“I guess I can count myself lucky that I didn’t windup going with you and your drunken buddies on that Alaskan Hunting Safari. The thought of having to hang around you and suck up to you for an entire week makes me still want to vomit to this day. Thank God, David had no qualms to kiss your ass every day.
David automatically lurched towards me eager to physically confront me until he saw the eager anticipation in my eyes. I think he realized that if we got in a fight that I would not stop until one of us was either seriously injured or dead. He wasn’t ready to commit to that level. I stared at him for awhile and then gave the insult of dismissing him as a viable threat and continued my dissertation.
“I know fostering Janet on me was your idea, Chuck. But which one of you came up with the idea of sending her to my bed, you or David?”
Neither one owned up to it.
“I guess I’ll never find out how that came about. Maybe one of you is to blame; maybe both of you independent of each other hinted to Janet to try to kindle a friendship; or maybe, Janet did that of her own initiative.”
“What I do know is how it tore me apart again to remind me of a girl I cared about betraying me. What a brilliant idea to keep me off balance as you plotted to steal my bank from me. Not only would I have to relive the anguish, but I would also suffer the humiliation all over again every day.”
“So does it piss you off Chuck? The fact that I get to live to fight another day? That my very existence reminds you of the sins you’ve committed against my father?”
“Now, normally, pissing you off would be a cause for concern, because even though I’ve thwarted your plan and kept my bank, I could look to see you regroup and launch another attack. But here is where the genius of having a queen like Janet comes into play,” I continued to lecture Buckman as though he was unable to stop hearing about the trainwreck I’ve engineered for him.
“I know she also told you about the Sorrant Oil Reserves that my bank has relied so heavily on to pull it back into the black. Just imagine, an estimated multi-million barrels oilfield that has yet to be tapped into. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it Chuck?”
“And, it is too good to be true, Chuck. Once again, I fed you false information through Janet. I created the Sorrant Oil Reserves out of thin air, Chuck. You were so intent in believing everything that Janet told you that you failed to do your due diligence. Why should you? I certainly wasn’t devious enough to outwit you. It wasn’t like I had exhibited any guile before. And you knew I could not dare take a misstep. So anything I invested in had to be bona fide.”
“Because of me you saw the vision of a mythical El Dorado. By investing the seed money of $100, 000, 000 you would realize profits in the billions. That you would destroy me was only the cherry on top.”
“You pored over all the reports submitted on the test fields and engineering reports that promised a sure success. All those reports from my desk that Janet purloined for your benefit. All those reports from strawmen that I created. They only existed in my mind and by my hands. But with enough paperwork created, I kept pushing you closer and closer to the edge until you jumped off the cliff voluntarily.”
“In the course of all the international business dealings I’ve had to engage in I’ve had ample opportunities to discover enough slightly unethical businessmen that would help me run a scam on you for a percentage. I created a series of off shore dummy corporations with their help. Each time you purchased Sorrant stock, your money was funneled right back to me.”
“I created a false bidding war which continued to drive the stock up and made you lose your money that much quicker. All the debt you were incurring was driving the price of Buckman Incorporated stock down. And I bought it up cheap with your own money. Through a syndicate of holding companies and mutual funds I now own a majority of your company, Chuck.”
Charles Buckman’s complexion had undergone an amazing transition. Instead of the reddened anger he had exhibited, he now had the shocked look of a ghostly pallor as I continued to hammer him.
“Within a month, there will be a new slate of the board of directors of Buckman Incorporated. All of which will be handpicked by me. The first order of business will be to oust you, Chuck on a vote of no confidence. The second will be to vote me in as chairman of the board. The third will be to change the name of the company to Harrison Williams Incorporated in honor of my father.”
“I realize that you will still be rich from your holdings, Chuck, but your legacy is gone. And that is what is important to you. The days of you being the benevolent despot of this community are over. That elaborate estate of yours, the Rolls Royces you and your wife drives, the condos you own, the private jet. All of it is in the name of the company for tax purposes will belong to me… I’ll let you keep your mistress however.”
Charles visibly winched from my revelation that I knew of his secret life. David looked on stunned as his indomitable father-in-law developed feets of clay.
“You will spend the rest of your life complaining about me to the FBI, the Security Exchange Commission, and every other law enforcement agency you can think of and it will not bring your money back to you. I covered myself with countless layers of defenses and I’m still adding layers.”
“You will grow old and bitter at your impotency to unravel my dealings. The political influence you once enjoyed will fade away and you will be left all alone shouting into an empty room for your revenge.”
I finished the last dregs of the cognac. I leaned forward to Charles Buckman, now gulping air as though he was a fish out of the water. I moved my Queen into the final row.
“You see Chuck, you’ve been wrong all along about your business/nature analogy; It isn’t the big that eats the small. It’s the quick that eats the slow.”
I reached with one finger and slowly toppled his King.
“Shah Mat,” I hissed the etymological Persian term that over centuries had morphed to the term, “checkmate.” The King is captured. I walked out of the room without bothering to look at the inhabitants.
The ensuing fallout was dramatic and kept the town busy in gossip for months. I did indeed oust Charles Buckman and David Porter. Once, out of their comfort zone, they turned on each other blaming one another for their downfall. Mrs. Buckman divorced her husband at the public revelation of his latest mistress and proceeded to wrestle millions away from him in the divorce settlement.
As I suspected, Charles tried to get the authorities to investigate me to no avail. With the loss of his wealth so came the loss of his political power since no one truly admired him without his money backing him up.
His mistress left him for greener pastures and he engaged in a series of relationships that continued to create his downward financial spiral. It was pathetic to see him continue to assume the air of a VIP when he was the town’s laughingstock.
The town was shocked to wake one morning to hear of his suicide by shooting himself. The funeral was closed for family only. Staci and her sister flew in to attend and flew back out immediately after it was over. She didn’t try to contact me. I knew she blamed me for her father’s death.
Still, David Porter tried to crash the funeral to convince Staci to stop the divorce proceeding she initiated when she was in California. After his failure, he came out in public with his relationship with Janet Temple. Yeah, my Janet Temple. They left for whereabouts unknown.
*******************
“Power is an aphrodisiac,” Henry Kissinger once surmised. I tend to agree with him. Twenty three months after my successful campaign against Charles Buckman I was still the lucky recipient of the attention of many lovely ladies. I harbored no false illusions that somehow I had grown more handsome or became more virile or that my personality had completed a much needed makeover.
No, all I represented was the potential to an unending source of money, security, and prestige. Was I upset about it? Not in the least, I knew what the game was and so did the ladies. We satisfied desires for physical connections and I made damn sure that none of them made any emotional connection. I made sure that any financial obligations by my lovelys pressed upon me were minimal and transitory.
In my shallow world that was enough to allow me to cope. Still sometimes, in the dead of the night, I would leave my slumbering bed partner for the night and spend time just watching out from my third story window on the quiet courtyard of the city.
Still, looking for someone to believe in.
Standing as a sentinel over my moonlit city that was going through a rebirth. With me leading the newly named Harrison Williams Enterprises, I sought out a number of manufacturing companies to relocate to Camden to end its history of being known as a one company town. By offering commercial loans at a very low rate, and persuading state officials to offer various tax breaks; a large number of companies decided to take advantage of the offers. The result was a boom time for the city of Camden.
I initially anticipated that the Buckman’s Financial Plaza would soon become reminiscent of what the downtown area once looked like; a deserted concrete ghost town synonymous with the failure of Charles Buckman.
But, I commissioned a study and found that it made viable sense to allow the Buckman Financial Plaza to continue in business and to prosper. People psychologically wanted (and needed) the option of a choice. People like Fred Carter, my classmate running the Ford dealership. Fred would have resented and chafed at having to kowtow to doing his banking business with me at Camden Bank & Trust. But, give him the fiction of doing business with Buckman’s Savings and Loans and he was like a duck in water. What did I care what entity got the money as long as it all channeled back to me.