As I’ve said before, whatever we discuss remains in confidence.”
“I want to get out of the limo business.”
“I see.”
“Can you help me with it? I’d need your help in writing up an offer to my partner.”
“In a word, no. Unfortunately, I represent your firm. You and Mr. Koffman jointly. My personal association with you in the matter would represent a conflict of interest. But I can refer you to a very competent man.”
“Okay, good. Have him call me.”
“I have to say that I’m a bit nonplussed. Dav-Ko is doing quite well. You fellows have a successful, thriving operation.”
“I’m tired, okay? I live where I work. That company is up my ass twenty-four-seven. And I hate Hollywood. I hate my job and I hate my clients.”
“Just a suggestion: Move. Get your own place. You can easily afford it.”
“It’s beyond that. Way beyond that.”
“You strike me as an impulsive person, Bruno. I would restrain that emotion for the time being. Perhaps talk it through with your partner. But certainly, don’t piss away all that you have worked to achieve.”
“I’m tired of being a garbage man. Koffman can have it. But first I’d like to know my options.”
“Very well, I’ll have my associate contact you. He’s with a good firm. Now, shall we go in?”
“Sure. Let’s do it,” I said. “Today I’m a happy camper.”
twenty-seven
The next afternoon, following up on my plan to cut loose and get free from Dav-Ko, while Rosie was dispatching, I began to go through Joshua’s computer files trying to come up with a precise monthly gross income for Dav-Ko. The current figure that Koffman and I and Joshua had come up with was roughly 30K per month. But some months were a lot more and Koffman, for his own reasons, liked to downplay how well the company was doing. He and Joshua would talk on the phone twice a week for an hour discussing money stuff and expansion strategies and that shit. Then Joshua would meet with me in the chauffeur’s room and give me the short version if I asked for it.
It took me an hour, but after totaling the last six months of business sales on the computer, I came to an actual average gross figure of nearly 41K per month. I printed out the pages and stuffed them in a legal envelope to take upstairs to my room.
Then I went to the file cabinet and pulled all the open accounts payable folders. Then the paid ones too. I wanted to get an accurate number, then make my own copies of everything. The first file I came to was American Express. Each tab inside represented one card, one employee. There were twelve in all.
That’s when I got the shock! It was almost unbelievable. Joshua Wright’s personal credit card charges were over $4,500 a month. Sometimes higher. Twenty-three thousand dollars in total. Restaurant charges! Charges for online gifts to his friends! Roundtrip first-class airline tickets for someone named Todd Kraft from Seattle, $1,500. A hotel charge for $800 for that weekend was beneath it. Joshua’s clothing transactions alone came to over $1,100 a month. What a fucker! Then I came to another page. On it were charges for porn sites. Subscriptions to all-male links. Then the kicker: a balance transfer of 23K to a new separate Visa card in the company name in an attempt to hide the whole snot-filled caper.
Still in disbelief, to backup the porn site charges, I clicked on the “downloads” tab on Joshua’s PC. There they were. Full photographs of cocks and men and young boys having sex. Cum shots and anal action. Pages and pages, file after file of the stuff. In his “sent” e-mail file there was more. Cell phone and webcam photos of Joshua himself. Jerking off. Ejaculating. His bared asshole.
On and on. E-mails to guys around L.A. that he’d met on gay websites. Meetings in park bathrooms and their back and forth notes on what they planned to do to each other.
Joshua Wright was two people. One of them was a well-dressed, well-spoken young man engaged to a pretty coed from USC, a clean-cut kid on his way up with a growing company. But Mr. Hyde was a total whackadoo. An embezzler and a homo sex freak.
I had no choice. I had to call my partner and report the insanity.
Koffman was at first in shock too. Then livid. His instructions were for me to do nothing. To say nothing. Business as usual. He would be on the next plane