The Daughter-in-Law (30 page)

“What do you want, Jimmy?” she repeated.

“Just to see you,” he said. “In our telephone chats you’ve been cold and unfriendly. Almost as if you’re ashamed of your old friends now that you’re in high society. You didn’t even invite me to the wedding!”

“The Donner money,” she said, getting to the point, “is tied up in trusts. It will be years before everything is settled, and there won’t be much coming to me. Not enough to interest you.”

“You know something, you’re right. At first all I thought about was how much it would be worth to you to get back some of your old photographs. I figured the guy you were balling was probably worth twenty or thirty million . . . half for you and half for me. But the guy you’re doing now! My God, do you know that Sound Holdings is one of the biggest investment banks in the world?” He enjoyed the shock that registered in her eyes. “Do you have any idea how much those guys handle every day? Let me tell that next to Sound Holdings, your dear departed husband was just pocket change. Daddy Jack really knows how to break the bank. When it comes to stealing, he’s the best.”

“Jack Donner wouldn’t do anything illegal,” she countered.

“Who said anything about illegal? Hell, those Wall Street outfits own the government. They write the laws. The way they steal is perfectly legal. Pick up a company for pocket change . . . kite the stock . . . and then dump it on all the fools who work for a living. It’s perfectly legal. Hell, the government even gives you a tax break for doing it.”

“And you think you can make money on Sound Holdings?” she asked sarcastically.

“Sure. With you on the inside, why not? And it isn’t like I’d be asking you to get your hands dirty. Just suppose, for example, that you let me know what they were buying before they bought. I could get in on a good thing, like knowing how a horse race is going to turn out before the horses even come out of the barn. It costs you nothing. It doesn’t cost Daddy Jack anything either. It’s perfect.”

“Except that I could end up in jail.”

Jimmy laughed at the thought. “Nicole, you could go to prison right now for some of the things I’ve got on you. Besides, those guys never go to prison. Hell, they raise the money to build the prisons. That’s where they put the people who get in their way.”

The threat was obvious. Farr probably had lots of evidence of her past wrongdoings.

“I like your suit,” she said to Jimmy. “But you’re still the same rat.”

He shook his head slowly. “I hate to hear you talk that way, Nicole, because I’ve really found religion. Adult entertainment is just a sideline with me. Now I’m into stocks and bonds. Sort of an investment adviser. I figure if you want to make real money you have to go where the money is. So we’re really very much the same. We’ve both gone on to better things.”

“Like blackmailing people,” she fired back.

He wasn’t at all angered by the charge. “That’s just business as usual. Your Wall Street friends do it all the time, and at City Hall it’s a way of life. I think they call it Human Resources—getting the right people to do the right job.”

Jimmy got up and set his empty glass in the sink. “And you’re the right person for this job, Nicole. You’re living right where they keep the horses, on the inside.”

She told him he was crazy. She had been in Sound Holdings offices only for short visits with her husband. She had no idea what their business plans were and no way of finding out.

“Nicole,” he said, when she had finished her argument, “I’ve invested a lot of time and effort in you. And it’s not as if I was trying to cut into your action. All you have to do is join the firm and keep me posted on what they’re up to. Is that so big a deal?”

“And how am I supposed to join the firm?”

“Just mention it to Donner some night when you’re visiting his town house. He won’t turn you down.”

He smiled as he walked out of the kitchen and let himself out the front door. Nicole didn’t try to stand up. Her legs felt terribly weak.

FIFTY-ONE

P
AM HAD
someone for Nicole to meet. William Kimes was a representative for several Midwestern galleries, a certified insider in the fine arts market. He was also anxious to move to New York, but had turned down several number-two positions hoping to launch his own venture. Best of all he was well polished and strikingly handsome, attributes that made him an ideal partner for Pam.

“I heard about him at work,” Pam told Nicole in the taxi on their way to the cocktail party where Kimes had promised to be waiting. “My boss had met him at a gallery the day before and was planning to join him at an auction. I sort of hustled my way in.”

“And he’s interested?”

“Interested in what?”

“In your idea about starting a gallery.”

“I think so. But we didn’t get into details. I didn’t want the word to get around that I was thinking of doing my own thing.” She stuffed a wad of bills into the cabdriver’s hand and stepped out into traffic, causing a blare of horns and a screech of brakes. “But I told him that I thought there was a real opportunity for a gallery offering new talent,” she continued as she joined Nicole on the sidewalk, “and that I had a friend who was interested in starting one. I told him you would be putting up the money.”

Nicole stopped short. Pam went on another step before she turned to face her.

“Well, you do have money and you’ll be getting a lot more. And I want to be an owner, too. It’s just going to take a while before I can pay my own way.”

Nicole shook her head. “No wonder he’s so anxious to meet me.”

The party was in a West Side loft, over a huge automobile dealership. It was an art crowd; louder, younger, and more diverse than the financial types who had been in Newport with the Donners. Lots of black hirts and jackets, and hair colors that looked as if
they came off an artist’s pallet. Kimes was easy to spot. He was one of the few in business attire, and he was being fought over by artists and agents. He excused himself when he recognized Pam and came across the chaotic room to join her. He bowed slightly when he was introduced to Nicole. “Don’t go near the punch,” he told her. “There are enough amphetamines in it to stock a hospital. And the wine would be an insult even to a jug. Stick with the bottled beer.”

He led them to a corner where a windowsill offered a bit of seating and apologized for bringing them to such a trashy affair. “There are two artists here that are really going to make it big,” he explained. “I want some of their work but I’m playing hard to get. So if we could stick around for a little while, I promise you a respectable supper in about an hour.”

He was good to his word and took them uptown past Lincoln Center to a modest place that he promised “does great Italian.” Then he got right down to business by asking Nicole how much she was planning to invest. Nicole glanced at Pam. “Whatever it takes, I suppose.”

“Maybe five million,” Pam filled in. Nicole tried to look blasé.

They talked through dinner with Pam hanging on his every word. Occasionally, Nicole interrupted with a question, and once or twice Pam added to something that Kimes had said. But it was his show, and his knowledge of the market was detailed and far-reaching. What disturbed Nicole was how easily Pam was taken in. She was already in business with Kimes and they were lions of the art world. Whatever else she did, Nicole would make sure to get her sister-in-law a good lawyer. William Kimes might turn out to be a saint, but in the meantime someone should be looking out for Nicole’s interests.

Jack called her early the next morning. He was already in the office taking the European calls, and claimed he just wanted to hear her voice. He hinted broadly that he would be late in town the next night, and would probably stay at his town house. “I’ve sent you something,” he said. “It will be coming by messenger. If you don’t want it, just throw it away. I’ll understand.”

She used the moment to tell him about Pam’s plans to go into business. “He seems like a nice guy,” she said of Kimes, “and he’d make a terrific partner. But you might want to give her some legal help if she’s putting up the money.”

“What money?” he grunted. “Pam doesn’t have any money.” She had just finished her breakfast when the concierge called to say that he was sending up a package that had been delivered. When she opened it, she found a key to the front door of the town house.

FIFTY-TWO

B
EN TOBIN
couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Both sides in the bargaining over Jonathan’s estate were caving in. He might be able to put together a settlement right on the spot.

First, it had been Nicole Donner. She was suddenly in a hurry to get the deal done. “Forget the apartment and the Newport house,” she had called to tell him. “And I don’t want the family name. All I want is to get out of this mess as fast as I can.” She asked him where they stood on the money, and he told her it was at five million. Still too low, he advised her, considering the family’s potential liability.

She had asked him about confidentiality Was there a way that the agreement could be handled without anyone knowing about it? Difficult, he had explained. It need never make the newspapers but there would be papers filed in court to close the matter of Jonathan’s estate. Then she had asked about offshore bank accounts. Could the money be deposited someplace where no one could get at it? More problems, he had explained. There were tax considerations. Once the money was hers she could put it wherever she wanted. But the government wouldn’t let her take the money and run.

“Whatever is fastest,” Nicole had urged. “Right now, getting away is just as important as getting every possible dollar.”

“Nicole, what’s the matter? Something has obviously happened. Tell me what it is.”

Her answer was evasive and even bordered on being rude. “Lot’s of things have happened, and there’s nothing I really want to go into. Just do the best you can to wrap it all up quickly.”

Now he had Jack Donner on the phone, calling him directly without going through his army of lawyers. “I want to get this over with now, Ben,” he had announced to his son’s good friend. “Give me a reasonable offer. It doesn’t have to be the cheapest, and it damn well better not be over the top. Just something that I can agree to without looking like a complete fool.”

He couldn’t believe he was talking to Jack Donner, the tight-fisted, utterly unemotional tyrant who usually dictated what was fair and demanded a signature. Not quite at gunpoint, but as close to it as he could get away with. When Jack presented a deal, he also presented a list of all the disastrous consequences that would beset an opponent who didn’t sign. Sometimes the threatened ruin involved not only his adversary, but also the adversary’s children and children’s children. Yet here was Jack Donner begging an inexperienced junior not to make him look like a fool.

“Jack, I’ll do everything I can,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too obsequious. “I don’t want to see Jonathan’s name in the papers any more than you do.”

When he hung up, Ben pondered his alternatives. Give Jack a deal that he would obviously appreciate, and then sell it to his troubled client. Or try to stiffen Nicole’s courage and go for broke. One way, he might win Sound Holdings’ business for the next generation. The other way, he could pull in a truly astronomical fee.

Alexandra thought she had found her smoking pistol, and there wasn’t the least doubt in her mind that the evidence was genuine. Nicole had received two telephone calls from “that creep she was involved with,” one the day after Pam’s party, and the other while she was down in Belize. One of Lambert’s men had simply called Farr’s cell phone service and talked to the clerk about alleged overcharges. Lambert didn’t have a paper record, but one could be subpoenaed if necessary. The only conclusion, Alexandra believed, was that this Farr character still had his hooks into Nicole. The Donner fortune was just another opportunity for the two of them to make money.

But Jack didn’t see it that way. All the calls proved was that someone from her past had tried to reach her and, whatever his motives might be, it said nothing about Nicole’s motives. “Maybe the guy saw her name and figured he could blackmail her. He probably has the same old dirt that you dug up. And maybe she told him ‘You’re too late, pal, the family already knows.’ All that’s behind her, Alexandra, and I wish you could get past it yourself!”

Alexandra was taken aback by the vehemence of his defense and his refusal to even harbor a suspicion concerning Nicole. But then
she remembered them chatting together at the party and Jack’s long absence when he went to persuade her to stay. He likes her, she realized. Or, at least, he feels sorry for her. Or maybe he’s sorry that he was never close to his son and he’s trying to make it up. But whatever the reason, she knew she couldn’t count on her husband to get rid of the girl. Jack wouldn’t drive his typical merciless bargain where Nicole was concerned.

She was nearly as surprised by Pam’s attitude. Her daughter was furious that Alexandra was still trying to find evidence that indicted Nicole and she wouldn’t even discuss who might have called her or what the calls might mean. “Do you have any idea how mean and petty you are, hiring motel watchers to spy on Jonathan’s wife? And why? All to save some money in the property settlement. Damn it, she’s entitled to whatever Jonathan would have given her.”

Pam had gone into her dealings with Nicole. “Jonathan’s wife at least treats me as an adult,” she said. She was Pam’s confidante, and would soon be her partner in business. The news was a further shock for Alexandra. The girl had wormed her way into the lives of both her children. And with her gangster connections, she could be just as devastating to her daughter as she had been to her son.

It was no longer just a matter of money, nor simply a case of casting damaged goods aside. Alexandra realized that she was on the defensive. The girl was trying to take over her life, and it was beginning to look like she was succeeding. She had lured away Jonathan, and led him to his death in some Central American hellhole. Then she had captured her daughter into an empty-headed business deal where she might end up controlling Pam’s money. And she had won over Jack. She had turned a shrewd, hardheaded trader into an old fool who was pleading her cause instead of cutting her throat.