hand on the printout. 'The representative was a man named Carew—'
'“Screw Carew”,' said Kendrick, chuckling. 'That was Manny's comment. We bought some sounding devices that didn't work, and they still wanted payment after we sent them back.'
'Drucker Graphics, Boston, the representative a G. R. Shulman. Anything?'
'Gerry Shulman, good man, good service; we worked with them for years. Never a problem.'
'Morseland Oil, Tulsa. The rep was someone named Arnold Stanhope.'
'I told you about him—them.'
'Tell me again.'
'We did preliminary surveying for them in the Emirates. They kept wanting more than they were willing to pay for, and since we were growing, we could afford to drop them.'
'Was there acrimony?'
'Sure, there always is when chisellers find out they can't do business as usual. But there wasn't anything silence couldn't cure. Besides they found some other jokers, a Greek outfit who caught on to them and delivered a survey that must have been made on the floor of the Oman Gulf.'
'Freebooters, every one of you,' said Khalehla, smiling and lowering her hand on the printout. 'Off Shore Investments, Limited, headquarters Nassau, the Bahamas, contact Ardis Montreaux, New York City. They funnelled a lot of capital to you—’
'Which we never touched because it was a sham,' interrupted Evan sharply. 'It better damn well say that there.'
'It says here, “Skip it”.'
'What?'
'I wrote it. It's what you said before, “Skip it”. What's Off Shore Investments, Limited?'
'Was,' corrected Kendrick. 'It was a high class boilerplate operation on the international scale—high class and international but still boilerplate. Build a company up with large Swiss accounts and hot air, then sell off and switch the assets, leaving the buyers with a balloon full of helium.'
'You got mixed up with something like that?'
'I didn't know it was something like that. I was a lot younger and impressed as hell that they wanted to list us as part of their structure… even more impressed with the money they banked for us in Zurich. Impressed, that is, until Manny said let's try to get some, just for the hell of it. He knew exactly what he was doing; we couldn't pull out two francs. Off Shore's signatures controlled all withdrawals, all assignments.'
'A dummy set-up and you were the dummies.'
‘That's it.'
'How did you get involved?'
'We were in Riyadh, and Montreaux flew over and conned me. I hadn't learned that there weren't any shortcuts—not that kind.'
'Ardis Montreaux. Ardis… That's an odd name for a man.'
'Because it's not a man—she's not a man. She's a lot tougher.'
'A woman?'
'Believe it.'
'With your innate scepticism she must have been very persuasive.'
'She had the words. She also wanted our heads when we pulled out; she claimed we were costing them millions. Weingrass asked her whose millions this time.'
'Perhaps we should—’
'Skip it,' Evan broke in firmly. 'She married an English banker and lives in London. She's faded.'
'How do you know?'
Showing minor embarrassment, Kendrick answered quickly and quietly. 'She called me a couple of times… as a matter of
