Secret Prey

can. I’m not sure if the idiot knows he’s out of it, but he’s got to find out sometime.’’
    ‘‘From you? Do you think that’s smart? He might be insulted.’’
    O’Dell shook her head: ‘‘Has to be done. I’ve got to get to him before Bone, and I can make him an offer Bone can’t.’’
    ‘‘What?’’ Wyte asked.
    ‘‘I’m president and CEO, but he’s board chairman. Talking is what he does best anyway. In a couple of years, when the bank’s mine . . .’’ She flipped a hand dismissively. ‘‘. . . he can go away.’’
    ‘‘Why couldn’t Bone offer him—’’ Compton stopped herself, shook her head. ‘‘Sorry. Stupid question. If Bone gets it, the bank’s gonna go away.’’
    BONE TOLD BAKI TO COORDINATE A GRAPHICS PACKAGE on how much money would be available through the merger: he would provide the details. ‘‘If you do this right, Kerin, and by that I mean if you do this perfectly . . .’’ ‘‘What?’’ Kerin Baki was like a piece of blond ironwood, he thought, brutally efficient, great to look at, but cold. Distant. A Finn, he’d heard. Sometimes she was so chilly he could feel the frost coming off her. He couldn’t see her with a southern boy, but thought she might go well with somebody like, say, Davenport.
    ‘‘You’ll be the most important person in the bank, since I can’t do shit without you.’’ She disapproved of extraneous vulgarities, which is why he sometimes used them. And what she did next surprised him—almost shocked him. She sat down across his desk and crossed her legs. Good legs. Maybe even great legs.
    ‘‘I hope you’ve talked with the board members. Privately, I mean,’’ she said.
    ‘‘I’ve started . . .’’
    ‘‘You’ve got to do better than start,’’ she said. ‘‘This is a campaign, not a party.’’
    ‘‘Well, I’ll—’’
    ‘‘Have you talked to McDonald?’’
    ‘‘No. He’s out of it . . .’’
    ‘‘I know. But he’s got friends on the board. He can possibly throw them to O’Dell. So you’ve got to talk to McDonald and do it soon. Call Spacek at Midland and find out if they can find some kind of figurehead job for him after the merger. Vice chairman of the merged banks, or something . . .’’
    Bone nodded: ‘‘Good idea. I’ll do that.’’ He looked at her, gauging the change in their relationship, then took the step: ‘‘What else?’’ he asked.
    ‘‘I’ve only got one more thing—well, two more things. First, your old pal Marcus Kent works for O’Dell.
    Everything you tell him goes to her.’’
    Bone’s eyebrows went up. ‘‘Since when?’’
    ‘‘Since he decided he wanted your job, which was about two minutes after you hired him.’’
    ‘‘Little asshole,’’ Bone grumbled, not particularly surprised. ‘‘I’ll take care of him later. You said two things. What’s the other one?’’
    ‘‘I want you to do me a favor.’’
    ‘‘Sure. What?’’
    ‘‘I’ll tell you when you’re given the job. All you have to do now is promise to do me a favor.’’
    ‘‘You mean . . . blind? You won’t tell me what favor?’’
    She nodded. She was so serious, so cool, so remote, that he nodded in return. ‘‘All right. I hate to do it blind, but if it’s anything like rational, I’ll do you a favor.’’
    She nodded once again, quickly, ticking the commitment off some mental list.
    ‘‘I mean, money? A title?’’ he asked.
    ‘‘I’ll tell you later,’’ she said. And for a fraction of a second, he thought she almost smiled. ‘‘Now: I can get a graphics guy to actually put our presentation together, but we might also want some kind of short video presentation from Midland, from Spacek himself, probably. That means we’ll need to check the VCR up in The Room.’’
    Bone slapped his forehead: ‘‘That’s great. I’ll talk to Spacek as soon as we’re done here.’’ He looked at his watch: ‘‘Plenty of time.’’
    ‘‘What else?’’ she asked.
    ‘‘I need to talk to a guy named Gerry Nicolas. Today. He runs the state pension fund, I don’t know the formal name.’’
    ‘‘I’ll get it,’’ she said. ‘‘May I ask why? Just so I can stay current and see how you’re thinking?’’
    Oddly enough, Bone thought, he trusted her: ‘‘Because his constituents don’t know anything about the stock market, but they know he hasn’t gotten them fifteen percent on their money this year, and they want to know why. He’s feeling