‘They call me Hook Hobie,’ he said.
He sat there with his face rigid and the hook held up like an object for examination. Stone swallowed and tried to recover his composure. Wondered if he should offer his left hand instead. He knew some people did that. His great-uncle had had a stroke. The last ten years of his life, he always shook left-handed.
‘Take a seat,’ Hook Hobie said.
Stone nodded gratefully and backed away. Sat on the end of the sofa. It put him sideways on, but he was happy just to be doing something. Hobie looked at him and laid his arm on the desktop. The hook hit the wood with a quiet metallic sound.
‘You want to borrow money,’ he said.
The burned side of his face did not move at all. It was thick and hard like a crocodile’s back. Stone felt his stomach going acid and he looked straight down at the coffee table. Then he nodded and ran his palms over the knees of his trousers. Nodded again, and tried to remember his script.
‘I need to bridge a gap,’ he said. ‘Six weeks, one-point-one million.’
‘Bank?’ Hobie asked.
Stone stared at the floor. The tabletop was glass, and there was a patterned rug under it. He shrugged wisely, as if he was including a hundred fine points of arcane business strategy in a single gesture, communicating with a man he wouldn’t dream of insulting by suggesting he was in any way ignorant of any of them.
‘I prefer not to,’ he said. ‘We have an existing loan package, of course, but I beat them down to a hell of a favourable rate based on the premise that it was all fixed-amount, fixed-term stuff, with no rolling component. You’ll appreciate that I don’t want to upset those arrangements for such a trivial amount.’
Hobie moved his right arm. The hook dragged over the wood.
‘Bullshit, Mr Stone,’ he said quietly.
Stone made no reply. He was listening to the hook.
‘Were you in the service?’ Hobie asked him.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Were you drafted? Vietnam?’
Stone swallowed. The burns, and the hook.
‘I missed out,’ he said. ‘Deferred, for college. I was very keen to go, of course, but the war was over by the time I graduated.’
Hobie nodded, slowly.
‘I went,’ he said. ‘And one of the things I learned over there was the value of intelligence gathering. It’s a lesson I apply in my business.’
There was silence in the dark office. Stone nodded. Moved his head and stared at the edge of the desk. Changed the script.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Can’t blame me for trying to put a brave face on it, right?’
‘You’re in relatively deep shit,’ Hobie said. ‘You’re actually paying your bank top points, and they’ll say no to any further funds. But you’re doing a reasonably good job of digging yourself out from under. You’re nearly out of the woods.’
‘Nearly,’ Stone agreed. ‘Six weeks and one-point-one million away, is all.’
‘I specialize,’ Hobie said. ‘Everybody specializes. My arena is cases exactly like yours. Fundamentally sound enterprises, with temporary and limited exposure problems. Problems that can’t be solved by the banks, because they specialize too, in other arenas, such as being dumb and unimaginative as shit.’
He moved the hook again, scraping it across the oak.
‘My charges are reasonable,’ he said. ‘I’m not a loan shark. We’re not talking about hundreds of per cent interest here. I could see my way to advancing you one-point-one, say six per cent to cover the six weeks.’
Stone ran his palms over his thighs again. Six per cent for six weeks? Equivalent to an annual rate of what? Nearly 52 per cent. Borrow one-point-one million now, pay it all back plus sixty-six thousand dollars in interest six weeks from now. Eleven thousand dollars a week. Not quite a loan shark’s terms. Not too far away, either. But at least the guy was saying yes.
‘What about security?’ Stone asked.
‘I’ll take an equity position,’ Hobie said.
Stone forced himself to raise his head and look at him. He figured this was some kind of a test. He swallowed hard. Figured he was so close, honesty was the best policy.