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It was my vision a decade ago to spread over an entire web of related sectors, and we did it. We killed it.
He talks to the grifter like she’s an idiot.
Clearly she’s anything but.
“It means, if Smuckers wants to, he would take his place on the board with your assistance. He would attend meetings and vote on things, and his vote would decide issues, mostly around the overall direction of the company. As CEO, Henry runs the day-to-day stuff. But as a board member and owner, Smuckers would provide the vision and direction, while drawing a monthly stipend.” Malcomb points to her handout.
Brett touches my arm. “If the dog dies under suspicious circumstances, the shares go to the Humane Society. Natural life for that dog is ten more years.”
“What?” I say. “You were thinking about killing the dog?”
“Dude,” he says. “Gotta explore our options here.”
“We’re not killing the dog.”
He puts up his hands like I’m attacking him. “It won’t help anyway,” he says. “We have to pay her off. How much? What do you think? Smuckers can choose to hand over those shares.” Brett makes quote fingers for Smuckers. Brett is a quote fingers abuser.
Kaleb wanders over. He wants to hear what I think.
I fold my arms. “This is just a business problem with a business solution. We’ve had disasters before, right?” Just this year we had to tear down a partially built distribution center because a subcontractor screwed up the rebar. That was a twenty-million-dollar mistake that wasn’t on us to fix, but we fixed it. People need to know that Locke does the right thing.
“Don’t start too low,” Kaleb says.
It galls me to give her anything. “Three million cash,” I say.
Brett winces. It’s not the amount. We won’t even notice three million. He thinks it’s too low, that’s the problem. She really is holding all the cards.
“Three million, and we don’t press charges,” I say. “If she did any kind of research, she’d know—you know.”
She’d know about the deep friendships we have throughout the city. We don’t own judges and cops like a crime family does; we have something more powerful—friendship in high places. Friends in high places tend to see things your way.
“At least offer four point five,” Brett says. “It feels like five. She’ll go to ten, then, and we meet at seven.”
“It’s a good payday for her,” Kaleb says. “Assuming she’s not part of an organized team.”
“I don’t think she is,” I say.
“How do you know?” Kaleb says.
Because there’s an echo of loneliness to her. I hear it in her bravado. I see it in the way she straightens her spine. The cold steel you grow in your spine when nobody else is pulling for you.
I don’t say that, though.
“Because she’d use them to squeeze us. She’d come in like a tiger with some boiler-room financial guy or a shady lawyer. Not like…” I gesture at her. “Please.”
“Right,” Kaleb agrees.
The room has emptied. Some of our cousins still linger in the hall. Some of the younger ones probably nabbed a bottle of booze and went to the second-floor balcony to smoke.
Malcomb’s explaining things to the scammer and the rest of the guys are doing phone things.
She looks up as if she feels my attention. Yeah, you’ve got my attention, I think. I stroll her way. I cross my arms. “Let’s talk.”
She furrows her brows. “Okay.”
“We’ve called the police. They don’t have enough to make anything stick—yet—but they’ll have questions.”
She straightens. “But I didn’t do anything!”
