The Heir by Paul Robertson Read Free Book Online

didn’t believe that. He knew what it took to wield power. It took determination and purpose, and purpose was what I lacked.
    What am I doing here?
    I was hoping for a return to sanity as I descended back through the twenty-third floor, but it didn’t come. The line was gone. I looked for it in the lobby, but there was still no sign of it.
    I walked the few blocks to the steak place George Elias had suggested, and cleared my head with the exercise. Maybe this would be more fun.
    George wasn’t an accountant. He was a major-league investment manager and banker, and it had been his job to shovel Melvin’s cash between vaults whenever one got too full. If the restaurant was expensive, that would mean he managed other people’s investments because he liked being around money. If the place was cheap, that meant he managed other people’s money because they wanted him to.
    It was respectable and an excellent value. I decided to give George a raise.
    I was ten minutes early, and my guess was he would be five minutes early. When he came in at that, on the dot, I was ready to give him another raise. He was thin, or else everybody seemed to me to be thin after two hours with Fred, and he was friendly but very professional.
    “If I’d known beforehand I was going to inherit the estate, I would have made sure I knew more about it,” I said after we’d ordered. Actually, if I’d known beforehand that I was going to inherit, I would have made sure I didn’t. But I was being open-minded. “As it is, I’m pretty much in the dark.”
    “I have some papers,” he said. “Do I remember that your degree from Yale is in business administration?”
    “Don’t take that too seriously.”
    “But you know how to read a balance sheet, and you understand profit and loss, and cash flow statements.”
    “I think I can figure them out.”
    “Then let’s start with the businesses you own.”
    It was not hard to figure out, even for a Yale business major. Through the fog of corporate identities was majority ownership of eleven factories, three construction companies, a trucking company, two distributors—all with over ten thousand direct employees.
    “Now, these are your other major investments.”
    Lots of stock in the newspaper and Channel Six, in retail chains, hotels, banks, and a little more in anything else there was. And it was all local, everything based inside the state. Through four different real estate holding companies, I owned half the skyline. I owned the building Fred’s office was in, I owned the company that had built it, I owned the company that had paved the road from there to this restaurant, I owned the trucks that delivered the tables we were sitting at, the distributor the tables came from, the contractor who’d installed the air conditioning.
    The very air we breathed was mine. Well, more or less.
    The balance sheets dealt with some real big numbers, and they weren’t in the debit column. The cash flows looked like Niagara Falls. These were companies that did not keep their market share by cutting costs and competing on price. These were companies that didn’t bother with competing at all. But of course, these businesses did not operate in a normal framework. It would be very important to keep a close working relationship with the governor.
    George handed me the next sheets. “You may be familiar with the personal real estate you own.”
    There was the big house and the townhouse in Washington. He hadn’t used the other houses much, except as knickknack shelves to set Angela in when he wanted to pretend they were vacationing. She’d jet off for a few weeks, and he’d drop in for a couple weekends.
    “And here are a few other assets.”
    The cars, the library, the art.
    “I own a Matisse?”
    George laughed. “Not a significant one. I believe it’s in the Washington townhouse. Most of the art is impressionist and later, but nothing very modern. There are three that are very valuable—a Monet, a