“We’re not interested in you and Virginia,” Johnny said. “We’re interested in where our money’s gone to.”
“You get a statement every month,” Brad said.
“We sure do,” Johnny said.
“We’ve run into a little hard luck recently.” Brad wiped his face with a large, monogrammed, linen handkerchief. “Like my Pappy, bless his soul, used to say about the oil business, if you don’t like the waves, don’t go in the water.”
“We’ve been doing some checking,” Johnny said, “and we figure that in the last year you’ve stolen roughly seventy thousand dollars apiece from me and Rudy.”
“You fellas must be kidding,” Brad said. His face was almost purple now and his smile was fixed, as though it were permanently ironed on the florid, stretched skin over the damp collar. “You are kidding, aren’t you? This is some kind of practical joke. Jesus, a hundred and forty thousand dollars!”
“Brad …” Rudolph said warningly.
“Okay,” Brad said. “I guess you’re not kidding.” He sank down heavily on the flowered couch, a thick, round-shouldered weary man against the gay colors of the best piece of furniture in the best suite of the best hotel in Dallas, Texas. “I’ll tell you how it happened.”
The way it happened was that Brad had met a starlet by the name of Sandra Dilson a year before when he had gone out to Hollywood to scout around for more investors. “A sweet, innocent young thing,” were Brad’s words for Miss Dilson. He’d gone ape for her, he said, but it was a long time before she’d let him touch her. To impress her he’d started buying her jewelry. “You have no idea what they charge for stones out there in that town,” Brad said. “It’s as though they printed their own money.” And to impress her further, he’d bet heavily when they went to the races. “If you want to know the truth,” Brad said, “that girl is walking around with about four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry on her back that I paid for. And there were times in bed with her,” he said defiantly, “that I felt it was worth it, every cent of it. I love her and I lost my head over her and in a way I’m proud of it and I’m willing to take the consequences.”
To find the money, Brad had started to falsify the monthly statements. He had reported prospecting and drilling for oil in holes that had been abandoned as dry or worthless years before and had hiked up the cost of equipment ten or even fifteen times what the actual price would have been. There was a bookkeeper in his office who was in on it, but whom he paid to keep quiet and to work with him. There had been some ominous inquiries from other people who invested with him, but up to now he had been able to fend them off.
“How many investors have you got backing you at this moment?” Johnny asked.
“Fifty-two.”
“Fifty-two idiots,” Johnny said bitterly.
“I never did anything like this before,” Brad said ingenuously. “My reputation in Oklahoma and Texas is as clean as a hound’s tooth. You ask anyone. People trusted me. And they had a right to.”
“You’re going to go to jail, Brad,” Rudolph said.
“You wouldn’t do that to me, to your old friend, Brad, who sat next to you the day you graduated from college, would you, Rudy?”
“I certainly would,” Rudolph said.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Johnny said, “before we start talking about jail. I’m more interested in seeing if we can get our money back than in sending this moron to jail.”
“That’s it,” Brad said eagerly, “that’s the way to talk. Sensibly.”
“What have you got in the way of assets?” Johnny asked. “Right now?”
“That’s it,” repeated Brad. “Now we’re talking business. It’s not as though I’m wiped out. I still have credit.”
“When you walk out of this room, Brad,” Rudolph said, “you won’t be able to borrow ten cents from any bank in the country. I’ll see to that.” He found it hard not to show his disgust.
“Johnny …” Brad appealed to Heath. “He’s vindictive. Talk to him. I can understand he’s a little sore, but to be vindictive like that …”
“I asked you about your assets,” Johnny said.
“Well,” Brad said, “on the books, it’s not so … so optimistic.” He grinned, hopefully. “But from time to time, I’ve been able to accumulate a little cash. For a rainy day, you might say. I’ve got it in safety-deposit boxes here and there. It’s not enough to pay off everybody, of course, but I could go pretty far toward paying you fellas back.”
“Is it Virginia’s money?” Rudolph asked.
“Virginia’s money!” Brad snorted. “Her old man tied up the money he gave her so tight, I couldn’t buy a hot dog with any of it if I was dying of hunger in a ballpark.”
“He was a lot smarter than we were,” Rudolph said.
“Jesus, Rudolph,” Brad complained, “you don’t have to keep rubbing it in. I feel bad enough as it is.”
“How much is there in cash?” Johnny asked.
“You understand. Johnny,” Brad said, “it’s not on the company’s books anywhere or anything like that.”
“I understand,” Johnny said. “How much?”
“Close to a hundred thousand. I could give each of you nearly fifty thousand dollars on account. And I’d personally guarantee to pay the rest back later.”
“How?” Rudolph asked brutally.
“Well, there’s still some wells being dug …” Rudolph could tell he was lying. “And then I could go to Sandra and explain how I’m in a little hole for the time being and ask her to give me back the jewelry, and …”
Rudolph shook his head, wonderingly. “You really believe she’d do that?”
“She’s a fine little girl, Rudy. I have to introduce her to you sometime.”
“Oh, grow up, for Christ’s sake,” Rudolph said.
“You wait here,” Johnny said to Brad. “I want to talk to Rudy alone.” He ostentatiously took the papers he had been working on with him as he went toward Rudolph’s bedroom door.
“You fellas don’t mind if I mix myself a little drink while I’m waiting, do you?” Brad said.
Johnny closed the door behind them when he and Rudolph were in the bedroom. “We have a decision to make,” he said. “If as he says he’s got close to a hundred thousand cash, we can take it and cut our losses. That is, about twenty thousand give or take a few dollars in one way or another. If we don’t take it, we have to report it and ask for a creditors’ meeting and probably put him through bankruptcy. If we don’t start criminal proceedings. All his creditors would have an equal shot at the money, or at least pro rata, according to the size of their investments and the amount he actually owes them.”
“Does he have the right to pay us off like that, preferentially?”
“Well, he isn’t in bankruptcy yet,” Johnny said. “I think it would stand up in a court of law.”
“Nothing doing,” Rudolph said. “Let him throw it into the pot. And let’s get the safety-deposit box keys from him tonight, so he can’t lift the money before we can stop him.”
Johnny sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that,” he said. “When knighthood was in flower.”
“Just because he’s a crook,” Rudolph said, “doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a crook to cut my losses, as you say.”
“I said I thought it would probably stand up in a court of law,” Johnny said.
“Not good enough,” Rudolph said. “Not good enough for me.”
Johnny looked speculatively at Rudolph. “What would you do if I went to him and said, okay, I’ll take my half, and drop out of the rest of it?”
“I’d report it at the creditors’ meeting,” Rudolph said evenly, “and make a motion to sue you for recovery.”