STAR WARS
Armstrong signed the lease, then passed his pen to Russell, who witnessed the signature.
Lloyd Summers hadn’t stopped grinning since he’d arrived at Trump Tower that morning, and he almost leaped out of his chair when Russell added his signature to the lease on 147 Lower Broadway. He thrust out his hand at Armstrong and said, “Thank you, chairman. I can only say how much I’m looking forward to working with you.”
“And I with you,” said Armstrong, shaking his hand.
Summers bowed low in Armstrong’s direction, then gave a slightly lesser bow to Russell. He gathered up the lease and the draft for $300,000 before turning to leave the room. When he reached the door, he looked back and said, “You’ll never regret it.”
“I fear you might, Dick,” said Russell the moment the door was closed. “What made you change your mind?”
“I didn’t have a lot of choice once I discovered what Townsend was up to.”
“So that’s $3 million down the drain,” said the lawyer.
“Three hundred thousand,” said Armstrong.
“I don’t understand.”
“I may have paid the deposit, but I have absolutely no intention of buying the bloody building.”
“But he’ll issue a writ against you if you fail to complete within the thirty days.”
“I doubt it,” said Armstrong.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because in a couple of weeks’ time you will phone his lawyer and tell him how horrified I was to discover that his client had signed a separate lease on a penthouse apartment above the gallery, having described it to me as an attic.”
“That will be almost impossible to prove.”
Armstrong removed a small cassette from an inside pocket and handed it over to Russell. “It may be easier than you think.”
“But this could well be inadmissible,” said Russell, taking the tape.
“Then you may just have to ask what would have happened to the $600,000 the agents were going to pay Summers over and above the original asking price.”
“He’ll simply deny it, especially as you won’t have completed the contract.”
Armstrong paused for a moment. “Well, there’s always a last resort.” He opened a drawer in his desk and withdrew a dummy front page of the Star. The headline read: “Lloyd Summers Indicted for Fraud.”
“He’ll just issue another writ.”
“Not after he’s read the inside pages.”
“But by the time the trial comes around it will all be ancient history.”
“Not as long as I’m proprietor of the Star, it won’t.”
* * *
“How long will it all take?” asked Townsend.
“About twenty minutes would be my guess,” Tom replied.
“And how many people have you signed up?”
“Just over two hundred.”