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“Hold on a moment. Let me see if I have this straight. Because of this bind you got in, you’re creating another fund to use to bail out—illegally bail out—the ones you took money from to pay artificially inflated returns and to gamble on the market.”

Austin put his hands on his head, closed his eyes, and nodded. He wiped at his tears.

He opened his eyes, and blurted, “I could’ve easily ridden it out if Kenny and Camilla Rose were still alive!”

And then hunched over his big frame, his head in his arms on the counter, and began bawling.

“All I need,” he added after a minute, “all I need is time. I . . . I still can do it.”

Pathetic, Grosse thought, shaking his head in disgust as he looked at him.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Stop conning yourself, Johnny. You don’t have time. With Mason wanting back the investments, it’s over. And wait until the Security and Exchange Commission gets a whiff.” He paused, then jerked his head to look at Austin. “Did Camilla Rose know all about this?”

Austin stood back up from the counter, wincing as he rubbed his right arm. With a shaking left hand, he drained his drink and poured a fresh one.

“Johnny, did she?”

“Not all. She knew I was shorting. But just not to what degree. She was helping me with getting the Future Modular business to where it could be sold. And helping with NextGen.”

“If she had found out she had that much exposure, that much risk, including her kid camps going broke . . . my God. What the hell were you thinking, Johnny?”

Austin met his eyes.

“I thought—no, I knew, because I already had been on a roll—that I was going to recover, get a windfall to make up for what Mason cheated her out of. Leverage the Morgan philanthropy money into a big payout that she could use to build more camps in other countries, like she wanted.” He sighed, adding, “We were so close to telling that Mason to go fuck himself!”

Grosse was stunned at the depth of damage Austin had caused.

Grosse sipped his drink, and said, “I’m afraid to ask, but what about that hundred grand in cash that Payne brought up?”

“That’s just chump change,” Austin said. “It’s grease to keep the union guys from squeaking.”

“You’re paying off the unions?”

“Have to,” Austin said.

“What unions?”

Austin gave a brief explanation of his relationship with Willie Lane and Lane’s close involvement with Joseph Fitzpatrick.

“We don’t have union workers at the Future Modular plant in Miami,” he explained. “And when we built the new plant up in Bucks County that’s assembling the units for the hospital and the Chinatown condos, we brought in our own skilled laborers.”

“Who aren’t union?”

Austin nodded. “The higher cost difference would’ve been huge. We were stuck—and took a huge hit—using union workers to build the hospital and condo. But for the modular plant, it was cheaper paying off Joey Fitz and promising more later. Otherwise, they might’ve done a work stoppage, or even sabotaged the building worksites. I mean, they’re already pissed off that the buildings’ steel is coming from Korea, and that China’s supplying all the materials for the modular units.”

Austin drained his drink, then stared out at the balcony.

“A couple hundred grand doesn’t seem to really matter now, though,” he said, reaching for the bottle and realizing that it was empty.

Grossed watched as Austin looked toward the bar.

“More booze is not going to help anything,” Grosse said. “The problems will still be here tomorrow.”

Austin glared at him.

“I need to think about all this,” Grosse went on, “and plan on what, if anything, I can do. I’m going to bed, Johnny. I suggest you do the same. And now.”

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