What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright (most read books txt) 📗

usually for a small profit, and boom. As I said, this is called parking and it’s illegal.”

“If it’s illegal, why would Reinfeld tell McKenzie his plans?”

“He didn’t tell McKenzie his plans. That’s just me figuring it out. He told McKenzie that he and the three others each owned just under five percent of the stock because McKenzie told him that he had four-point-seven percent of the stock and Reinfeld thought that meant McKenzie was on his side.”

“Wait. McKenzie owns four-point-seven percent of KTech stock?” Shipman asked.

“Oh hell no. Four-point-seven percent of McKenzie’s net worth is in KTech. It’s inappropriate for me to tell you that, privacy rules and all, but I don’t think he would mind.”

“Thank you, Lord. McKenzie rich is a pain in the ass. Superrich he would be insufferable.”

“Actually, I’ve always found him to be a pretty nice guy and I don’t know that many nice guys.”

H. B. delivered the compliment as if she were challenging Shipman to contradict her. Instead, Shipman said, “It’s complicated,” and let it go at that.

“For argument’s sake,” she said, “let’s assume that Reinfeld thought McKenzie owned four-point-seven percent of the stock and tried to enlist him in his scheme only to discover later that McKenzie didn’t own four-point-seven percent of the stock…”

“I’d think he’d be very upset, wouldn’t you, believing that he had revealed valuable insider information to some sort of corporate spy? At best, McKenzie could use the information to enrich himself. At worst, he could take it to the King family. Or the SEC. In any case, Reinfeld and his plans would be compromised.”

“Not if McKenzie was dead.”

“Yeah, well, there’s more,” H. B. said.

“More?”

“McKenzie told me that he told Reinfeld that even if they—meaning Reinfeld and McKenzie—vacuumed up all of the outstanding shares in the company, the King family would still be the majority stockholders and could squash any plans they might have. Reinfeld told McKenzie, not if one of the Kings was willing to flip.”

“Flip?”

“Vote with Reinfeld and the other minority stockholders.”

“Against their own people?”

“It’s been done before.”

“Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.”

FOURTEEN

“What happened next?” Greg Schroeder asked.

Reinfeld began to pace slowly, his hands behind his back, careful not to cross the shaft of light to Schroeder’s side of the office.

“We chatted about this and that,” he said. “Mostly about the King family. McKenzie said that he thought the Kings were very secretive. I told him I couldn’t agree or disagree. I had never met any of the Kings.”

Schroeder couldn’t see Reinfeld’s eyes. He didn’t know if they were darting back and forth or if he was blinking rapidly or if Reinfeld had closed his eyes for more than a second or two before answering. Yet the way he kept looking upward to his left as if he was accessing his imagination instead of his memory, Schroeder was convinced that he was lying. Or at least holding something back.

“It was about then that the doors to the auditorium finally opened and we followed the rest of the shareholders inside,” Reinfeld said.

Reinfeld and McKenzie secured seats in the second to last row near the door, sitting side by side. The auditorium was well lit, although the stage was dark. After a few minutes, the auditorium lights dimmed and the stage lights came up just enough for the audience to see a podium off to the side and a huge screen in the back. The shareholders hushed themselves without being told to. A lone man wearing boots, jeans, and a plaid shirt stepped onto the stage and crossed over to the podium. Applause followed him, yet it seemed to be generated mostly from KTech’s marketing people.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m Porter King, executive vice president responsible for marketing at KTech.”

There was more applause, but he raised his hand to silence it.

“I appreciate that,” he said. “Only none of you came here today to listen to me.”

He turned and gazed at the giant screen which suddenly lit up to reveal a younger man also dressed in plaid. His face was clean-shaven and his blond hair neatly coiffed, yet his eyes had the dull sheen of a man who hadn’t slept for three days. The smile on his haggard face, however, was dazzling.

“Hello, Charles,” Porter said.

Loud, sustained applause followed; half of the shareholders were on their collective feet. Charles King seemed to drink it in like a man dying of thirst who suddenly stumbled upon an oasis.

After a few minutes, Porter raised his hand again to quiet the crowd.

“So what do you have to say for yourself, Charles?” he asked.

“I look like hell,” Charles said. “I feel like hell. But I’m getting better.”

The crowd erupted as if he had just told each shareholder that they were getting a free car and the keys were beneath their seats. Porter let it go a bit longer this time before he signaled for silence.

“As you know, Charles, there has been some speculation as to your health,” he said.

“Let’s put that to rest, shall we, Porter? My health sucks and has sucked for the past couple of weeks. At first, I thought it was the cupcakes my niece and her roommate had baked for me. I have since been assured by the world’s finest medical minds that what I have is a particularly virulent case of the flu. The real flu, not coronavirus. I was tested. I do not have COVID-19. What I do have is a fever that becomes the chills and then the fever beats me up again. My throat is sore, my nose is runny, my muscles ache, my head throbs, and I’m exhausted, mostly from running to the bathroom every twenty minutes. Which isn’t that big a deal when you think about it. I’ve been reliably informed that about eight percent of the population gets the flu every year. It was just my turn. The problem is that we live in a particularly media-conscious world, both social and otherwise. Whenever anything unexpected happens, the conspiracy theorists at TMZ and