“Know what?” Amanda demanded, irritably.
“About Hickock and us.”
“Who is ‘us’?”
“The Infiltrator.”
“What does Hickock have to do with the Infiltrator?”
“My father-in-law owns sixty-five percent of the paper, I own ten, and Hickock owns the other twenty-five percent.”
Against her will, Amanda’s jaw dropped.
“Surprised, aren’t you?” Peebles asked, smiling.
“You are out of your mind,” Amanda said. “Dick Hickock is a legitimate publisher with half a dozen companies – newspapers, magazines, book publishing, the whole gamut.”
“It’s a broader gamut than you know,” Peebles said. “Hickock has a corporate entity called Window Seat, Limited; the stock is in the name of his wife’s half-brother, Martin Wynne.”
“I didn’t even know she had a half-brother,” Amanda said, interested now.
“Neither does just about anybody else. I doubt if he’ll show up in Dickie’s obituary. Wynne is British, a friend of my father-in-law. The stock is in his name, but believe me, the money is Hickock’s, and Wynne doesn’t make a move without his permission.”
“How very odd.”
“It gets odder; Window Seat owns Personality.”
“That dreadful rag?”
“Dreadful it may be, but it hauls in the bucks, just as the Infiltrator does. There’s more: through two other corporations, Window Seat controls three gay porno magazines.”
“This is incredible; I don’t believe a word of it.”
“I’d say ask Hickock, but I don’t think he’d appreciate it. Window Seat is an offshore corporation, and the profits go straight into Cayman Island accounts, all tax-free. Hickock spends it in Europe; he never brings a dime into the U.S., unless it’s in cash.”
“He does spend a lot of time in Europe,” Amanda admitted. “So does Glynnis.”
“It’s profitable for them to do so.”
“They spend a lot of time at a friend’s château in France.”
“Owned by Window Seat, or an offshoot.”
“What you’re talking about would be a major scandal, if it were known,” Amanda said. “Why haven’t you printed this? After all, scandal is your business.”
“I told you, we’re in bed with Hickock. So are you.”
“Well, I don’t really care about any of this; it’s nothing to do with me.”
“It will be if it ever gets out, and I think that’s what this DIRT business is about.”
“What if it does get out?”
“There would be a major federal investigation, and the IRS would be all over Hickock. Can you imagine what that sort of investigation – not to mention a trial – would do to Hickock’s other interests? The stock in his various companies? He’d be ruined, and he’d take a lot of people down with him. Like you and me.”
Amanda was horrified.
“You’ve just done a new deal with him, haven’t you?”