me remind you,” her father said, “that you’ll have plenty of dough to blow on your all-Japanese production of Raisin in the Sun. ”

“And what happens to me in your little scenario?” said Megan. “If and when Tova takes us over? I don’t see my name anywhere on this.”

“Megan, my dear,” Conrad said, “we know all about your schemes. Trying to have me declared incompetent. Yes, we know all about them.”

“That’s not true,” she protested indignantly.

“Fritz has some recordings to refresh your memory. Girl, I started this company before you were born, and I intend to run it until I can’t anymore, and I’ll be the judge of when that is.”

“Are you actually firing me?” she said.

“As the mother of four lovely children — my heirs, let us not forget — who doesn’t want for money, you have nothing to worry about. I’m sure you’re highly employable.”

“Untouchable, more like! You think anyone’s going to hire a Kimball these days? Paul, say something! This is an outrage!”

“You’re wasting your time,” Conrad said. “I think you’ll find Paul did some valuable work on the valuation of the Tova deal.”

“Well, I’m not going to sign this — I don’t see why I should.”

“Let me make your decision easy for you. If you don’t, I’m going to cut you out of the goddamned will. You too, Hayden. Your distribution will be a nice round number: zero. You people are a sport of nature, I tell you. It never ceases to mystify me how two human beings could have given birth to a brood of scorpions. What about you, Sukie? Any questions?”

Sukie nodded and looked around. “Yeah, I got one,” she finally said.

“Let’s hear it.”

She drew herself up. “Are you going to give interviews from your prison cell, Dad?” she said.

A long, stunned silence, and then Conrad laughed. Everyone else was watching them, their eyes moving from Sukie to Conrad and back.

She opened her laptop on the table in front of her. “This is the famous Tallinn study and all of the correspondence surrounding it — hold on, right here—”

“That’s an invention out of whole—” Conrad began.

“All the documentation, right here,” she said. “Proof.”

“What— How the hell did you get that?” Conrad said. “Who gave it to you?”

Sukie was looking at her laptop, tapping a few keys. The folder wasn’t opening. Her laptop looked frozen. She looked at me, then looked back at the keyboard, faltering for a moment. “As soon — as soon as this is released, Dad, you will face criminal charges for providing the government with false and misleading information about Oxydone. You lied and covered up and you had the study buried, and this folder of documents nails down every last damned detail. You will go to prison for the rest of your life.” Her face was flushed, her eyes glittering.

“What the hell do you want all of a sudden, Susan?” Conrad said flatly.

“I want the keys to the car.”

A long pause. “The what?”

From a leather portfolio she pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it across the table toward her father.

“I want you all to sign this piece of paper, turning over the management of the company to me and the professional team of managers I’m going to bring in.”

“What?” Conrad nearly shouted.

“She’s got to be kidding,” Megan said. “Sukie, you have got—”

“And if you don’t,” Sukie went on, “the Tallinn file will be front-page news in the Times. ”

Hayden said, “You would do that to us, Sukie?”

But Sukie continued, ignoring the question. “This right here is a legal instrument that transfers all executive rights and responsibilities in your name over to SKG Enterprises. And that includes ownership of the hundred billion dollars in cash you’ve squirreled away offshore. That’s right. I know about that too.”