66
MIGUEL'S GRILL, SAN DIEGO
MIGUEL'S GRILL, SAN DIEGO
Miguel's was one of those ever so tasteful semi-gay/straight restaurants which dot the landscape in Southern California. It was a high end road house forty-five minutes up the coast from San Diego and the Headquarters of Buck Stratton Ministries. Andy Rosenthal and Ted Harper met here to enjoy the privacy of the place and the very high probability that neither Stratton nor his weasel-like security chief, Claude Swackheimer. would ever darken the door.
Stratton would stay away because the place had a little class. That would frighten the insecure little maniac more than a thousand sinners with pitch forks and torches. Swackheimer on the other hand had already demonstrated that he had no compunctions about bugging the homes of employees or even parking his "surveillance van" across the street from their houses for days on end. The security Chief had paranoid visions of starting his own version of the Nazi SS. Swackheimer was one of those men who would joyfully do his job without even getting a salary. It had become his life. He had no other personality or character beyond Chief of Security. Stratton was stupid and consequently distrusted everyone, most all the very people he had to rely on the most. Swackheimer's paranoia was a lens through which the vast monetary resources of the Ministry could pass, creating out of nothing a world of imagined threats which merited excessive measures.
The two had perfected a scheme to move files out of the headquarters. It was common knowledge that Swackheimer was watching Rosenthal. Stratton's general lack of faith in every one of his employees was increased in the case of Rosenthal because he was a Jew. The spy cameras which were hidden all through the place monitored every move of the accountant with the utmost attention. Harper on the other hand was viewed as suspicious but not particularly dangerous. The security provision within the Ministry had the same Mad Hatter approach as everything else about it.
It was exactly through this loophole in the scheme of investing the rather large capital base of the operation that Harper and Rosenthal had managed to drag several millions to their own good. Buck Stratton was a megalomaniac who didn't realize that people who lived most of their lives in broken down house trailers should take the advice of financial experts for investments. The Ministry had already lost a fortune with investment ideas Buck had found in magazines and matchbooks.
Andy had already drunk too much by the time Ted Harper arrived. He was sitting in the last booth of the bar absently watching the characters of the place act out the night's scene. "S'bout time you got here. Did you have to stay late to get a chance to carry that stuff out?"
"Yeah, but I've got it all right here. You can do whatever the hell you want with it while I catch up." Harper turned to catch the attention of the bartender. He held up two fingers to start the process.
"Two double vodka martinis on the way, Mr. Harper." The bartender answered without dropping stride.
"These are the asset distribution releases to his six phony companies that he signed this afternoon. What good are they going to do us? I still don't see how this is working. I mean, I know it is working, I just don't see how." The martini began to sweep away the events of day a bit.
"Well, Ted my boy," Rosenthal slurred in parody of Stratton, "most folks screw up embezzlement 'cuz they try to convert somebody else's dough to something liquid enough to steal. We don't have to do it that way. We're bypassing the middleman and passing the stealings on to ourselves!"
"I don't even know for sure what we've got, Andy." Ted Harper had concern in his voice.
"Well, this afternoon that little weasel was signing assets over to holding companies. We were actin' like it was purchase orders, but actually he was transferring stock ownership from the Ministry to his off-shore accounts. He told me to always make it look like he was signing something else. Those damned cameras can't read the print when papers are sitting on the table in that main conference room -- too much glare." Andy Rosenthal was taking a distinct delight in explaining these details to his partner.
"Stratton can't read. He can make it through a financial statement 'cause he can understand numbers. But when it comes to understanding transfer and ownership documents he's lost." Rosenthal continued. "Sure he's stealing the money from the Ministry and putting it in his little secret corporations, but two or three months ago, while he was signing everything I put in front of him, he transferred the stock of one of his little corporations to one of our little corporations. We own it. It's just sitting there in the Bank of the Bahamas crankin' interest to the tune of twenty thousand a week. Plus, he's still making deposits!"
"How illegal is that, Andy? I mean we're talking some big bucks here." Ted Harper said as he finished his first martini. "I don't exactly look forward to a prison marriage in my future."
"Harper, just cool it. The money is ours, at least it belongs to a couple of corporations that are ours. The little weasel just gave it to us. There's no way he can take it back. In fact, if we don't bag our cut now he could lose the whole shootin' match before we have a chance to steal our share. The guy is falling apart." Rosenthal
"I couldn't agree more, Andy. The sermon today wasn't that bad, but yesterday it was awful, totally disconnected. If his audience were anyone but a bunch of half-witted lunatics, they would switch back to Oprah. It's worse when he quotes scriptures. Where does he get that stuff?" Ted Harper, unlike Andy, as Stratton's aide, was more or less forced to sit through the broadcast sermons everyday.
"I've been thinking, Ted. This old golden goose isn't gonna' go on forever. The radio ministry may not last as long as the anti-Christ. The whole thing is a money-mill. As long as the wheels keep turnin' we prosper. When all those folks' finally get tired of listening to this worn out drunken preacher and go on to the next idiotic bauble that catches their fancy, we're going to be able to step out of this mess and retire. And I mean retire well." Andy Rosenthal held Buck Stratton in loathsome disgust.
Harper finished another drink, leaning over the table toward his friend as if to tell him a secret. "I say we do everything we can to keep Buck going as long as possible. The problem he has with sermons is that he can't read. Once he gets started he just sort of rambles on and on. When he quotes scripture, he quotes a scripture he knows whether it goes with the sermon or not."
"I've been thinking about getting him a ghost writer, you know, a speech writer, but what's the guy gonna' do with a written speech? He's too stupid to learn it ahead of time and parrot it back in his broadcast. And he damned sure isn't going to be able to read it from a teleprompter 'cause he can't read a word." Ted Harper had been afraid to suggest this to Stratton. The preacher thought his lack of literacy was a well kept secret, making him especially sensitive on the issue.
"Do you think he would go for something like a scriptural consultant? You know, you could act concerned about the little twit, about how tired he is and that maybe he could use some help. Then we can corral some carpet baggin' Baptist lookin' to make a name for himself in the great state of California, hire him on and make him Stratton's little helper in the sermon factory." Andy Rosenthal could always conjure up a fertile scheme of business savvy coupled with a startling side of self-serving. "I could hire a man to fill that position faster than I could fall down. That type is like a crowd of zombies outside the gates everyday. They worship Buck Stratton and his radio ministry. It's everything they ever wanted to be."
"I can talk to him, but I don't think he'll go for any of it. Even less if it means having Lolly around yet another man. He totally jealous of her, and he still thinks the little tart lays around in the mansion alone all day. Her latest bed warmer is Swackheimer. I heard she likes it when he keeps his jack boots on. Buck's terrified of her finding a real man and dumpin' him." Ted Harper was impressed with how pitiful and frightened the illiterate little man was in his private life. In his public life he was a true spiritual monster. "I'll bring up the consultant idea when the time is right."
