Well, that answered one question: who was definitely on first.
“What exactly does Mr. Ridge sell?”
“Why, advice, of course.” He sat up. “Is that all you’re interested in?”
I smiled, shrugged.
He smiled ruefully, shook his head. “My apologies. When Sally informed me that you were the president of your own company, that you’d had an appointment with Mr. Ridge that had somehow fallen through the cracks, that you wanted to invest with us… boy, is my face red. Excuse me.”
He rose and left the small office.
I just sat there wondering what the fuck this was all about. I wondered if the son-of-a-bitch would be so cheerful if I let him suck on the nine-millimeter a while.
Then he entered and we exchanged shiteating smiles and he sat and handed me across a tan book about the size of a dictionary, only it wasn’t a book: it opened up into a carrying case for a dozen cassettes.
“The whole program is there,” he said.
“Program?”
“Everything you’ll need to know about no-money down real estate. How to take advantage of distressed properties. The creative use of credit cards. That is how George Ridge became a millionaire by the time he was thirty.”
No money down real estate! Is that what this was?
“You don’t sell real estate here,” I said. “You’re strictly in the business of selling books, tapes. Putting on seminars. How-to stuff.”
“Certainly. Surely you knew that.”
“Of course,” I said. “But I was under the impression that you were also in the real estate business proper.”
He shook his head no. “Not at all.”
I didn’t blame them. This scam was much safer.
“I was also under the impression that Mr. Ridge was available for private consultation.”
“You desire direct advice on investing?”
“That’s right. Excuse me, but I can’t talk to a goddamn tape.”
And I patted the tan carrying case.
He nodded, eyes narrowing, seeing the wisdom of that. “You’d like to sit at the feet of the guru of real estate, so to speak.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“I can understand your desire. And from time to time Mr. Ridge does do personal consulting. But it is expensive. He’s a very busy man.”
“I know. I understand he’s in Canada, at the moment.”
“Yes, Toronto, with two of our other top people.”
“And he’ll be back, on Tuesday?”
“Yes.”
“I’d still like to arrange an appointment. Even fifteen minutes of his time would be appreciated.”
Janes stood, increased the wattage on the smile, extended his hand. “I’m sure Sally can arrange that. Just tell her I’ve given my okay.”
“You’ve been very helpful. What time Tuesday is Mr. Ridge getting back from Canada?”
“Oh, he isn’t getting back on Tuesday. He’s flying in Monday night.”
That’s all I wanted to know.
“As I say, you’ve been very helpful,” I said, and left him and his positive attitude behind.
I stopped at the desk of the “executive assistant” and told her Janes had approved an appointment, and made one for eleven o’clock Tuesday morning. Fifteen minutes was all I got, but what the hell. I’d make and keep my own appointment with him, Monday night, when he arrived by plane from his Canadian seminar.
On my way out I paused again to stare at the portrait of George Ridge.
A friendly looking, slightly heavy-set man of about fifty, a smile cracking his well-lined face.
It had to be a recent picture. He had looked much the same when he came to my A-frame to offer me that million-dollar contract.
9
I dropped the rental Buick off at the airport, where I stopped in to check available flights to Toronto. There was nothing direct-all flights had O’Hare connections, with return trips likewise routed through Chicago. That meant anybody coming back from Toronto Monday night could be on one of half a dozen flights offered by a trio of small, shuttle-service airlines. This would make it easy for me to be on hand to welcome George Ridge home.
An airport shuttle bus dropped me at the Blackhawk Hotel, but I didn’t go up to my room. I didn’t even go into the lobby. Instead, I stopped in at the DEMOCRATIC ACTION PARTY NATIONAL CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS, which was located in one of the street-level storefronts that were a part of the hotel’s eleven-story building.
A banner in the window wondered PRESTON FREED-WHY NOT A REAL PRESIDENT? and so did several other smaller red, white and blue posters, without obstructing a view of the bustling activity within the modest boiler room set-up: two rows of half a dozen banquet tables on either side, with staffers manning (though more frequently womaning) the many phones, all of which were red, white or blue. The patriotic color scheme extended to the various posters on the white walls, which pictured Freed himself, a smiling, boyishly handsome man in his vague forties, with rather long stark white hair. On one side wall, where it could be viewed from the street through the front window, a large color portrait of the candidate revealed eyes that were spookily light blue in a well-tanned face. He was wearing a tan suede jacket and a riverboat gambler’s string tie and looked, in the massive color blow-up, like a cross between Big Brother and Bret Maverick.
The busy campaign staffers were mostly young, between twenty and thirty, closer to twenty in most cases. It surprised me, somehow, though it shouldn’t have. Vietnam-era relics like me have trouble believing the stories about a conservative younger generation, but here was the proof, as clean-cut and persistent as those Mormons who periodically show up at your door.
And so many of these zealots were young women. Girls. They weren’t wearing blazers, like Angela at Best Buy and Sally at Ridge Real Estate; but they were color coordinated, like their phones, blouses of red, white or blue, skirts of the same; the designer label on these threads, if there were one, would most likely read Betsy Ross not Betsey Johnson. The men-boys-wore white shirts and red or blue ties and navy slacks.
There was almost constant movement, the living flag of the Freed campaign headquarters seeming to constantly wave as its individual components would gesture animatedly during the phone solicitations, or hop up eagerly from a seat to consult another staffer, often one of those with a computer, one per banquet table. Girls and boys with faces full of no experience, as pretty and handsome as a collection of Barbie and Ken dolls come to life, they were enough to make you wake up screaming from the American dream.
By the front window, in the small, eye-of-the-hurricane reception area, were two tables of Democratic Action party literature, one of which bore a communal coffee urn, styrofoam cups and a plate of cookies. I nibbled a cookie, a Lorna Doone, and thumbed through some of the campaign literature-much of it railing against the “Drug Conspiracy”-and overheard a phone solicitation by a pretty, bright-eyed blonde, of perhaps twenty.
“Your savings will be safer with us,” she was saying, with the utter conviction of the very young. “You mustn’t trust the banks-their collapse is imminent… I understand your concern… yes, unless Preston Freed is elected President, you can rest assured that your Social Security checks will stop within eighteen months. Your contribution is much appreciated, but I must stress that we can protect your savings as well.”
I felt fingers tap my shoulder and I turned. A willowy redhead with a faint trail of freckles across her nose and dark blue eyes and red full lips was extending a hand for me to shake. She was in a red blouse and a blue skirt.
“Becky Shay,” she said. “Volunteer for Democratic Action.”
“Jack Ryan,” I said, shaking her hand. “Holdout for Creative Skepticism.”
Her smile glazed and so did her puppy-dog eager eyes, as she tried to sort that out.
I let go of her hand and said, “I’m just giving you a bit of a hard time. I’ll tell you frankly-I picked up some literature on your party, at O’Hare, and read it on the plane coming here. I’m interested. I want to hear more.”