“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve been so busy trying to figure out how to do it that I haven’t even considered if there’s a bigger picture.” And he couldn’t ask his guys without tipping his hand that he was being blackmailed into doing something.
She said, “Well, maybe we have to start considering it.”
Colleen’s phone, charging on the upper part of the computer desk near the power strip, buzzed.
She craned her neck to read the screen because it was lying sideways on the desk. “Anjali is on her way over to return the stupid monitor. Hold on a second.” She snatched up the phone, pressed something, and then held it to her ear. “Hi, Anjali? Honey, you don’t have to bring that over right now. It’s fine.”
Tristan’s phone also chose that minute to ring with an actual phone call.
He dragged it out of his pocket. The screen said that the caller’s phone number was unidentified.
He let it go to voice mail. Probably just a telemarketer. He should write an algo that killed robocalls.
Colleen walked a few steps away from him, looking down while she was still talking on the phone. “Honey, you don’t have to bring it back right now. I don’t even know how long I’m going to be here.”
Tristan’s phone buzzed again.
It was probably the same person calling back, so he flipped to the voice mail screen and read the transcription of the earlier message. It read, This is Mary Barbara Bell. Pick up your phone, Tristan King. We need to talk about your project and Ms. Frost.
The voice mail had transcribed Varvara as Barbara, but Tristan knew who it was. His face flushed hot, and he switched back to the phone app and touched the green spot to answer the call. “Hello?”
A woman’s voice said, “Tristan King, it’s so good to talk to you. And we do need to have a conversation.”
18
Outside the Box
Tristan
Sweat collected on the back of Tristan’s neck.
“Tristan King, it’s so good to talk to you. And we do need to have a conversation.” Mary Varvara Bell’s voice was a rapid alto, a little girlish despite the rasp of maturity. Tristan detected a bit of New Yorker in the word twalk, just like he’d noticed the first time when he’d called to confirm that he’d received the letter and would be doing what they’d told him to.
Tristan spun in the chair and turned his back to where Colleen was talking on her phone. “Yeah, sorry I missed your first call. I was away from my phone.”
“Yes, of course, you were. I would like a progress update on your project.”
“Uh, I’m working on it.”
“That doesn’t inspire much confidence,” she said.
Tristan felt his jaw click and rubbed his cheek to try to reduce the grinding so he wouldn’t pulverize his molars. “I have been gathering information from sources inside GameShack about their operations. I’ve found a particularly knowledgeable source who has intelligence about a chink in their financial armor.”
“And this information source is Colleen Frost?”
The skin on his face and the back of his neck turned cold, and he didn’t answer. “After some critical funding fell through—”
“And why did that funding fall through?” Bell asked.
“My financial planners have been working with GrazBank. It appears that the Butorin bratva influenced GrazBank to decline my loans so they could put in a competitive offer. They meant it to be an offer I couldn’t refuse, but I escaped the kidnapping attempt.”
“Oh, you poor dear.” Her offhand comment held no sympathy. “But the Butorins should not have been bothering you.”
“I don’t think they got that memo.”
“I’ll look into that. In the meantime, I have not seen much movement in the stock price of GameShack.”
“It’s fluctuating within its normal range. It’s pretty hard to buy a bunch of a stock, which creates demand for it, and simultaneously depress the price.”
“So, have you begun the stock purchases?”
“Not as such.”
A slap echoed through the line as if a sheaf of papers had been dropped on a desk. “I do not like the trajectory of this project, Tristan. I have been managing people since I graduated from Wharton with my MBA when I was twenty-four years old, and if there is one thing that I have learned, it’s that sometimes you have to motivate people. Your project needs to wrap up. Instead of six weeks from now for your deadline, I would like this project completed by the end of next week.”
Tristan dropped his voice. “That’s impossible. I’ve been setting up the stock trades and other maneuvers to occur over a three-month time frame. If I try to buy that much GameShack stock in a little over one week, the price will go through the roof as everyone who owns some raises their asking price to see what they can get for it. There would be no way to drop the stock price to where you want it.”
“All that is your problem, not mine. Be creative. Think outside the box.”
Tristan’s stomach churned at the platitudes, and the sugary cereal he’d eaten turned acidic. “Is there any way you could convince the Butorins to back off of GrazBank and us? That funding was crucial for the overall plan.”
“I’ll see what I can do about the Butorins, but GrazBank is probably a lost cause. Banks get skittish if they think you’re on the wrong side, and their friends, the Butorins, seem to have told them that they shouldn’t do business with you. Once they have that impression, it’s hard to change their mind, even for us.”
“I’ll need to secure a different source of funding, then.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out. After all, you have much motivation. Not only would you lose everything that you have worked so very hard for over the years, but things could get very dangerous for you and your informant inside GameShack.”
No.
The freezing chill on Tristan’s neck engulfed his body. “What’s the long game here? I feel like GameShack is part of a larger puzzle. If other projects are ongoing and I’m operating in the dark, there’s a chance we’ll trip over each other.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that, Tristan. You have enough to think about, what with you and Colleen Frost being so involved in this little conundrum. You keep an eye on your problems, and I’ll handle the rest. I’ll expect the GameShack stock price to be less than one US dollar one week from Friday, and I’ll contact you with a link for you to transfer the agreed-upon amount of stock to White Holdings, Inc. Goodbye, Tristan.”
Tristan tapped his phone to end the call. He missed the red dot, so he fumbled and had to press it again to hang up. White Holdings, Inc.?
When he turned in the chair, Colleen stood almost directly in front of him, her hands braced on her hips. “That sounded bad.”
Tristan nodded. “Yeah, it was bad.”
And he needed to figure out how bad it was before he told Colleen anything about it.
“Um, we have to pull it together for a few minutes because Anjali is almost here with my computer monitor. She called me while she was already driving over.”