“Yes.”
“Where is your home in the United States?”
“New York City,” she replied, not wanting to be any more specific.
“Do you own a home in Canada?”
“No.”
“Where are you going?”
“Toronto.”
“How long…” he paused and smiled. “Wow! You’re Kerri King, the Iacardi Santa Claus. Do you have any idea how many people are looking for you.”
Kerri was shocked and disappointed that Andrea Dennis had exposed her secret to the media. The two had agreed that she would wait until Kerri had confirmation, in writing, from the I.R.S. that she would be cleared of any further charges. She smiled and nodded. “I would appreciate if you would keep that information to yourself and treat me like any other citizen. I’m taking a trip into obscurity, and I want to keep it that way.”
The agent winked and returned Kerri’s passports. “Let me tell you that I think what you’ve done is pretty cool. Your secret is safe with me. I can’t even remember your name. Welcome to Canada.”
CHAPTER 60
Houston. Saturday, March 9, 2002.
Ken Layton’s River Oaks mansion was the scene of a lavish victory party. The guest list, long and star studded, included Peter Tavaris, Walter Deaks, Billy Dukes, Sydney Mortimer, and their wives and significant others. The party, ostensibly to celebrate Enerco’s successful acquisition of Iacardi & Sons, was also designed to reward the main combatants and to expose them to Houston society. All eight had been flown in style to Houston via Enerco’s G-5 and booked into the five star St. Regis.
Prior to any serious partying, Layton invited Tavaris into his den and closed the door. He removed two Arturo Fuente cigars from his desk top humidor and handed one to Tavaris. “Please accept this as a token of my gratitude, Peter. Enerco could not have done this without you. The company is in your debt,” he said, then lifted a gold plated lighter from his desk and lit both cigars.
Layton’s comments were like a souped up tonic to Tavaris, maybe even better than sex. At last he had made it to where he had wanted to be for so long. He was on top of the world. He had wealth and power. He was now the president and chief executive officer of a wholly owned subsidiary of Enerco, one of the most successful companies in the world. Its acquisition of his Iacardi stock had increased his net worth by slightly over fifteen million dollars. His salary was now in the stratosphere. “Thanks, Ken,” he said, struggling to contain his excitement and avoid saying anything stupid. “It’s an honor to receive a compliment like that from such an esteemed gentleman as yourself.”
Layton took a long pull on his cigar. “You deserve it,” he said, then blew smoke in Tavaris’ direction. “Now tell me how Kerri King responded to our offer of continued employment.”
“She didn’t reject it, but I think she will… On a personal note, I’d be delighted if I never saw her again. I think we can all get along quite nicely without her,” Tavaris replied, delighted to have been given an opportunity to stick his knife into his nemesis.
“Give me your opinion on the Iacardi Shareholders’ Lawsuit. Should we continue it and bankrupt Miss King, or drop it?”
Tavaris chuckled. Now he could really turn the knife. “No brainer. We’ve got to finish her off. She deserves it. She’s given us far too much trouble.”
Layton smiled. “I like the way you think, Peter. You’re going to fit very nicely into the Enerco team… I’ve already instructed Sydney to go for the kill.”
Tavaris clenched his teeth and his fists. His irrepressible need to crush his opposition had, at long last, led him to the promised land, in plain sight of the power and glory. “Thanks, Ken. You’re very kind.”
“No, Peter. I’m very practical… Let’s join the party.”
“Wait. There’s one more thing. You should know that our former president has called her hundred million dollar loan. She wants cash in thirty days.”
“Chump change,” Layton scoffed, deliberately neglecting to inform Tavaris that Enerco’s credit lines had been stretched close to their limits, and that raising a hundred million would be painful.
CHAPTER 61
Muskoka. Friday, March 29, 2002.
The Muskoka Lakes Ice Lottery was an annual event. Every spring, a vehicle was parked on the ice in the center of Cox Bay, a three kilometer long and one kilometer wide body of water forming the south end of Lake Joseph. A functioning electric clock was placed inside the vehicle. Everyone who participated in the lottery knew that the clock’s electrical supply would short and the clock would stop when the vehicle sank as a result of the melting ice, so they placed their bets. The Lottery winner was the individual who correctly, or most closely guessed the day, hour, minute, and second the clock stopped.
Hubert Crowther, the Lottery’s founder and annual coordinator, paced up and down the rows of wrecked and deposed cars and trucks in the Bala Junkyard, a chain-linked hectare on the east side of Highway 169, a kilometer north of Bala. He stopped when he saw a green Ford pick-up truck. “Perfect,” he said, certain he had found the ideal vehicle for the 2002 Lottery.
He purchased the truck, hoisted it onto his flat-bed, then drove it to the driveway of his Port Sandfield home. Port Sandfield was a small village on an isthmus of land separating Lake Joseph from Lake Rosseau. He planned to park the green truck on the ice the following day. A Saturday kick-off always maximized the Lottery’s exposure. He stepped down from the cab of his flat-bed, then climbed up to examine his prize. He entered via the Ford’s passenger side door and sat in the cab to scan its interior. Curiosity prompted him to open the glove compartment. Pushing its button failed, so he banged it with his fist. The door opened exposing a letter. He removed the letter and saw that it was stamped and addressed to Kerri King in New York. The return addressee was Steve Monteith, Port Carling, Ontario.
The following day, he deposited the green Ford on the ice in the middle of Cox Bay, then drove to the Port Sandfield post office and mailed the letter.
CHAPTER 62
Houston. Monday, April 1.
Sandra Schafer, C.P.A., loved and needed her job. She was employed as an internal accountant in the Houston headquarters of Enerco. She had been with the company since she received her State of Texas certification in 1997. She was thirty-two, married, and the mother of two, a boy and a girl, both attending expensive private schools. David, her husband, was an engineer with N.A.S.A, also in Houston.
She was deeply troubled. For the past six months, she had agonized over the questionable money shuffling and commodity trading activities of her employer. The trades, made by of myriad of the company’s subsidiaries, many of which were domiciled in tax haven jurisdictions, were large, aggressive, and highly leveraged. In her spare time she had managed to cobble together a tapestry of the Enerco trading structure. When she finally connected all the dots, the picture astounded her. The company had almost three thousand trading subsidiaries, forty-two percent of which were incorporated in tax advantaged countries. Ground zero was Grand Cayman Island. Her research led her to three conclusions: the company was hiding, via the mechanism of ‘off balance sheet’ transactions, colossal trading losses from its shareholders, the company was evading taxes on its trading profits, and the company was fraudulently reporting enormous unrealized mark to market profits in its quarterly report to shareholders. She further discovered that Enerco senior management, namely Ken Layton, Jeffrey Wheeler, and Andrew Speers, were conducting a massive pump and dump operation. While publicly touting the success and fabulous future of the company and illegally over-stating revenues and profits, all three were simultaneously selling Enerco stock as fast as their absurdly generous options made it available. Equally troubling was the obvious complicity of Benjamin, Alexander & Gabriel LLP, the huge and respected multi-national accounting firm responsible for certifying the accuracy of the company’s financial reports.
&
nbsp; Stretched to the limit of her conscience, she approached her boss, Clarence Soloman, a nerdy, shiny-assed book-keeper who had been with Enerco since the day it was born in 1989. Primarily the result of his fanatical dedication, work ethic, and a healthy dose of ass-kissing, he was now the managing director of accounting for the company’s worldwide operations. His boss was Andrew Speers. Soloman was fifty-eight, fat, almost completely bald, and way too close to his much anticipated and cherished pension to even think of rocking the boat. “Can we talk?” she asked, prompting Soloman to frown. “Something’s bothering me, and you’re the only person in the entire company who I think will listen to me.”
“Certainly,” Soloman said, hiding a yawn with his fist and wishing Schafer would just go away and leave him alone.
“I need this conversation to be off the record. Can you live with that? If you can’t, I’ll find someone else.”
Soloman’s facial muscles tightened, his face reddened. “What’s it about?”
“Enerco. It’s breaking the law, and I can prove it.”
“How?”
“I’ll show you, but first I need you to promise that everything we say in this room today is off the record.”
Soloman’ response was instant and definite. “I don’t want to know about it,” he said, even though he already did. His position had given him a box seat to witness the company’s transgressions. “If you can prove the company’s breaking the law, then it’s up to you to report what you know to the appropriate authorities… Just don’t get me involved. I’m less than seven years from retirement, and I’m not prepared to mess with it.”
Soloman’s refusal to ‘get involved’ made it clear to Schafer that appeasing her conscience would require finding someone else in the company who was prepared to listen to her, or stepping forward herself, becoming a whistle-blower, and risking her job. Her choices were challenging in the extreme. The Enerco culture resembled a communist country. Everyone was under constant observation. Anyone who risked criticizing management experienced a downward sloping career path, or worse. She knew of no other Enerco employee she could trust with her information. She worried that whoever she talked to might expose her rather than help her. Keeping her job was crucial. In spite of their combined six-digit income, she and her husband were barely making ends meet. Their children’s college fund and the mortgage payments on their new thirty-five hundred square foot suburban home left no disposable income. “I understand,” she said, furious with her spineless boss. She stood and turned to leave.
“Wait. Don’t go,” Soloman said, causing Schafer to stop. “I have a suggestion for you. It’s obvious that you’re pissed and won’t stop until you’ve done something… I know a person you should talk to.”
“Who?” Schafer asked, her curiosity aroused.
“Would the name Kerri King ring a bell with you?”
“It certainly would. She’s been in the news every day for the past week. She’s the Iacardi Santa Claus… Why do you think I should talk to her?”
“Enerco just bought Iacardi. Coincident with that purchase, Kerri King was ousted as Iacardi’s president and chief executive officer. I don’t profess to know all the details, but it certainly seems strange to me that the Iacardi management would dispose of a president who had just given almost a half a billion dollars to the estates of the employees who were killed in The World Trade Center. What on earth were they thinking? So now they’ve offered her a job with Enerco. She’s supposed to be the new vice president of trading, reporting to Jeffrey Wheeler. I’ll be shocked if she accepts it. I understand her Iacardi stock is worth at least ninety million… Now I’m going to give you a private thought. It’s for your ears only. If you breathe a word of it to anyone, I’ll deny it… I agree with everything you’ve just told me about what’s going on inside this company. Furthermore, I think Ken Layton, Jeffrey Wheeler, and Andrew Speers are thieves. They should be thrown in jail for what they’re doing. I also think the management of Iacardi should be thrown in jail for what they’ve done to Kerri King. In any event, I’m sure she would be delighted to be given an opportunity to give the whole lot of them a little retribution. Now if you want to take this thing further, I’ll contact Human Resources and get Miss King’s telephone number and email address.”
Schafer rounded Soloman’s desk and planted a big kiss on the top of his bald head. “Thanks, Clarence. I was about to leave here thinking you were an asshole. Now I think you’re wonderful… That’s just a private thought. If you breathe a word of it to anyone, I’ll deny it.”
CHAPTER 63
Muskoka. Wednesday, April 17.
Mid April was a magic time in Muskoka. Each year the month featured a re-awakening, a renaissance. Straddling the forty-fifth parallel of latitude, half way to the north pole, the area was once again in the process of emerging from the deep freeze of winter. Today was exceptional. The sky was cobalt blue, no clouds, no wind, temperature in the mid fifties. It was the day Kerri had chosen to take Steve back to Muskoka, to risk exposing him to an environment very familiar to him, until the day of his accident.
Since her return to Canada at the beginning of the month, she had moved into the guest suite of her father’s North York home and dedicated her life to obscurity, and to her friend, Steve Monteith. She had visited him each day, taken him on long walks, and, as his schedule stipulated, driven him to the Thornhill CBT, (cognitive behavioral therapy), Clinic. She was encouraged by his rapid progress, but his frequent failure to remember names and events made it clear that he was still far from full recovery from his head injury. It broke her heart to see his anger and frustration when he struggled with detail. Gail Menschew, Steve’s psychotherapist at the clinic, had recognized Kerri as a critical component of her patient’s recovery therapy. She knew they shared a strong emotional bond. She coached and encouraged her, urging her to suppress her frustrations and to keep going. “Steve’s recovery is a marathon, not a sprint,” she insisted.
Kerri’s black BMW rolled to a stop on the graveled parking area of The Monster. She had discussed with Gail Menschew her idea of re-introducing him to the palatial cottage, and, in spite of the risk of inducing a negative response, had gained approval. A few patches of snow and ice in shaded areas remained, survivors of the warm April sun. A large green and white Muskoka Lakes Realty ‘FOR SALE‘ sign protruded from the ground in front of the cottage. Kerri, for the first time staring at the huge and magnificent structure into which Steve had poured his heart and soul, was aware of why it was no longer his. Her father had told her the grim details of Jamie Stewart’s mortgage and his ruthless re-possession subsequent to the demise of his daughter’s marriage to Steve.
Steve frowned as he stared at the sign. “I don’t want to be here,” he said, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Steve’s reaction to the visit was a clear indication to Kerri that he had remembered and associated the scene with a bad experience. “I’m sorry. This was a bad idea,” she said, then turned her car around and headed for the southbound lane of Highway 69.
Steve was sullen, quiet and almost motionless until Kerri slowed her car to make the left turn at the T-intersection of Highways 69 and 169. His face blanched as he turned to his right to stare at the huge boulders where his green Ford truck had come to rest. He covered his face with his hands as he turned to face the entrance to Highway 169. “No!” he shouted, visions of the large chrome grill of a Peterbilt truck flashing through his brain.
Without a word, Kerri completed the turn and accelerated to the speed limit. She remained silent until she made the left turn onto Highway 118, then turned to face Steve. “You okay?” she asked.
He nodded without speaking or facing her.
Twenty minutes later, she parked her car beside the Health Club’s tennis court and the two got out. Both wore black Sunice ski pants and jackets, a gift from Steve’s mother. She put on her beloved Yankees hat, then grasped Stev
e’s hand and led him around the south side of the lodge and down the flat stone path to the dock. The channel separating Beaumaris island from the mainland was still frozen, but the dock’s bubblers had saved its cribs from the ravages of winter ice shift. The vast expanse of Lake Muskoka to the north west was still mostly ice covered, but sections of deep blue water were clearly visible. Only the occasional sound of cracking ice broke the silence. Kerri could see the outline of Karen’s beloved Azimuth Island in the hazeless distance. She would love to have shown the island to Steve, but it was impossible at this time of year. The ice was too thin to support the weight of a human, but still too thick to use a boat.
Kerri tore her eyes from the incredible view and faced Steve. “Is this familiar to you?” she asked.
Steve frowned and once again scanned his surroundings, a clear indication that he was struggling with his connection to The Health Club. Then he looked at Kerri and his frown gradually transformed into the irresistible smile she remembered seeing for the first time, a few feet from where she stood. “I think this is where I met the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Overjoyed, Kerri lost her veneer of control. She did what she had wanted to do for a very long time. She hugged him, then gazed into the most compelling hazel eyes she had ever seen. Her joy exploded when he returned the hug. “Welcome back,” she said with a huge smile.
Seconds passed in silence as the two, still locked in an embrace, contemplated what to do or say next. As she had concluded on their first date in New York, a kiss would take her over the invisible line separating friendship from something else. Her heart screamed at her to do it, but fear gripped her. She had crossed that line twice before in her life, once with Brian Pyper, next with Louis Visconti. Both crossings had resulted in misery and unhappiness.