Chapter 8: Preston's Warning
The Crane Atlantic Lines building on Bay Street had been Silas Crane's second home for forty years. His portrait still hung in the lobby. The receptionist, a girl too young to know his name, asked if he had an appointment.
"Tell Preston Vane his chairman emeritus would like a word," Silas said.
Preston's office held the best view of the Savannah River in the building. He rose when Silas entered, all polished teeth and tailored gray.
"Silas." He spread his arms. "You look thin. Are you eating?"
"I'm eating." Silas closed the door. "Preston, I want to talk about December of 2014."
Something flickered behind Preston's eyes, quick as a gull's shadow. "That's a long time back."
"Two hundred thousand dollars back. A cashier's check from an account you controlled. Made out to Dale Reyes."
Preston's smile did not move. "I'm the CFO of a shipping line. I write checks the way other men breathe. You want me to recall one from twelve years ago?"
"I want you to explain why my dead daughter's husband got two hundred thousand dollars of company money the month my grandson was born."
"The month your daughter died," Preston said gently. "You must be exhausted. Diane Frye told the board you've hired an investigator, that you're petitioning the court for some street boy. Silas, I say this as a friend. Are you well?"
"I've never been better."
"Then let me be blunt." Preston came around the desk and sat on its edge, looming, avuncular. "A homeless boy shows up with a story and a ring that could have come from anywhere. You are a grieving old man with a famous name and a fortune. Connect the dots. He's playing you."
"He's twelve."
"Twelve-year-olds can be taught anything by the right uncle." Preston's voice was silk over steel. "That ring, Silas. Have you considered it might be stolen? A pawnshop band, a rehearsed story, a shoestring for pathos."
Silas felt heat climb his neck. "Watch yourself."
"I'm watching you. Someone has to." Preston folded his hands. "Every camera in Savannah will be pointed at you when that hearing comes. When the DNA comes back negative and the boy is exposed as a con artist, the humiliation will destroy you, and the board will have to act."
"You'd like that."
"I'd like my friend back." Preston almost sounded sincere. "Not this. Go home. Drop the petition. Write the kitchen a check if you want to help the boy. That's charity. What you're doing is self-destruction."
Silas stood. "In 2014, you signed as witness on my grandson's death certificate. The hospital code on it was wrong. The hospital says it never issued it."
"Paperwork errors happen. Overworked clerks."
"And the two hundred thousand?"
"A settlement. A grieving widower who lost his wife in a terrible accident. The company extended compassion."
"Dale Reyes never worked for Crane Atlantic."
"Compassion doesn't require a personnel file." Preston walked him to the door. "Silas, I am begging you as a friend. Your grandson died in 2014, and no amount of money or wishing will change that."
Silas left without answering, and the door closed behind him with a soft, expensive click. Twelve years, and the man still could not look him in the eye.
He was halfway down Bay Street when his phone rang. Diane Frye, her voice tight.
"Savannah Morning News, twenty minutes ago. 'Ailing Shipping Tycoon Targeted by Homeless Grifter, Sources Say.' A 'source close to the board' warns you're being exploited and the board is 'monitoring the situation with concern.'"
"He leaked it while I was still riding his elevator down."
"It's defamation. We can answer it."
"Not yet," Silas said. "Every word he says in public is a word he has to answer for later."
"This is going to get ugly."
"It was already ugly. Now it's just loud."
He hung up and watched the tugs on the river. A man with nothing to hide did not leak to the press within the hour. Silas had spent forty years in business. He knew what fear smelled like. It smelled like too much cologne and too many words.
The second call came at dinner. Earl Sutton, an old board ally.
"Silas. I'm calling as a friend."
"Everybody's a friend today."
"The board is nervous. Preston says you're not well, that this grifter business could embarrass the company. I'm not saying I believe him. I'm saying some of the others do."
"What are they nervous about, Earl?"
"A hearing in thirty days with cameras. If that DNA comes back wrong..."
"It won't."
"Preston is telling people the boy stole that ring, that Frank Reyes coached him. He's very persuasive."
"And what are you telling people?"
A long silence. "That I've known you forty years, and you've never once been a fool."
Silas closed his eyes. "Thank you."
"But if there's anything Preston could use against this company, now would be the time to tell me. Because he is loading his gun."
"I'm not the one he should be aiming at."
That night, Silas sat in the kitchen of the Jones Street house with his dinner going cold. He kept hearing Preston's voice: "your grandson died in 2014," reached for like a shield, too fast, too practiced.
His phone buzzed. Diane again.
"The hearing date is firm," she said. "And Silas, I've seen Preston Vane in a deposition. He's good. He's very, very good."
"He's lying."
"Can you prove it?"
"Not yet." Silas looked out at the dark garden where June's azaleas had long since gone wild. "But he's scared, Diane. A confident man lets the courts do their work. A scared man leaks to the newspapers and begs you to drop it. He begged me today. Sat on his desk and begged."
"Then we keep going."
"We keep going." Silas paused, and the smell of Preston's cologne was still in his nose, and under it something else, something sour and old. "He's lying, Diane. I can smell it."