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

The New York Times go nuts. If you believe what you read on Twitter, I died a week ago. Or was it yesterday? ’Course, I’m just as much to blame for this as anyone. The SEC was right. I tweet way too much.”

There was some snickering at that.

“Honestly,” Charles said. “If I had known the state of my health was going to cause so much concern, I would have shown up at the annual meeting last week and infected you all.”

Charles leaned toward the camera and coughed twice.

“Sometimes I wish I had,” he said. “I hate suffering alone.”

“I, for one, am glad you didn’t,” Porter said.

“I’m sorry for causing you all so much concern. On the other hand, having so many people freaking out because I can’t keep my lunch down is kind of cool. It makes me feel important.”

“You are important,” Porter said.

“Not that important. Let’s address the elephant that wandered into the room when my temperature reached a hundred and one degrees, shall we? KTech isn’t just me, although it’s my face you see whenever you turn on Bloomberg or CNBC. We have a lot of outstanding operating managers working for this great company; you heard from a couple of them last week during my absence. People who are one hundred percent prepared to assume responsibility for KTech’s future in case of our departure, either by natural causes or the SEC.”

There was a smattering of laughter that followed Charles’s joke, although not much.

“It would be irresponsible to our company, to our employees and business partners, and to all of you who have invested your hard-earned money in KTech not to have plans in place to replace our leadership. A plan of succession, if you will. I call it the AYFKM plan, as in Are You Fucking Kidding Me? Excuse my language.”

The way the audience laughed and applauded, apparently they had.

“Now understand, I don’t expect this plan to kick in until—how old is Warren Buffett? Ninety? How old is Charles Munger? Ninety-six? So, please, while I appreciate the outpouring of concern, we got this.”

The audience erupted again. When Porter managed to get it settled down, he said “We’ll let you go now, Charles. Drink plenty of fluids.”

“Wait,” Charles said. “Don’t you want to hear about our plans to educate driverless cars?”

More laughter and applause followed before Charles launched into an exploration of artificial intelligence and the way people actually drive which, according to him, only occasionally reflected existing traffic laws …

“Then what?” Schroeder asked.

“McKenzie leaned toward me and asked ‘What do you think?’” Reinfeld said. “I told him that I thought it was a very good performance, worthy of a hustler of Charles King’s caliber, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw KTech Tower.”

“Why not?”

Reinfeld looked up to his left again before answering.

“Just a hunch,” he said.

“What happened next?” Schroeder asked.

“Something odd took place.”

“Odd?”

“McKenzie kept leaning toward me as if he wanted to ask something else…”

They had moved so smoothly and so quietly that neither Reinfeld nor McKenzie realized they were there until they sat down: two very large, very well-dressed men. One sat next to McKenzie and gazed at the image of Charles King on the giant monitor as if it were the only thing that held his interest. The other found a seat directly behind McKenzie. He leaned forward and rested a heavy hand on McKenzie’s shoulder.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

Reinfeld could tell that McKenzie was agitated yet was trying hard not to show it.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “It took you long enough.”

The large man next to McKenzie turned his head as if he had just been insulted.

“What?” he said.

“I had thought you guys would have gathered me up when I signed in to get my meeting pass,” McKenzie said.

“We had other concerns.”

“I’m sure that’s it.”

The man sitting behind him gripped McKenzie’s shoulder enough to make him wince.

“Our employers wish to meet with you,” he said.

“That’s why I came.”

“Please, don’t make a scene. We wouldn’t want to disrupt the meeting.”

“Of course not. After all, I own stock in the company.”

“Eighteen hundred shares, we know.”

“What?” Reinfeld spoke loud enough to be heard several rows away. “Eighteen hundred shares? I thought…” He ceased speaking when he noticed that people were looking at him.

“Mr. Reinfeld, please,” the large man said.

“Have you met Justus Reinfeld?” McKenzie said.

The man tightened his grip on McKenzie’s shoulder.

“You told me you owned four-point-seven percent of KTech stock,” Reinfeld said.

“I said that four-point-seven percent of my net worth is in KTech stock.”

“That is not what you said.”

“Maybe not those exact words…”

“Why is that important?” Greg Schroeder asked.

“It’s not,” Reinfeld replied. “Just some confusion…”

The two large men must have sent a private signal to each other because they both stood in unison.

“Mr. McKenzie,” one of them said.

McKenzie rose reluctantly.

“See you around, Justus.” He spoke loudly enough for people to turn and gaze at him. It was as if McKenzie wanted them to see him being escorted from the auditorium by two security guards …

“Are you sure they were security?” Schroeder asked.

“Who else?” Reinfeld said.

“Where did they take him?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did you see McKenzie again?”

“No.”

“You did contact him, however.”

“Did I?”

“The police found your private number on McKenzie’s cell.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Reinfeld said. “I called him. I called to ask what happened after he was led away.”

“What did McKenzie say?”

“He said that he couldn’t speak right then, that he had something important that he needed to do, and that he would get back to me later.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“He was lying,” Schroeder said. He was sitting in his car in a parking lot across the street from the Ruth’s Chris Steak House in downtown Minneapolis and speaking to Commander Dunston on his cell phone; Detective Shipman listening in. “According to your FSU, the call lasted six minutes. It wouldn’t have taken McKenzie that long to say he’d call right back.”

“I agree,” Bobby said.

“Considering H. B. Sutton’s theory of what Reinfeld is up to,” Shipman said, “I can’t believe he would call McKenzie just