Through the speaker they could hear Theodore's voice: "I been doing it just like we planned. These are the trading slips." Then Duffy was saying, "I'm telling you, Mr. Lanaman, they won't find out you're the one selling… The price is going down. It's already in the mid-fives." Then Theodore again: "I'll call my broker and dump the rest of my stock. That should drive it down to the mid-fours and then they'll be desperate to sell. It gets me out at an average price of about six, which is not all that bad."
Beano turned off the tape and the room exploded in anger.
"My offer still stands," Theodore shouted.
"You get the hell out of here," one of the sharpers yelled at Theodore. "I wouldn't sell you my stock at gunpoint!"
"Get out of this meeting, you son-of-a-bitch," another yelled, and he was on his feet grabbing for Theodore X. Bates, who, along with Duffy, made a hasty exit from the room. Once he was gone, they all sat there looking at one another.
"Too bad," one of the sharpers said. "I was hoping I could sell. I wish we could find another buyer."
Beano looked pointedly at Victoria. "Tell him, Miss Luna," he said. "You've a fiduciary duty. You can't withhold that kinda information."
"Well, I just… It seems to me we're all panicking."
"Tell him!" Beano said firmly, and then Victoria turned to the room full of sharpers.
"Well, there was another offer this morning, but I think-"
"Another offer?!" they all said, before she could finish. They were astounded.
Now it was Tommy who rose majestically to his feet. He felt exactly the way he knew Joe must feel when he was closing a well-planned deal.
"I'm willing to pay cash money, one point over C.O.M."
"Over what?" one of them asked.
"Over C.O.M., Close of Market," Tommy said.
"They don't call it C.O.M.," Beano whispered. "It's just called Close of Market."
"Oh," Tommy said. "Well, I'll buy all your stock up to five million dollars."
"You gotta deal," one sharper yelled.
"Count me in," another yelled, rising to his feet, pulling his prop stock certificates out of his briefcase.
Tommy smiled. He liked doing business on his terms. He decided it was just like clipping guys, only your dick didn't get quite as hard. Then he left Beano to sort out the sellers, while he and Alex went down to get the two suitcases of cash out of the trunk of Tommy's car.
They returned to a selling frenzy. Each sharper handed over his certificates, and Tommy gave him the appropriate amount of cash. It was in banded packages of hundreds, right out of Joe's dead-drop room in Nassau. In less than two hours the transaction was complete.
Once the sharpers had left with their money, Tommy was seated with fifty or sixty stock certificates in a pile in front of him and a satisfied smile on his face. He told Beano it was time to have a party and celebrate.
"I hope you're happy," Miss Luna said angrily to Beano. "You own the company. It'll probably kill Mr. Lacy." And she moved out of the conference room in a huff.
"I know that cunt from someplace," Tommy said after she was gone. But, for the life of him, he still couldn't remember from where.
While Tommy was packing up the stock certificates and Alex was instructing him that they should be immediately placed in a safety deposit box, Beano found Victoria in the President's office.
She was looking out the window at the oil buildings across the street. Her stocky legs were spread wide to balance the heavy load of padding. She was in a pensive mood and, with a delicate hand up to her mouth, was looking down the street. She wondered how many Feds were down there. Beano came in, and she spun around as he locked the door.
"Great job," he said, and she nodded without enthusiasm. "What's wrong?" he said, picking up her mood.
Victoria could not lie to him for another moment. As she stood there, a completely disparate thought hit her. She knew in that instant she really loved him. Strange as it was, he had crept into her every waking thought, coloring all her values and perceptions with his personality.
"Beano… the police know all about this," she said slowly, hating every word she uttered. "For all I know they're outside the door right now."
"How could they?" he said, still smiling, but looking at her closely. It was hard to read her expression behind all of the makeup.
"Because I told them."
"You told them?" The smile died slowly on his handsome face. "Why?"
"They picked me up in Jersey coming out of Joe's office. I stumbled into a Federal stake-out." Then she sat on the edge of the desk, and while he listened in utter disbelief, she told him about everything that had happened since her return to San Francisco.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" he said after she finished, his feelings hurt.
"I was ashamed, I guess. Now I know it was a mistake. I know I can't trust Gil Green to keep his word. He'll double-cross me. He only cares about one thing and that's getting into the Governor's Mansion. If I didn't do what he said, they would have killed you."
Beano looked at her for a long moment.
"Whatta we gonna do?" she said, after long moments of uncomfortable silence. She was feeling utterly helpless and totally responsible.
"I guess we better start a fire," he finally said.
Chapter Thirty-Three.
THE CALL CAME FROM THE HYSTERICAL EXECUTIVE AT exactly twelve-thirty-five in the afternoon.
"This whole place is on fire!" Victoria screamed through the receiver and then, while the Fire Department dispatcher was talking, the call came in from the building's Direct-Dial Sentry Fire Alarm System. They had electronic confirmation of the blaze at the Penn Mutual Building. "We're trapped up here! We can't go down, the stairs are filled with smoke."
"Go to the roof," the dispatcher on the phone told the panicked C.E.O. "Get everybody up there."
Grady Hunt saw the smoke billowing out of the twenty-fifth-floor windows from his surveillance position across the street. He immediately sensed he was in trouble. He and Denniston ran inside the building just as the first Fire Marshal's unit screeched up.
"Hey, you can't go in there!" the Fire Marshal yelled, but Grady ran in anyway, with Denniston right on his heels.
The building lobby was clear of smoke, but the elevators were full of people from all floors, pouring out in a panic. The alarms were ringing loudly. Grady was knocked down on his way into the elevator, and then run over like a calf in a stampede.
The Fire Marshal grabbed Grady, pulling him to his feet. "I'm not gonna tell you again! We have a three-alarm on the twenty-fifth floor."
"Get your fucking hands off me, Smoky," Grady said, pulling out his badge and pushing it in the fireman's face.
"I don't care if you're President Fucking Clinton. Get the hell out of this building, asshole!" the Fire Marshal screamed.
Then Grady and Denniston grabbed the startled man, knocked him down, and jumped into the elevator. They made it all the way up to the twenty-fourth floor, where the elevator computer-locked and prevented them from going any higher. They jumped out, found the fire stairs, and ran up to the top floor of the building. Smoke was billowing down the staircase at them, and when they got to twenty-five, they could see why… There were two huge wastebasket fires burning on the top landing.
"This fucking guy," Grady said, as he burst through the fire door onto the twenty-fifth floor, which was almost completely full of smoke. Several of the plate-glass windows had been broken on the east side and smoke was billowing out into the afternoon air. Under each broken window was another raging trash can fire. Nothing else on the floor was burning. The cans were full of stuffing ripped out of the office chairs and they were putting out thick, black smoke.