Three

Eleven Weeks Earlier

David Bronson stood with an after dinner snifter of cognac cradled in his hand peering out the window of his brother Alex's house. He watched his 79 year old sibling strolling around the grounds behind the house with a 25 year old girl at his side.  What is he doing to put that smile on Katarina's face, he wondered. David had to pay women to look at him that way. He didn't believe Alex was giving her money, not for a phony smile and not for sex. Definitely not for sex.  For a year after his brother's wife died fifteen years ago the son of a bitch did some sport fucking before turning into a monk, David Bronson thought mockingly. The younger brother took a sip of his drink and then smiled faintly remembering that he himself had given up sex for a time. Wondering if perhaps Alex had relapsed too, he didn't hear his brother-in-law Lee Baker and his nephew Arnold Bronson come up behind him and join him to watch the couple in the back yard.

"What are we looking at - one current and one future billionaire?" Baker asked.

"He's not going to give her all his money," David insisted with an indulgent tone. "He's playing with us. You can pooh-pooh all that kind of talk."

 "You sure?" Baker asked.

"I know my brother. That talk about giving her his money was nonsense.  Alex likes to mess with people sometimes."

"I suppose no matter what he does, most of it will go to the government," Baker speculated.

"There are ways around that," Arnold Bronson chimed in.

"We've got our guys working on ending this death tax thing right now," David said. He snorted, adding, "Death tax - I love the guy who came up with that. Sounds so nasty compared to estate tax."

"What do you mean you've got guys working on it?" Baker asked.

"Congress. They're going to try to slip it through somehow," David Bronson said.

"Slip what through?"

"A bill to end all taxes on inheritance."

"That would be a pretty neat trick. I guess Bill Gates' kids would like that."

"I don't think so. Last I heard Gates was claiming that he planned to give most of his fortune away to charity.  I think he means it." David shrugged.  "I'm not so sure my brother wants to do that."

"This bill you're talking about - it's a real possibility?" Baker asked.

"It won't be easy but," David Bronson took a moment to come up with a derogatory expression, "that great mass of the unwashed have a pretty short attention span when they even bother to pay attention at all. They really don't know what Congress and the President are doing."

"You've got guys in Congress to do this? Who would dare to push a bill to give more money to the rich?" Baker scoffed.

"Who?" David Bronson sneered. "Half the people in Congress. They like to posture like they're noble servants of the people, making important history. In reality they're lackeys. They like the fantasy that they're in charge, and nothing scares them more than having that fantasy end. They need our money to get elected and then re-elected; they'll do what they're told."

"I know all that. You don't have to persuade me. What I can't quite accept is that they could actually manage to pull it off," Baker said.

"It's only a matter of time. We'll get some kind of terrorist attack to distract people, prepare some kind of tax reform program that throws them some crumbs, and slip it in while they're out buying American flags," David Bronson explained.

"Hmmm," Baker managed.

"I don't know if it will make that much difference for us," Arnold interjected.

"What do you mean?"

David answered. "Well - we don't know the time frame for all this. It could take 5 or 10 years to change the law. If he dies before the law is changed, most of his money goes to the IRS.  Or - he just might give it away."

"He'd do that? Give the money away. You just said he wouldn't," Baker said.

"Not to her. He might give her some," Arnold Bronson assured, "but most of it would go - I don't know. Where are Gates and Buffet sending their money?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I asked him. Later that night - when he made that joke about leaving his money to the Russian slut," David Bronson explained.

Baker waited.

David Bronson continued. "He wouldn't actually do something like that. She couldn't handle a couple of billion dollars," he scoffed. "He might give her a million. I don't know; he didn't say; I'm guessing. And the rest of us would get 5 to 10 million, which most people would  considers to be a lot. Although compared to his billions, it isn't much."  

"He may want to be like Carnegie and Rockefeller," Arnold interjected, sounding disinterested.

"He may, but he hasn't done anything yet, has he?" Baker asked.

"You mean has he changed his will? No, I don't think so.  Didn't sound like it when we talked.  But I think seeing his 80th birthday approaching got my brother thinking," David Bronson said.

"No, he hasn't done anything yet," Arnold weighed in. "I handle all the family's financial matters. If he were going to do something radical he would have consulted with me. He hasn't. Besides the whole process takes time. Typically, we'd need a couple of months to do a complete audit of all the assets of Bronson Enterprises before making any changes to his will."

Baker nodded, thoughtfully, his blank face hiding his concerns about the irregularities the auditors would find if they went over the company books. Over a twenty year period, he had been careful not to take too much at one time, although now the total of his embezzlement would run into the millions.

"Makes it difficult to know what to hope for - that he lives long enough to avoid the death tax or that he drops dead before he can change his will." David Bronson chuckled. He gave Baker a steady look and observed, "I mean even if we had to pay the death tax, we'd still do better than 10 million."

"So Katarina is not an issue?" Lee Baker asked, trying not to appear concerned.

"Probably not," Arnold said. "He's not going to make her a billionaire, but she may be the impetus to something else. He may want to change his will to put her in it and while he's at it, he may make other changes."

"It would be better if she weren't around," Baker said.

"Yes, it would," Arnold agreed. "She's kind of the wild card. We'll just have to wait and see."

"Hmm." Baker nodded his head, absorbing the facts of the situation.

David Bronson gave Lee Baker a close look and smiled indulgently. "If you're thinking you can manipulate Alex Bronson, change his mind about what to do with his money, think again. He knows what is going on. He knows before you know what you're thinking and he's always a couple of steps ahead."

"I wonder."

"Lee, take my word for it. Alex comes across as a nice grandfatherly guy who's clueless about half of everything but the obvious. That's not him. Right now you're thinking about what you're going to inherit - he thought about that before you ever married Jessica."

"Well  - Alex is pretty smart. But, everybody has his weaknesses. For Alex that could be Katarina," Lee Baker speculated.

The three men fell silent.  Baker mentally drifted off to reflect on what he had learned about Alex's intentions.

***

The man actually said "Pooh-pooh, Baker thought. Who the fuck says pooh-pooh?  Twenty years in this goddamn family and they're all pretty much as full of shit as when I married Jessica. Full of shit - but with money - so no one tells them they're full of shit. One is richer than god; another is looking for some holy boat; another is a crackpot commie; and the last one is a tight-ass book bore. And then there's Jessica, his wife - she knows what the word "fuck" means but she doesn't do it. For those needs he had a woman who called herself Bambi, a lady who knew how to press his carnal buttons and had connections to shadowy underworld he needed on occasion.

Alex Bronson, that old bastard, is worth billions, and he's talking of giving it to that Russian bitch, Baker reflected. All right, no one thinks he would actually do that.  But that idea that he might give most of it to charity or tie it up in some kind of trust - that was an uncomfortable possibility.  For Lee Baker the words "complete audit" were even more important.

Warren Buffet, Baker remembered reading, said he'd leave his kids several millions so they could be comfortable, but 95% of his estate would go to charity. Maybe that was Bronson's plan, too. Two, three, ten million would be a nice inheritance but not, as David Bronson pointed out, when there was a couple billion on the table. Whatever the old bastard was thinking about doing, Baker concluded with relief, he hadn't done it yet.  It annoyed him to realize that no one seemed as concerned about it as he was.  Only Arnold, whose nose was pressed firmly to the grindstone, showed a glimmer of concern about Katarina. He didn't seem too anxious but at least he agreed that life would be better if she were out of the picture. Not that he would actually do much about it. Whatever anyone did about her, it wasn't going to be done by Arnold. Arnold's job was to watch over all the Bronson money, and he was perfectly happy with what he had and what he...