A man in full, p.7
A Man in Full, page 7
The Artiste turned to an assistant on his other side and said in a low voice, “Gimme the cars, Sheldon.” The young man, Sheldon, snapped open a ring binder and handed Harry a sheet of paper.
The Artiste studied it for a moment, then looked up at Croker and said, “Now, in your last financial statement you list seven company automobiles, three BMW 750:L’s valued at … What’s it say here? … $93,000 each … Two BMW 540:A’s valued at $55,000 each, a Ferrari 355 valued at $129,000, and a customized Cadillac Seville STS valued at $75,000 … By the way, how’d you get here this morning?”
Croker gave the Artiste a long death-ray stare, then said, “I drove.”
“What’d you drive? A BMW? The Ferrari? The customized Cadillac Seville STS? Which one?”
Croker eyed him balefully but said nothing. The steam was coming back into his system. His mighty chest rose and fell with a prodigious sigh. The dark stains were inching closer, from either side of his chest, toward the sternum.
Harry said, “Seven company cars … Sell ’em.”
“Those cars are in constant use,” said Croker. “Besides, suppose we sold ’em—to the distinct disadvantage of our operations, by the way. What are we talking about here? A couple of hundred thousand dollars.”
“Hey!” said the Artiste with a big smile. “I don’t know about you, but I have great respect for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Besides, your arithmetic’s a little off. It’s five hundred and ninety-three thousand. A thousand more insignificant items like that and we’ve got half a billion and plenty to spare. See how easy it is? Sell ’em.”
He turned to his assistant again and said, “Gimme the airplanes.” The ring binder snapped open, and the assistant, Sheldon, gave him several sheets of paper.
“Now, Mr. Croker,” said Harry, looking at the pages, “you also list four aircraft, two Beechjet 400A’s, a Super King Air 350, and a Gulfstream Five.” Then he looked up at Croker and, in a voice like W. C. Fields’s, repeated: “A Gulfstream Five … a Gee-Fiiiiiiive … That’s a $38 million aircraft, if I’m not mistaken, and I see here that yours has certain … enhancements … a Satcom telephone system, $300,000 installed … A Satcom telephone enables you to telephone, while you’re aloffffft, from anywhere in the world, isn’t that correct?”
“Yeah,” said Croker.
“How many of Croker Global’s operations are overseas, Mr. Croker?”
“As of now, none, but—”
“And I see you’ve also got a set of SkyWatch cabin radar display screens, worth $125,000 installed, and a cabin interior custom designed and furnished by a Mr. Ronald Vine for $2,845,000. And it says here there’s a painting installed on that airplane worth $190,000.” The Artiste raised his great chin and looked down his nose at Croker with a mixture of incredulity and disdain. “Are those figures correct? They come straight from your financial statement. You presented these items as collateral.”
“That’s right.”
“That’s $40 million tied up in that one aircraft.” He turned to his assistant. “What’s the total value of the other three planes, Sheldon?”
“Fifteen million, nine hundred thousand.”
“Fifteen million, nine hundred thousand,” said Harry. “So now we’re talking about $58 million worth of airplanes. Where do you keep those airplanes, Mr. Croker?”
“Out at PDK,” said Croker, referring to the airport for private aircraft in DeKalb County, just east of the city. PDK was short for Peachtree—DeKalb.
“You lease hangar space there?”
“Yeah.”
“How many pilots do you employ?”
“Twelve.”
“Twelve …” The Artiste arched his eyebrows and whistled through his teeth in mock surprise. He smiled. “We’re gonna save you a whole lotta money.” He smiled again, as if this was all great fun. Then the smile vanished, and he said with a toneless finality, “Sell ’em.”
“That we could always do,” said Croker, “but it would be totally self-defeating. Those aircraft are not used in a frivolous manner. In Global Foods we got seventeen warehouses in fourteen states. We got—”
“Sell ’em.”
“We got—”
“Sell ’em. From now on we’re gonna be like the Vietcong. We’re gonna travel on the ground and live off the land.”
He now turned to Sheldon and said something out of the side of his mouth that Peepgass didn’t catch. The young man’s binder popped open, and he handed the Artiste three or four sheets of paper.
Harry studied them for a moment and then said, without looking up, “The experimental farrrrrrrm.” He sounded like W. C. Fields again. “Twenty-nine thousand acres in Baker County, Georgia … We got the correct spelling here, T, U, R, P, M, T, I, N, E?”
“That’s right,” said Croker.
“The place is called Turp-um-tine?”
“Turpmtine,” Croker said with an edge to his voice. “It’s always been called that. Turpmtine’s been in operation since the 1830s. For the first fifty or sixty years the only crop they had there was turpentine, and that was the way the—the farm workers pronounced it, ‘turpmtine.’ As a matter of fact, they called themselves the Turpmtine Ni—the Turpmtine People. That was all they did, for generations, they harvested turpentine from the pine trees. We got descendants of the—of these people—working there right now.”
Peepgass wondered why Croker was suddenly so forthcoming, informative, and reflective.
“It’s listed here,” said Harry, “as an ‘experimental farm.’ My information is that it’s a plantation.”
“Well, down ’eh below the gnat line,” said Croker in an amiable voice, “anything much over five hundred acres, they’re liable to call it a plantation.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, “but my impression is that Turpmtine is known specifically as a quail plantation. Do you shoot quail at Turpmtine?”
“It’s quail country. Certainly we shoot some quail there. Be hard to resist.”
“But would you say that’s the main enterprise at Turpmtine, shooting quail? Mr. Sycamore visited Turpmtine several times, I believe, and that was his impression.”
Croker’s huge chest delivered another labored sigh. Peepgass knew exactly what he was thinking. First they tell me Sycamore’s out of the picture, and now they’re quoting him as an authority. But what he said was “Turpmtine’s been a workin’ farm for more’n a century and a half, and it’s still a workin’ farm. In fact, now more’n it’s ever been. It’s the main testin’ ground for our food division.” He was now dropping g’s by the bushel. “We got more’n a thousand experimental plats”—spearmental plats—“at Turpmtine where we’re runnin’ experiments on crop production and rotation and tillin’—we got experiments with robots that’ll level an acre of—”
“And you also got fifty-nine horses, valued at $4,700,000, according to this,” said the Artiste. He held up one of the sheets of paper Sheldon had handed him. “Whatta these fifty-nine horses do? They don’t pull plows, do they?”
“The horses are a profitable business in their own right,” said Croker, managing to control his temper. “The market for good horses is fireproof. Besides that, we got a good stud business.”
“That’s what I understand,” said the Artiste, studying a sheet of paper. “It says here you got a stud named First Draw, and he’s worth three million dollars.” He lifted his big chin and peered down his nose at Croker.
“That’s true,” said Croker.
Harry said, “First Draw … Does that horse’s name by any chance allude in some way to the proceeds of a real estate construction loan?”
Sniggers and guffaws from the PlannersBanc end of the table; and not even Croker’s somber young Wismer Stroock could resist a small smile.
Croker paused, then said with a sudden burst of joviality, “It’s a gamblin’ term. Refers to the game of draw poker.”
“I’m sure it’s a gambling term,” said the Artiste, “but I’m not so sure the game is poker.”
More sniggers and guffaws. Everybody at both ends of the table knew that when a developer obtained a loan commitment from a bank, the bank released the money to him in stages, and the first stage was known as “the first draw.” There was a motto among the developers in Atlanta: “Buy the boat with the first draw,” which meant, Buy the seventy-four-foot Hatteras motor yacht you’ve always wanted, the house on Sea Island you’ve been dreaming of, the condominium in Vail, the ranch in Wyoming, with that first release of money, just in case something goes wrong and you don’t make any profit on the project. Strictly speaking, using the first draw that way was illegal—fraudulent, in a word—since in the loan agreement the developer promised to devote every nickel to the project. But in the heady days of the late 1980s and then again in the late 1990s the banks had winked and looked the other way, and there were, in point of fact, quite a few boats named First Draw moored on Sea Island and at Hilton Head, and there was a stallion down in Baker County …
“First Drawwwwwwww,” said the Artiste in his W. C. Fields voice. “Yowza, yowza. Is it also a fact, Mr. Croker, that you ride some of those fifty-nine horses while you shoot quail at Turpmtine?”
“Well, you best get off uv’em first, before you shoot a shotgun, or you’ll regret it. But cert’ny, you ride out to the fields. And it’s good for the horses.”
The Artiste eyed the shithead dubiously. “Fifty-nine horses … $4,700,000.” Then he looked down at the sheets in front of him. “Twenty-nine thousand acres … land, improvements, and equipment … a 5,000-foot concrete runway capable of accommodating a Gulfstream Five jet aircraft … Total value, $32 million … All told, with the horses, that’s $37 million right there.” He paused, then said in his dead-even voice, “Sell ’em.”
“Sell … what?”
“The plantation and the horses. The works.”
Now Croker paused. He squinted into the glare, as if to see the Artiste better. “For the moment I’m gonna leave aside the importance of Turpmtine to the future of our corporation, and I’m gonna mention two other things.” The old man seemed to have decided to take the reasonable approach. “First, this is not the time in the real estate cycle”—sackle—“to put a 29,000-acre farm on the market. But I’m sure you know that. Second, Turpmtine is not just a farm. It’s an institution … a veh remarkable institution.”
The old man’s voice was suddenly warm and resonant. He launched into a passionate account of Turpmtine’s history, with some more about “the Turpmtine People.” He told of how Croker Global was today one of the biggest employers of unskilled black labor in that part of Georgia. He told of black workers tending the plats, black workers tending the horses, black workers tilling the soil, black workers preserving the ecology of Turpmtine’s eight thousand acres of swamp. You could hear his voice welling up toward a peroration.
“Nobody else is gonna employ these people the way we do. Nobody but Croker Global is gonna have experimental plats and agrochemical experiments and a horse operation and peanuts, cotton, timber, and an ecological program—”
“And quail shooting,” said the Artiste.
“Yeah, all right, quail shooting. That provides employment for these people, too. We got some black dog trainers, and they’re damned good at it. We got—we got people tendin’ the dogs and the horses and the copses and the wagons and … and everything else. Now, if Croker Global pulled out, sold out, where would these people go? I’ll tell you. On welfare. We’re talkin’bout southwest Georgia here, out in the country, the real country, and these folks don’t just go off to some … other job. These are good, proud folks who don’t wanna be on the dole. These are good country folks who see welfare as a stigma. These are Turpmtine folks who count on Croker Global as the one steady rock in their lives. So there’s no way you or me or anybody else can look at Turpmtine as just some asset to be capitalized or liquidated. There’s a dimension here you can’t put in a financial statement, a dimension that involves pain and suffering, that involves a human cost.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” said Harry, lifting both hands, palms outward, and casting his eyes down in the gesture that says, Please, no more. “I understand pain. I understand suffering. I understand the human cost.” Now he looked up, straight at Croker, with a gaze that bespoke the utmost sincerity. “I’ve been there. I was in the war … I lost four fingers …”
With that he raised his right fist above his head as high as it would go, with the back of his hand twisted toward Croker, so that it looked like a stump of a hand with only the ridges of the four big knuckles remaining. Then he extended a single finger upward, his middle finger, and kept it that way, a look of quizzical sadness on his face.
“Sell it,” he said.
Croker stared at the upright middle finger and squinted and stared some more, and his face grew red. And then Peepgass saw them … the saddlebags! The saddlebags! The saddlebags had formed! They were complete! The great stains of sweat on the tycoon’s shirt had now spread from both sides, from under the arms and across the rib cage and beneath the curves of his mighty chest until they had met, come together, hooked up—two dark expanses joined at the sternum. They looked just like a pair of saddlebags on a horse.
Oh, Peepgass loved it! Harry had done it again!—gotten his saddlebags—even with a tough old bird like Charlie Croker!
Fellows here at the PlannersBanc end of the table were nudging each other and smiling. They’d noticed it, too. Peepgass was elated. Somehow Harry had redeemed them all. He turned toward the Artiste and said, behind his hand, “Saddlebags, Harry! Saddlebags!”
He meant it to be sotto voce little more than a whisper, but it came out much too loud. He hadn’t meant to grin, either, but he did. He couldn’t hold back. He could see Croker staring at him.
The Artiste lowered his arm, and Croker began to sputter. His voice was low and deep in his throat. “Now, listen …” he began.
In a perfectly pleasant voice Harry Zale said, “Just a moment, Mr. Croker,” and he leaned over toward Peepgass and said in a low voice, “Time for a little lender’s cactus, wouldn’t you say?”
Peepgass chuckled. “Perfect,” he said. Oh God, this would be rich.
Harry straightened up and looked at Croker and arched his eyebrows.
“Now you listen …” Croker resumed, his voice lost somewhere deep in his trachea.
“Excuse me, Mr. Croker,” said the Artiste, “but we’re gonna have a lender’s cactus now. So we’re gonna ask you gentlemen and you ladies to step outside the room so we can cactus.”
“You’re gonna what?” asked Croker.
“We’re gonna have a lender’s cactus.”
“Did you say cactus?” asked Croker.
“Right,” said the Artiste. “So if you’ll just step outside for a little while, we’ll appreciate it.”
“Are you trying to say caucus?” Croker was all but snarling.
“No, cactus,” said the Artiste with a merry smile. “This time we want all the pricks on the outside.”
The Artiste kept the smile spread across his face, as if this was all good Boys’ Locker Room fun. The tycoon stared with as furious a scowl as Peepgass had ever seen on a man’s face. All that the Artiste gave him was the big unblinking grin. Ten kinds of mayhem must have been going through Croker’s mind, but he said nothing. Slowly he rose, and Wismer Stroock and the rest of his retinue rose with him. The long-legged bird, Peaches, now standing beside him, stared at the old man’s shirt. For the first time Croker seemed to be aware that it was a sopping mess. He glanced down morosely at his saddlebags, then picked up his jacket and wheeled about and started walking out of the room.
He took a step, and then when he took a second step, his entire huge body seemed to buckle and collapse to starboard before he could right himself. Then he took another step and then another, and the same thing happened again. Evidently something was terribly wrong with his right knee or his right hip. The whole room was watching. On he walked toward the door, taking a normal step and then buckling, taking a normal step and then buckling. It made it seem as if the drubbing he had just suffered at the hands of Harry Zale had taken some terrible physical toll on his body.
Then he stopped and paused for a moment. Slowly he turned about. He stared, balefully, but not at Harry Zale. He stared at Peepgass himself, and with a hissing stage whisper he said:
“Asshole.”
All at once Peepgass was aware that now everybody in the room, at both ends of the table, was looking at him. They were waiting for him to respond. But he was stunned, speechless. And more than that—he was afraid. What did he dare say to this enraged bull down at the other end of the table? A moment ago he had been so elated!—reveling as the Artiste had reduced the great tycoon to a sweating, sputtering, groggy, humiliated shithead. A moment ago he had felt redeemed, avenged against Croker and his entire saber-toothed ilk! And now he stood here paralyzed while a scalding realization spread through the very lining of his skull: I can’t take this man on! Not even verbally! Not even when he’s thrown such an insult—“Asshole”—right in my face in front of my own people! And he stood there, unable to make a sound, while his face burned and his heart pounded.
Croker shook his head disdainfully and turned away and continued his gimp-legged retreat from the room, taking a step and buckling, taking a step and buckling, taking a step and buckling, taking a step and buckling.
Peepgass just stood there, frozen, speechless, afraid to look into the eyes of anybody else in the room.
chapter III
Turpmtine
BY NOON CHARLIE CROKER WAS SITTING IN HIS FAVORITE SEAT IN the forward cabin of his Gulfstream Five as the two BMW/Rolls-Royce engines roared and the aircraft lifted off from PDK. His right knee still hurt, and he was burning up, but he kept his jacket on because he didn’t want the ship’s only other passenger, Wismer Stroock, looking at his shirt. “Saddlebags!” Ray Peepgass had exclaimed, and by now Charlie had figured out that insolent wisecrack. The shirt was still wet beneath the arms and across the ribs. The saddlebags wouldn’t go away.
