The Vulture's Game by Lorenzo Carcaterra Read Free Book Online

him.
    “No,” I said. “But you are.”
    I turned away from Scanlon, eased past his lunch guests, and walked quietly out of the restaurant.

EAST HAMPTON, NEW YORK, AUGUST 26, 2002
    7:20 P.M.
    I stared out the window of my uncle’s study, Jimmy next to me. Behind us, sitting at his desk, my uncle was immersed in reading the half-dozen folders I had given him less than an hour earlier. He didn’t look up but waved his hand in the air to get our attention. “The two of you,” he said, “come over on the side where I can see you better.”
    We moved from the window and stopped by the large globe next to the front of his desk.
    “He owes all this money?” Uncle Carlo asked. “To all these banks? You sure on that?”
    “We pulled all his financials,” I said. “I didn’t use any of your bank connections to do it. I wanted to keep you as clear of this as I could. Jimmy dug up some information I would never have been able to find on my own.”
    Uncle Carlo smiled at his son and then looked up at me. “So, run it by me one more time. I want to be clear before I give you my answer.”
    “Scanlon’s maxed out on six buildings and six mortgages,” I said. “The new sites he’s got going up are being funded off borrowed investor money. He’s living the large life, but he’s way behind the ball.”
    “His worst case scenario, then, is he defaults on the mortgages and the banks take his buildings,” Uncle Carlo said. “The construction sites freeze up and his investors are left holding their asses. Guy like him has been at a rodeo like this before. He’ll sit it out a year or two, then come back and hit up a fresh bank and a new crew of investors.”
    “Unless someone comes along and makes a deal with the banks,” I said, looking over at Jimmy and watching him nod in approval. “All of Scanlon’s mortgages get paid off, including the ones he has on two of the buildings his dad left him. In return, the banks freeze him out. No more loans. With his past track record, they would have ample justification to turn him down.”
    “What about the construction sites?” Uncle Carlo asked.
    “An approach is made to each investor,” I said. “They’ll be told that Scanlon’s been using shoddy equipment and skimming off the top, causing his buildings to be unsafe and a potential menace.”
    “Why would they believe any of that?”
    “They might not today,” I said. “But they will after what happens to two of his places next week.”
    “Do I want to know any of that now?”
    “You’ll be happier reading about it in the papers,” I said.
    “Keep going.”
    “The investors are offered three dollars for every one they put in, so long as they walk away from the project and never mention their involvement,” I said. “Once that happens, it leaves whoever has approached the banks and the investors holding all of Scanlon’s properties.”
    “And I’m pretty sure once that happens, our friends in the casino, racetrack, and airline businesses will steer clear of him as well,” Uncle Carlo said.
    “Especially if they are each offered a cut of the New York real estate action,” I said.
    “That still leaves Scanlon access to the drug route,” Uncle Carlo said.
    “It’s the least of our concerns,” I said. “First, you need money to get into that game, and he’ll be pinned in so tight he’ll fall way short. And anyway, that’s a dangerous racket. How long you figure a guy like Scanlon can survive with the machete crowd?”
    Jimmy handed me a note. I read it and handed it back. “Scanlon’s call-girl operations will be the last to go. They can be made to disappear overnight. That’s just a phone call to the right person.”
    Uncle Carlo sat back in his thick leather chair and glanced from me to Jimmy and smiled. “The two of you work this up?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Well, you seem to have touched all the bases,” he said. “Except for one.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Where’s all