"Bruce Holland Rogers - An Eye For Acquisitions" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

"What about the shareholders? You've done background checks on them as well?"
"I've run into brick walls," Edwards said. "It's the same story over and over. You wouldn't believe the
places where holders of small lots live. Tiny villages in Africa and South America. On the other hand,
you've got big industrialists in Germany and Spain, people of Moscarón's stature and much bigger, and all
of them are as opaque as can be. If my people meet them, they won't talk, and their neighbors won't talk.
I can't get squat."
"For three million dollars, that's what you give me? Less than squat?"
Edwards held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I'm as frustrated as you are, Mr. Vriner."
"Not yet, you aren't, Edwards. From now on, you're off retainer. Get out of my office." Edwards
stood.
"Don't do this," Siegel said feebly. "Logan is the best in the business."
"The best investigator in the business," Vriner said, "would bring me useful information about my
opponent. For that matter, the best investment banker in the business, which you used to be, would be
finding his own ways to stop Moscarón."
"Short of a self-tender," Siegel said, "what can we do? We know this is a tidal-wave open-market
assault by a whole bunch of coordinated buyers."
"Don't hand me excuses," Vriner said. "Give me results!"
But things got worse. Two loyal members of Vriner's board of directors died of sudden illnesses, and
another, Greg McCarthy, moved to call an emergency meeting to rewrite the corporate charter.
"Rewrite it for what?" Vriner said.
"To rescind your golden parachute, Leonard. I think it's pretty much unanimous that we're a company
with hardened arteries."
"You can't dump me! I'll sue your ass!" Then, more gently and reasonably, Vriner said, "I founded this
company, Greg."
"Things change," McCarthy told him.
Moscarón wouldn't answer his phone. Time after time, Vriner would call WWWSS, talk to a
receptionist, and then be transferred to a phone that rang forever. Vriner thought of leaving a message,
but that would put the ball in Moscarón's court. He decided to see the man in person, to catch him off
guard if possible, though he wasn't sure of exactly what his approach would be if he could get through to
him. Negotiate a compromise? Beg for mercy?
He went in the early evening when shadows were lengthening and the streetlights were coming on. As
before, the lobby of WWW Service and Supply was empty.
Vriner took the elevator up. There was no receptionist in the outer office. The door to Moscarón's
inner sanctum was unlocked.
A fire crackled in the fireplace, and the room again smelled of a sickly smoke. Moscarón was
nowhere to be seen.
A shadow moved in the corner-- the owl on its perch. Vriner steeped towards it for a closer look. The
owl turned at the sound of his approach, and Vriner squinted into the dark to see it better. There was
something strange about the animal, but it the half light, it was hard to say exactly-- Vriner stepped back.
The bird had no eyes. Where its eyes should have been, there were only empty sockets. Vriner turned
away from Moscarón's repulsive pet, and when he did, he saw the yellowed orbs that sat in a dish on
Moscarón's desk.
There was no mistaking them, or what they came from.
They were eyes. Human eyes the color of pond scum, turned up on the dish so that they seemed to be
looking at him.
What he did next wasn't rational, and even as he did it, Vriner knew that he should probably leave the
things alone. But he wanted them out of his sight, out of his memory. Retching, Vriner picked up the dish
and carried the eyes to the fire. He threw them in and heard them pop and hiss in the flames.
Moscarón's call came the next morning. "I'd like to come by for a chat with you and your banker," he
said. "Say at three?"