Ride the Thunder (6 page)

One-handed, he lit the match and touched the flame to his cigarette. “Maybe, as a major stockholder, I came by to see how the company is doing.” He exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

“The company doesn’t mean shit to you!” Max scoffed at that possibility.

“You’re right,” Brig agreed with a crooked smile. “I’m calling in my markers.”

“I don’t have any of yours.” Max rocked the chair forward, whitening a bit. “You know what the provisions were in the old man’s will. Unless you work for the company, you are entitled to zero.”

“And you know I could have contested that.”

“It was your choice. And you decided not to,” his cousin retorted. “You didn’t want any of his ‘ill-gotten’ gains. You already had your blood money, money you’d earned yourself.”

“You wouldn’t be sitting in that chair if I hadn’t stepped aside,” Brig reminded him coldly. “You wouldn’t even be there if I hadn’t given you proxy to vote my shares. I’m not here to take that chair away from you. The company is yours. But you owe me, Max.”

Max looked prepared to argue. Instead he issued a tight-lipped demand, “Tell me what you want.”

“I need a loan.” It was a grudging admission. “Twenty thousand.”

Amusement flashed across his cousin’s face. He hesitated for an instant, then opened the center drawer of his desk. Pulling out a folder, he tossed it onto the desk in front of Brig. It was marked “confidential.”

“Read it.” Max gestured toward the folder and leaned back in his chair, resting his elbows on the sides and tapping his fingers against each other.

Brig hesitated, then picked it up. It was a financial statement prepared by a firm of certified accountants, complete with a balance sheet, profit and loss statement, a list of assets and liabilities, long term and short term. Brig gave the first two pages a cursory glance of identification. When the figures began to sink in, he studied the report more closely. A sinking sensation began in his stomach. He shot a hard look at the man behind the desk. His cousin’s initial expression of amused satisfaction had given way to one of grim resignation.

“It’s the latest audit, delivered yesterday,” Max stated. “I can keep it under wraps for a couple of months, maybe more. This company doesn’t have twenty thousand dollars, Brig.”

“With you as President, I should be surprised the company hasn’t gone bankrupt before this.” He dropped the report on the desk, fighting the anger and frustration that was welling inside. “How did it happen?”

“The profits started dropping off from the stores.
You know the kind of shape the country’s economy has been in. I tried to diversify and made a couple bad investments.”

“A couple? It took more than a couple to get the company into that condition.” Anger, contempt, and disgust all mixed together in Brig’s response. “You should be sued for gross mismanagement.”

“Dammit, Brig!” Max came to his feet in angry self-defense.

“Forget it. I won’t be the one to sue you. I take it no one else has seen this report?”

“No one.”

“Then I haven’t seen it either. All I want is my twenty thousand,” Brig stated. “I don’t care whether I get it from the company or you personally. And don’t try to convince me that you haven’t sucked off a fortune, because I know you better.” The desperation of his own personal situation brought an extra edge of harshness to his voice. He was fighting for his life.

Max appeared to squirm in his chair. He could no longer meet the desert-brown eyes. “I haven’t got it either,” he admitted after a long pause. “Everything I have, and everything I could beg, borrow, or steal, is wrapped up in a land development project in California. Condominiums. I can’t get it off the ground.”

A cold rage spilled over Brig. He wanted to grab Max by the shirt front and smash his fist into those handsome features until they were a bloody pulp. Before the urge for violence could overwhelm him, Brig walked stiffly to the window. He’d been a fool to come here, a fool to hold out hope that he’d receive any assistance from his cousin. Maybe he could talk to his banker again. Maybe if he sold all his stock cows and the sheep . . . but what would he do for income the following year? He was trapped between a rock and a hard place.

“Why did you need the twenty thousand, Brig?” Max’s voice was quiet and respectful, as if he were aware the wrong tone would rile a sleeping wolf.

“I need the cash. My balance sheet looks a helluva
lot better than yours, but it so happens that I’m land and cattle poor,” he admitted. “I’ve been in some fights before. And I haven’t counted myself out of this one yet.” Turning from the window, he started for the doors. There wasn’t any more reason to stay.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my hotel so I can check out and catch the first plane back to Idaho.” Brig didn’t look back. He still didn’t trust himself to keep his hands off his cousin. His grip started to wring the neck of the doorknob.

“Wait,” Max said. “Maybe we could work a deal where both of us could get some money.”

“In the first place, Max, I wouldn’t like the smell of any deal you’d make. And in the second place, I don’t work with anyone who forces me to look over my shoulder for fear of getting knifed in the back.” He yanked the door open.

Max hurried to catch up with him as Brig strode out of the outer office into the corridor. “It’s almost noon. Let’s have lunch. It won’t hurt you to hear me out,” he argued.

“You’ll be wasting your time.”

“It’s my time.”

“And mine,” Brig countered. “You can tell me your little scheme during the cab ride to my hotel.”

Max didn’t like the terms, but he was smart enough not to press for more. There’d never been any love lost between them. From the time Brig had moved in with their grandfather, Max had resented him, almost hated him. Brig had always been the favorite grandson, the hand-picked heir to the Sanger throne, even though Max was the elder. It would have all gone to Brig, if he’d met the conditions of his grandfather’s will. Max had taken over by default. Now he was in deep trouble, but there might be a way out with Brig’s help. And it almost gagged him to admit it.

Outside the building, Brig walked to the corner to hail a cab. “You’ll never get one at this hour,” Max informed him with the smugness of a New Yorker.
Brig paid no attention to him as he emitted a piercing whistle through his teeth. A cab switched lanes amidst a blare of horns and squealing brakes to stop at the curb in front of them.

Brig opened the rear door for him. “That was always your problem, Max. Nobody ever jumped when you whistled.” Pure hatred smoldered in the fiery look Max sent him before climbing into the cab. Brig folded his long frame and slid into the seat beside him. “The Hilton,” He leaned forward to tell the cabbie, then settled back in the seat. “You’d better start talking, Max. You don’t have much time.”

“You came to me for twenty thousand, you arrogant bastard!” Max fumed through clenched teeth. “If you think I’m going to crawl on my knees and kiss your ass so I can have a few minutes of your precious time to tell you how you can get it, you’re wrong.”

“Am I? You were always very good at doing it with the old man,” he baited, amused by the impotence of his cousin’s anger, because Brig knew it was all hot air. “Do you want to talk or trade insults?” He smiled as he watched Max struggle to collect himself.

“It’s simple,” he began in a stiff voice. “I have someone who might be interested in buying the company. I’ve been trying to sell him my stock, but it wouldn’t give his management firm control unless they had your proxy. According to the will, you can’t sell your stock to anyone except a family member unless it’s a total buy-out of the company or a merger. I think I can talk them into a buy-out.”

“The poor sucker hasn’t seen the latest audit, has he?” Brig guessed.

“I told you I just got it!” Max snapped. “It doesn’t matter anyway. The guy is looking for a tax write-off. He’s got more money than God.”

“If he has, then he didn’t get it by being a fool. All he has to do is wait a couple of months and he can pick up the company for a song through the bankruptcy courts.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t do you or me any good, does it?!” he flared, in sarcastic challenge. “The annual company audit isn’t due until the end of October. I ran this one early, because . . . I didn’t think it was in that bad a shape yet. So what do you think?”

“I think it smells of misrepresentation,” Brig declared in a disgusted breath. “I’ve never cheated a man in my life. And I’m not going to start for a lousy twenty grand.” The cab swung into the circle in front of the hotel and stopped near the revolving doors. Brig leaned forward and handed him a bill. “Keep the change.” As he stepped from the cab, Max climbed out the other side.

“You’re always so damned righteous, McCord!” he snarled as he followed him through the revolving door, walking swiftly to keep up with Brig’s longer strides. “You’re a hypocrite. That’s what you are. I haven’t forgotten that you used to get paid to kill people.”

“Governments paid me to fight,” Brig corrected in a savage underbreath and stopped at the cashier’s desk.

“I’m . . .
asking
you,” Max hesitated over the verb, then emphasized it, “to at least think over what I’ve said. The man has got the money and he’s interested. He . . .” He stopped, staring down the wide foyer that ran the length of the hotel’s ground floor. “There he is now.” He pointed. “The tall man with the gray hair standing outside the restaurant.”

Disinterestedly, Brig let his gaze follow his cousin’s discreetly pointing finger, He saw the man, but it was the woman with him that caught his eye. She had a long, leggy look although she was a few inches shorter than the man she was with. Her hair was auburn, a brown that seemed to catch fire in the light shining from overhead. There was an animal earthiness about her, a latent sensuality. She was a fascinating creature—young, yet with an air of maturity. His blood warmed at the sight of her. In fact, there was a certain ripeness about her that asked to be picked. Brig felt an urge to do the harvesting.

His gaze strayed to the man. There was easily thirty years difference in their ages, if there was a day. Physically the man looked fit and virile. There was something vaguely distinguished about his presence, an aura probably described as charismatic. Nothing was wrong with his health. Or his appetite, Brig decided, as he saw the man take some money from his pocket and slip it in the woman’s hand.

His attitude toward the attractive brunette began to harden. When she lightly kissed the older man, his eyes darkened sardonically. With a wave, she hurried toward the far exit with long, graceful strides. Near the door, Brig saw her pause to put the money in her purse—and probably to count it too, he thought cynically.

“Come on.” Max took hold of his elbow to steer him forward. “I’ll introduce you to him.” Brig started to draw back, but the man had already seen them and lifted a hand in greeting. “Hello, Fletcher. This is a surprise seeing you here,” Max declared as they met midway.

“I could say the same for you, too, Max.” The man made no explanations as to why he was at the hotel. Brig wasn’t surprised. Few men of any worth went around bragging about the girl they’d just laid in a hotel room upstairs. “What brings you here?”

“Brig is staying here. He just flew in from the West to discuss some company business. Let me introduce you. Fletcher, this is my cousin. Brig McCord,” Max said, then reversed it. “This is Fletcher Smith. Most people know him from the articles in the sporting magazines about his big game hunting, but I know him as a businessman extraordinaire.”

Brig thought the praise by Max was a bit too obvious. Fletcher Smith seemed indifferent to the description of himself as he clasped Brig’s hand in a firm handshake.

“It’s a pleasure, Mr. McCord.” The calm, relatively unlined features on the sun-bronzed face held the look of a man who had learned the wisdom of patience and
persistence, two essential qualities for a successful hunter. “Were you in California? Max has told me a lot about the project he has there.”

“No. I’m from Idaho,” Brig corrected, wanting no connection with his cousin’s development.

“Brig has a ranch there,” Max hurried to explain. “I have his proxy to vote his stock in the company, but we generally discuss the issues beforehand.”

“Where in Idaho is your ranch located?”

Brig couldn’t help noticing the way Fletcher Smith was ignoring his cousin’s attempts to bring the company and its shares of stock into the conversation. The man was shrewd. Max would never fool him for long.

“In the mountains near the Middle Fork of the Salmon River,” he answered.

“That’s a primitive area,” he nodded as if he’d already located the area on a map he kept in his head. “It must be good hunting.”

Brig shrugged and avoided a direct comment. “I usually kill two elk a year for meat.”

“I like elk venison myself.” The man smiled in agreement.

“Isn’t that something? Brig has a cattle ranch and he eats elk.” Max forced a laugh. “He has to come all the way to New York on company business to have beef. Which reminds me—Brig and I were just going to have some lunch. Would you like to join us, Fletcher?”

The older man hesitated, glancing at Brig before he made up his mind. “I’ll have some coffee with you,” he accepted.

“I don’t care for any lunch, Max,” Brig stated.

“Jet lag,” Max explained to Fletcher with a laugh, and shot a furious look at Brig. “You and Fletcher can have coffee and I’ll eat.”

“We’ll let him gain the pounds,” Fletcher smiled and turned to walk to the restaurant. Glancing sideways at Brig, he remarked, “I heard you had a severe winter this year.” He started walking.

A glint of admiration entered Brig’s eyes. The man
was quite a hunter, luring his quarry on. And he was the hunter’s quarry. If he was going to reply to that comment from Fletcher, he had to walk with him. Fletcher looked back and read in Brig’s expression that his game had been discovered. He grinned and stopped. Max glanced from one to the other in total puzzlement.

Brig started walking. “It was a bad winter,” he admitted. “Parts of the rest of the country were hit pretty hard, too.” This time they were on equal terms.