The Last Don - Mario Puzo [21]
As he went out Bantz said after him, “Your people didn’t help at the Academy Awards. They were sleeping on their fucking feet.”
Pollard did not take offense. This was vintage Bantz.
“Those were just crowd-control guards,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll put my top crew around Miss Aquitane.”
In twenty-four hours Pacific Ocean Security computers had everything on Boz Skannet. He was thirty-four years old, a graduate of Texas A&M, where he had been Conference All-Star running back and then gone on to one season of professional football. His father owned a bank in Houston, but more important, his uncle ran the Republican political machine in Texas and was a close personal friend of the president. Mixed into all of this was a lot of money.
Boz Skannet was a piece of work in and of himself. As a vice president in his father’s bank, he had narrowly escaped indictment in an oil lease scam. He had been arrested for assault six times. In one case he had beaten two police officers so severely they had to be hospitalized. Skannet was never prosecuted because he paid damages to the officers. There was a sexual harassment charge settled out of court. Before all this he had been married at twenty-one to Athena and had become the father of a baby girl the next year. The child was named Bethany. At age twenty, his wife disappeared with their daughter.
All this gave Andrew Pollard a picture. This was a bad guy. A guy who carried a grudge against his wife for ten years, a guy who fought armed police officers and was tough enough to send them to the hospital. The chances of scaring such a guy were nil. Pay him the money, get the contract signed, and stay the hell out of it.
Pollard called Jim Losey, who was handling the Skannet case for the Los Angeles PD. Pollard was in awe of Losey, who was the cop he would have liked to become. They had a working relationship. Losey received a handsome gift every Christmas from Pacific Ocean Security. Now Pollard wanted the police dope, wanted to know everything Losey had on the case.
“Jim,” Pollard said, “Can you send me an info sheet on Boz Skannet? I need his address in L.A. and I’d like to know more about him.”
“Sure,” Losey said. “But the charges against him have been dropped. What are you in this for?”
“Protection job,” Pollard said. “How dangerous is this guy?”
“He’s fucking crazy,” Losey said. “Tell your bodyguard team that if he gets close they should start shooting.”
“You’d arrest me,” Pollard said, laughing. “It’s against the law.”
“Yeah,” Losey said, “I’d have to. What a fucking joke.”
Boz Skannet was staying in a modest hotel on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, which worried Andrew Pollard because it was only a fifteen-minute drive to Athena’s house in Malibu Colony. He ordered a four-man team to guard Athena’s house and put a two-man team into Skannet’s hotel. Then he arranged to meet with Skannet that afternoon.
Pollard took three of his biggest and toughest men with him. With a guy like Skannet you never knew what might happen.
Skannet let them into his hotel suite. He was affable, greeted them with a smile, but did not offer any refreshment. Curiously enough, he was wearing a tie, shirt, and jacket, perhaps to show that after all he was still a banker. Pollard introduced himself and his three bodyguards, all three showing their Pacific Ocean Security IDs. Skannet grinned at them and said, “You guys are sure big. I’ll bet a hundred bucks I can kick the shit out of any one of you in a fair fight.”
The three bodyguards, well-trained men, gave him small acknowledging smiles, but Pollard deliberately took offense. A calculated umbrage. “We’re here to do business, Mr. Skannet,” he said. “Not to endure threats. LoddStone Studios is prepared to pay you fifty thousand down right now and twenty thousand a month for eight months. All you have to do is leave Los Angeles.” Pollard took the contracts and the big green-and-white check out of his briefcase.
Skannet studied them. “Very simple