Chapter 21: The Price

Elias read the lenders' notice three times standing up in his own office.

His chief financial officer stood on the other side of the desk, tall and grey and sorry, with a printout in both hands.

"Lakefront Capital bought all of it on Friday," she said. "Every note we owe. The whole stack, at par."

"Who is Lakefront Capital?"

"A shell, registered two weeks ago in Delaware. It has a post office box and a wire."

"And Friday is the due date."

"Friday is the due date." She laid the paper on the blotter.

"We're good for forty million, if we sell the Denver hotel. We're not good for two hundred."

Elias walked to the window.

Twenty floors down, the river lay flat and brown under the bridges.

He had built this company from a rented table in a laundromat.

He had built it so that no man could ever again take it out of his hands with a signature.

He had been right about the second half.

It was a wire this time, and a shell.

"Find out whose money bought the notes," he said.

"I'm trying."

"Try faster."

His desk phone rang, the private line that very few people had.

He knew who it was before he picked up.

"Elias," Otto said. "Good morning."

"You've had a bad week."

"I've had a clarifying week." Otto's voice was bright and easy. "I'm calling about the notes."

"I assumed."

"There's a clean way out. You withdraw. You stay away from the twenty-sixth, and you stay away from Margot."

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