Chapter 77 : Futures & Options

 

I felt that I really had to talk to Freddie before I made a decision. I mean he had brought me into the business, albeit in a rather underhand way, and he’d given me a lot of support. He’d arranged for us to meet at the club where he’d first suggested that I might join his team.

 

As I walked in I saw Colonel Snell in his wheelchair scooting across the lobby in the direction of the lift. He skidded the chair to a halt and swang around to face me. “Garry!” he boomed (a memory for names and indeed discretion, I suspect were not his strongest attributes). “Good to see you, young man. Clegg’s leant me a couple of rooms here while I’m in town.”

 

“Hullo,” I said. “how are things in the colonies?”

 

Snell grinned conspiratorially. “As they should be, young man, as they should be! Here, help me up to my room, will you?”

 

I thought he was well able to manage but he seemed keen for me to accompany him. I pushed his chair into the lift. He prodded the button for the fourth floor with the end of his walking stick. The ancient lift gave a shudder and started upwards with a whine of an electric motor and a hiss of cable. It stopped at the fourth floor without taking the trouble to slow down first. Snell’s chair bounced and fell back with a thump. He didn’t seem bothered. I pushed him out of the lift and took the route indicated by the gestures of his stick down the corridor. Confronted by one of the club’s room maids, he waved her aside with the stick. “Stand clear, girl,” he bellowed. “Coming through!”

 

The suite that Clegg had provided for Snell was comfortably appointed but its main feature was the tableau provided by the three helpless members of Snell’s colonial harem. Mylene was there, tied kneeling by the side of Basher’s bed; naked from the waist up, mouth wrenched wide by a Hodgkinson gag. Ropes tied around the base of her tits had forced them into the shape of distended globes; the nipples bruised and reddened. On Basher’s bedside table were the implements responsible for the tortured look of her tits, clamps, pinchers and a pair of pin wheels. Basher wheeled across to beside Mylene. She squealed at his approach. He responded by widening her gag another notch. “I fear your team just took another three wickets, my dear,” he said, causing her to squeal more and wriggle against the ropes that held her; she evidently knew that good news for the Australian cricket team was bad news for her. “You’ll have to take the consequences of that in a little while.”

 

Kneeling on the other side of the bed, Angie, the Canadian, was trussed to a wooden frame. She was still wearing a short white dress like that all the girls had been dressed in when they were in the International House; after a few weeks of wear, it was now dirty and torn. Although ropes held her firmly against the frame her arms stretched out across the bed, her wrists shackled and joined by a short length of chain. From the way she was positioned and the array of oils, gels and creams on the table beside her, it was obvious that Angie’s main role was to provide Basher with his regular doses of masturbation.

 

A third girl stood beside the bed. Basher waved towards her. “Did you meet my little kiwi?” he said. “Makes a very good little waitress, don’t you, Lucy my dear?” The slight, dark eyed, girl nodded warily, prevented from answering by the ball gag that filled her mouth. Basher turned back towards me, “I’m sure she’ll manage to atone for the faults of her countryman.”

 

“Countryman?” I asked, knowing that this would only lead to another diatribe from the xenophobic Snell.

 

“Jackson, Peter Jackson,” Basher said with a sneer. “Has the nerve to take an English story and high-jack it to the southern hemisphere. Tolkien’s part of our cultural legacy,” he snapped, “what’s a New Zealander doing filming it down there? He should have brought it here. Heaven knows his parents were English! Disgraceful.” He seemed to calm down a little. “Can she get you a drink?”

 

I shook my head, “Sorry Basher, I can’t stop,” I said. “I’m seeing Freddie.”

 

“Fair enough,” said Snell. “Tell him I’m happy with this lot and thanks for the rooms. Now help me up on to the bed, can you?”

 

I leant him my arm and allowed him to lever himself up from his chair and onto the bed. Lucy went to draw the covers over him. He waved his hand. “No, no,” he said. “Just unzip my trousers and put some baby oil on her hands,” he nodded towards the helpless Angie. “I feel in need of a little relaxation before I turn my attentions to Mylene here.”

 

I’ll leave you to it,” I said, waving to Basher. He nodded and lay back on the bed to receive the ministrations of the girls.  

 

I made my way down to the room that Freddie was using. Elly was there too.

 

I explained about the Minister’s offer. I’d expected him to be pretty angry. I mean, I’ve never liked customers poaching my staff. Instead his response was measured, thoughtful. “Hmm,” he said, putting the ball back into my court. “What do you want to do?”

 

“Well, Freddie,” I said. “On the face of it, it’s a great opportunity. I’ve got on well with all the people that I’ve met there and, if I’m blunt, it offers me a lifestyle I couldn’t hope to maintain here. I mean I know you’ve been very supportive over Sukie and Rachel but I’m realistic enough to know that we can’t sustain that sort of indulgence here, even though I enjoy it. On the other hand I would hate to leave Sukie and Rachel here, they depend on me, I think and it seems unkind to walk away from them. Plus, of course, everyone here has been great. I know what it can be like having a new face come in with new ideas but everyone’s been great.”

 

“Brian excepted,” Clegg chipped in. Elly gave him a look that I guessed was intended to say “get over it.”

 

“Yes,” I said, “Brian excepted.”

 

The desert menu appeared. I’m not a fan but Clegg rubbed his hands, summoning up a sticky toffee pudding. Elly raised an eyebrow but joined him by ordering a mango sorbet . “Do you want to hear my take on this,” she said.

 

Clegg turned towards her. “Of course,” he said. I nodded too.

 

“Larry, you’re disposable.”

 

“Well, thanks,” I said, “I know what that means around here.”

 

“No, don’t get me wrong. You’ve put the business on a course. It’s quite capable of following it through. The sales guys are taking an account managed approach now, research support that, the Search & Snatch service is up and running. You’ve done what Freddie brought you in to do.”

 

Clegg looked thoughtful as he weighed Elly’s point. His pudding appeared and provided a distraction.

 

Freddie went on. “Let me give you my view, Larry. I’ve been pretty happy with what you’ve done. But Elly’s right, the business probably doesn’t need someone with your talents now. We could make do with someone less qualified. Probably not even ‘voluntary’ if you know what I mean. In some way’s I’d be happy to see you working for one of our customers and I think you’ve earned the right to make the choice. The only problem is that I had another idea. But if that’s what you want to do…..”

 

I was intrigued. “Another idea?” I asked.

 

“Mmm,” said Freddie. “Do you remember something you talked to me about a while back? You’d hooked up with some girl after a practice run. What was her name?”

 

“Kelly,” I said.

 

“That working?” Freddie asked. I pulled a face. “Uh huh. Oh, well. You said something about there might be an emerging opportunity for ‘voluntary’ slaves; ones we wouldn’t need to abduct.”

 

“Yeah, sure,” I said. My main recollection was that Freddie hadn’t seemed very interested, I hadn’t raised it again until my report of the trip to see Steve and then I imagined it had got forgotten in all the business over Tricia being discovered in the container at Stansted.

 

“Well, I did some thinking about it. There was the feed back from Steve’s meeting and the things that are going on in Kushtia with their cultural programme was interesting too. I think it’s something we need to explore. It could be an opportunity, it could be a threat. Hard to tell yet, I guess. Anyway I wanted to see if we could explore it a bit but I don’t want to do it inside the business. Too many conflicts of interest. I want to set up something at arm’s length. Close enough to keep an eye on it, separate enough for it not to get disrupted by other interests. I thought you might like to run it.”

 

“Run it?” I said. “Me?”

 

“Why not? You have a good grasp of what makes sense and what doesn’t. You can keep the numbers on track. You’d have some support on the financials but you’d have day to day control. You’d report into FCE Group board of course.”

 

“Well it sounds interesting,” I said. “Starting from scratch?”

 

“Not quite. We’ve identified a possible business that we might bring in to the Group to provide us with a starting position,” Elly dumped a folder labelled ‘Project Willing’ on the desk. “Small business set up by an entrepreneurial lawyer in one of the university towns.”

 

“Dreadful what some of these lawyers get up to,” Clegg smirked at Elly.

 

She gave him a look of tolerant amusement. I remembered that was her background too. “She’s got half a dozen girls under contract, small network of clients, interesting approaches to recruitment and promoting the service. I’ve done due diligence on the contracts, they’re pretty solid and they’d allow the owner to novate them in the event of change of ownership of the business.”

 

“So we thought we might make a take over play for them,” said Freddie.

 

Something about the way he said it made me think that his idea of a take over wasn’t quite what the normal practices of corporate governance would encompass. “Freddie, does this ‘take over’ involve the lady entrepreneur finding herself wrapped in rope and enjoying Rick’s hospitality in the Prep Centre?”

 

Freddie looked pained. Elly grinned. “Larry, Larry,” Freddie said, “You know I like to have a controlling interest in things.”

 

“Don’t you think we should try a conversation first? Just to see if she’s interested? She might need the funding, might be grateful of some support.” I saw Elly give Freddie an ‘I told you so’ look.

 

“Do I take it that means you’ll do this?” Freddie said. “Rather than swanning off to Kushtia?”   

 

I picked up the folder and thumbed through it. I had to admit that the idea of running my own operation sounded appealing. “I need Rachel and Sukie for support,” I said.

 

“I think we might be able to do that,” said Freddie.

 

“And we do it legitimately,” Freddie looked uncomfortable, “at least until we’ve come to the conclusion there’s no alternative.”

 

“OK,” said Freddie reluctantly. I saw Elly grin.

 

We had a deal.

 

 

© 2006 Freddie Clegg

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