you ready to talk business yet?’
‘No. I’ll be speaking to Billy One and Jack today. I’ll let you know the decision tomorrow.’
I grinned. ‘I promise I won’t bug the switchboard. I won’t be coming in to the office tomorrow. Julie is leaving for Miami and I like to see them off. Why don’t you come to the house and bring Debbie along?’
‘I’ll do that.’
So Billy and Debbie arrived at the house next morning at about ten o’clock. Debbie joined the girls in the pool and I winked at Julie and took Billy into my study. He said, ‘I think we’re in business.’
‘You may think so, but I’m not so sure. I don’t want to lose control.’
He stared at me. ‘Oh, come on, Tom! Forty million bucks swings a lot of clout. You don’t want us busting in as competitors, do you?’
‘I’m not afraid of competition. I have plenty of that, anyway.’
‘Well, you can’t expect us to put up all that dough and not have control. That’s ridiculous. Are you joking or something?’
‘I’m not joking,’ I said. ‘I’m perfectly serious. But I’d like to point out that there are different kinds of control.’
Billy looked at me speculatively. ‘Okay, I’ll buy it. What’s on your mind?’
‘I take it you’d be setting up a corporation here.’
‘That’s right, we would. I’ve been talking to some of your corporate lawyers over in Nassau and they’ve come up with some great ideas, even though they’d be illegal back in the States. This sure is a free-wheeling place.’
‘Rest easy,’ I said. ‘As an offshore tax haven we’re positively respectable, not like some others I could mention. What would you call your corporation?’
‘How would I know? Something innocuous, I guess. Let’s call it the Theta Corporation.’
I said, ‘I run three hotels with a fourth building for a total of 650 rooms. That’s a lot of bed linen, a lot of crockery and cutlery, a lot of kitchenware and ashtrays and anything else you care to name. Now, if the Theta Corporation is going to build and equip hotels it would be better to consolidate and keep the economy of scale. You get bed sheets a damn sight cheaper if you order by the 5000 pair rather than the 500 pair, and that applies right down the line.’
‘Sure, I know that.’ Billy flapped his hand impatiently. ‘Come to the point.’
‘What I’m suggesting is that the Theta Corporation take over West End Securities in return for stock.’
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘Now you’re saying something. How much stock?’
‘One-fifth.’
‘We put in $40 million, you put in West End and take a fifth of the stock. That makes it a $50 million corporation, so you estimate West End as being worth $10 million. Is it? What’s the book value?’
I said, ‘Jamieson and I have been working it out. I put it at $8 million.’
‘So you put in $8 million and take stock worth $10 million. What kind of a deal is that? What do we get for the other two million bucks?’
‘Me,’ I said evenly.
Billy burst out laughing. ‘Come on, Tom! Do you really think you’re worth that?’
‘You’re forgetting quite a few things,’ I said. ‘If you come in here on your own you come in cold. I know you’ve picked up your facts and statistics and so on, but you don’t know the score – you don’t know the way things get done here. But if you come in with me you begin with a firm base ready for expansion, eager for expansion. And you don’t only get me, but you get my staff, all loyal to me personally. And don’t forget the Bahamas for the Bahamians bit. Call it goodwill, call it know-how, call it what you like, but I reckon it’s worth two million.’
Billy was silent for a long time, thinking hard. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said at last.
I gave him another jolt. ‘And I get to be President of the Theta Corporation,’ I said calmly.
He nearly choked. ‘Jesus, you don’t want much! Why don’t you just pick my pocket of forty million bucks and have done with it?’
‘I told you. I don’t want to lose control. Look, Billy; you’ll be Chairman and I’ll be President – the Cunninghams retain financial control but I have operational control. That’s the only way it can work. And I want a five-year contract of service; not a cast iron contract – that fractures too easily – an armour plate contract.’
Billy looked glum, but nodded. ‘Billy One might go for it, but I don’t know about Jack.’ He drummed his fingers on the desk and said cautiously, ‘If we take over West End we get everything? Not just the hotels part of it?’
‘You get all the trimmings,’ I assured him. ‘Tours division, car hire fleet, merchandising division – the lot.’
‘Before we go any further into this,’ he said, ‘I’d like to have your ideas about expansion. Have you given it any thought?’
I pushed a folder across the desk. ‘There are a few ideas here. Just a beginning.’
He studied the papers I had put together and we discussed them for a while. At last he said, ‘You’ve obviously been thinking hard. I like your idea of a construction division.’ He checked the time. ‘I need the telephone. Will you give me half an hour? I might have to do some tough talking.’
I pushed the telephone towards him. ‘Best of luck.’
I found Julie holding Karen in her arms and looking faintly worried. Karen was sniffling and wailing. ‘But I want to go!’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Oh, Karen’s not well,’ said Julie. ‘I don’t think she should come with us. That cold in the head has sprung up again and she’s got a temperature.’
‘It’s not fair!’ cried Karen. ‘Sue’s going.’
I put out my hand and felt her forehead; Julie was right about the rise in temperature, but it was not much. ‘Maybe we should cancel the trip,’ said Julie.
‘Put her to bed and we’ll talk about it.’ I looked around. ‘Where’s Sue?’
‘On Lucayan Girl helping Pete or, rather, getting in his way. I’ll be back soon.’ Julie walked into the house carrying Karen who had burst into tears.
I found Debbie relaxing by the pool and dropped into a chair next to her. ‘Poor kid,’ she said. ‘She’s so disappointed. How ill is she?’
‘Not very. You know how kids are; their temperature goes up and down for no apparent reason. She’ll probably be all right in a couple of days. But Julie is thinking of cancelling the trip.’
‘I’ve
