Shell go along, Sloan said. He said it with atone.
Yeah?
Shes got the great headlights, Sloan said.
Not exactly a key criterion for a police investigation.
Yeah, but…
Youve been married too long; all you can think about is strange tits and adultery complaints, Lucas said.
Not true. Sometimes I think about strange asses… Seriously, I heard them talking about yousome of the women. The idea was, dont rush him, let him get a little distance away from Weather.
Fuck em, Lucas said, pushing away from Sloans desk. Ill take McDonald. Id like to see the interviews you did Saturday…
Krause tape-recorded them, hes getting a transcriptmade. Probably today. He said hed shoot a copy down as soon as its ready.
All right, Lucas said. Ship it over.
And youll talk to Headlights? I mean, Sherrill?
Lucas grinned. Yeah. If you see her, tell her Im looking for her; Ill be around later in the day.
FIVE
DAMASCUS ISLEY WAS A VERY SMART FAT MAN WITH A taste for two-thousand-dollar English bespoke suits that almost disguised his size. Lucas spotted him at a back table at the Bell Jar, hovering over a chicken breast salad that had been served in what looked like a kitchen sink. Lucas told the mai^tre d, Im with the fat guy, and was nodded past the velvet rope.
Lucas, Isley said. He made a helpless gesture with his hands, which meant, Im too fat to get up. Are you coming to the reunion? Gina asked me to ask.
Lucas shook his head, and took a chair across from Isley, who was sitting on the booth seat. I dont think so. Ive busted too many of them.
Mary Big Jos gonna be there, Isley said.
Fuck Mary Big Jo.
I certainly did, Isley said cheerfully. Made all the more glorious by your abject failure to do the same.
Lucas grinned: No accounting for taste, he said. Isley was six-five, a bit taller than Lucas. Hed once been a rope instead of a mountain, a basketball forward when six-five was a big man; Lucas had been hockey, and theyd chased several of the same women through high school and college.
A waitress stepped up behind Lucas, slipped a menu in front of him, and said, Cocktail, sir?
Ah no, I just want… He thought for a second, then said, Hell, give me a martini. Beefeater, up, two olives.
I could give you three olives, if you need more vegetables in your diet, the waitress said.
All right, three, Lucas said; she was pretty in a dark-Irish way.
The waitress went to get the drink, and Isley, following her with his eyes, said, The way she looked at you, something would be possible. Maybe youd have to come back a couple of times, get to know her, but itd be possible. He looked down at the vast salad, the chunks of chicken breast, avocado, egg, tomato, cheese, and lettuce, covered with a bucket of creamy herb dressing, then back up at Lucas. You know how long its been since that was possible with me? With all this fuckin… He couldnt say fat… lard?
Lucas tried to put him off: So you work out for a couple months.
Lucas… when I was playing ball, my last year, I weighed two-oh-five. So I go to this fat doctor and say, Give me a diet I can stay on, something simple, thatll get me back to two-oh-five. He says, Okay, do this: Go to lunch every day and eat one Big Mac with all the fixings. And as much popcorn as you want, all day. Nothing else. I say, Jesus Christ, Ill starve. He says, No you wont, but youll lose a lot of weight.
Isley looked at Lucas. You know how long he said it would take to get to two-oh-five? Lucas shook his head. A year and a half. A fuckin year and a half, Lucas…
Ill tell you what, Dama, Lucas said bluntly. Youre either gonna lose it, or youre gonna die. Simple as that.
Not that simple, Isley said.
Oh yeah it is, Lucas said. After all the bullshit, thats what it comes down to.
I dont even like food that much… and Id like to live awhile longer, Isley said wistfully. Id like to quit thecompany, go to London and study money… find out what it really is.
Money.
Yeah, you know. Money, he said. Not many people really know what it is, how it works. Id like to spend some time finding out.
So start hitting the McDonalds, Lucas said.
Fat chance.
The waitress arrived with the martini, and Isleys wistfulness disappeared, replaced by the steel-trap investment banker. So whats going on? Starting another business?
No. Lucas sipped the martini. When you took my company public, we ran some of the money stuff through Jim Bone over at Polaris. You seemed to know him pretty well. He was hunting with Kresge when Kresge got shot, and I need a reading on him. Bone, I mean. And Susan ODell, if you know her. And Wilson McDonald.
Isleys face went cautious: Is this official?
No, of course not. Im just trying to get a reading. Nobodyll be coming back to you.
Isley nodded. Okay. I know them all pretty well socially and business, both. Either Bone or ODell has the guts to shoot Kresge, but I dont think either one did. These people are very smart and very serious. If theyd wanted to lose Kresge badly enough, they would have done it another way.
What about Robles or McDonald?
Robles is a software genius. He does the math. But hes more of a technician than a manager. He also doesnt have the motive. With his math, he could go about anywhere. McDonald… Isley looked away from Lucas, pursed his fat lips, then turned back. There are McDonalds who are good friends of minesame family. Not Wilson, though. Thereve been rumors… Again, he paused.
What? Lucas asked.
No comebacks?
No comebacks.
Therere rumors that he occasionally beats the shit outof his wife, Isley said. I mean, she goes to the hospital.
Huh.
Alcohol, is what you hear, Isley said. Hes a binge drinker. Sober for two months, then has to take a few days off.
Smart?
Pretty smart. Not world-class, but he got through law school with no problem.
I didnt know he was a lawyer.
He never worked at it. Hes always been a salesman, and a damn good one. Knows everybody. Everybody. Access to all the old money in townhis family built a mill over on the river, hundred and some years ago, and eventually sold to Pillsbury to go into banking and real estate. Like that.
Okay, Lucas said. So heres another question. Everything Ive heard about him says McDonalds rich, he comes from an old family, and all that. Why would he kill Kresge, just cause Kresges gonna merge the bank? Hes got all the money in the world anyway.
No, not really, Isley said. He dabbed at his lips with a linen napkin, tossed the napkin aside, and made a steeple out of his fingers. After a moment of silence, he said, Hes maybe worth… seven or eight million. The older generation was a lot richer, relatively speaking, but there were a lot of kids, and a lot of taxes, and the money got cut up. After taxes, and including his after-tax salary, Id imagine his real expendable income is something in the range of a half-million. If he doesnt dip into his capital, and assuming he puts aside enough to cover inflation.
Well, Jesus, Dama, that just aboutisall the money in the world, Lucas said.
No, its not. Its a lot by any normal standard, but having ten million dollars is nothing compared to being the CEO of a major corporation. Being an American CEO is like being an old English duke or earl. He paused again, his eyes unfocusing as he looked for the right words. Say you have a spendable income of a half-million a year, andyour wife likes to fly first-class to Hawaii or Paris every so often. You can spend fifteen thousand after-tax bucks flying a couple first-class to the islands. You go out of town a half-dozen times a yearHawaii, the Caribbean, Europe you can spend a hundred and fifty grand, no trouble. And its all out of your own pocket. Plus youve got big real estate taxes, youre probably running a couple of fiftythousand-dollar cars… I mean, you can spend a halfmillion a year and feel like your collars a little too tight. But if you run a business the size of Polaris, screw first classyouve got your own Gulf-stream waiting at the airport. Youve got several thousand people kissing your ass day and night. Youve got people driving your cars, running your errands. From everything I can tell by watching it, this all must feel better than anything in the world…