Me, The Mentor: Chapter 14

I was relax­ing in my room – at least as much as pos­si­ble with an impend­ing mis­sion – think­ing over all the issues of our plan, try­ing to find any holes, when the room phone rang.

“Mr. Tate?” was the query from the oth­er end.

“Yes.”

“There’s a gen­tle­man here to see you, a Mr. John Finster.”

John Finster, John Finster.  I rolled the name around in my mind a moment.  And then it hit me! Finster was one of Shaddoe’s cronies, the local banker.  What could he pos­si­bly want?!

“Mr. Tate?” came the inquiry again.

“Yes, I’m still here.  I don’t believe I know a John Finster.”

“He said he was here to see you about the sem­i­nar you’re set­ting up.  Shall I send him up to your room?”

“No. No, I think I’ll come down.  Would you ask him to wait for me in the lob­by?  My room’s a mess right now.  Cleaning crew hasn’t been by yet.”  I didn’t want to chance him see­ing some­thing that he shouldn’t.

I stashed the weapons and oth­er mis­sion para­pher­na­lia in the bags and placed them in the clos­et.  Leaving the room, I placed a Do Not Disturb sign on the door han­dle, hop­ing it would keep house­keep­ing out while I was gone.

The ele­va­tor was one of those extreme­ly slow hydraulic types that seem to creep between floors, but its slow­ness pro­vid­ed me some time to think over what kind of sto­ry I might be able to put togeth­er for  Finster.  This was one of those wrin­kles that invari­ably come up … and def­i­nite­ly one for which I had not planned.

As I exit­ed the ele­va­tor to the lob­by, a well-dressed man rose from one of the chairs and smiled pleas­ant­ly as I approached.  Since there was no one else in the room, it was obvi­ous­ly Finster.

He was about five-foot-ten, clean-shaven with brown­ish-blond hair, and well-tanned.  I fig­ured he was either an out­doors­man or spent a good deal of time at the local coun­try club on the links or by the pool.

He extend­ed a hand, main­tain­ing the paint­ed-on smile.

“Mr. Tate.  I’m John Finster.”

“Pleased to meet you.  What can I do for you?”  I took a chair oppo­site the one he had occu­pied and he set­tled back into his.

“I’m pres­i­dent of one of our local banks, the Del Rio Exchange Bank, and also chair­man of the board of the con­ven­tion cen­ter.  I heard that you were here to plan a sem­i­nar for us and just thought I’d intro­duce myself and see if there was any­thing par­tic­u­lar you might need or how we might be able to help you.”

“Well, John – may I call you John?” 

He nod­ded. 

“Our vis­it here is pret­ty pre­lim­i­nary.  We want­ed to see the size of the facil­i­ty and what types of accom­mo­da­tions you might have as far as sound and pro­jec­tion equip­ment.  We’re part of a region­al group that sets up sem­i­nars for local busi­ness lead­ers to inform them of some new tech­nol­o­gy avail­able to aid in busi­ness expan­sion and mar­ket enlargement.” 

I was strict­ly ad-lib­bing at this point, not hav­ing thought about what kind of sem­i­nar we would be pro­mot­ing since I didn’t expect to have to explain it to any­one.  A mis­take on my part.

“I see,” he nodded.

That was good because I didn’t.  I had no clue where this might go.  My mind was fran­ti­cal­ly turn­ing over, try­ing to antic­i­pate what his next ques­tion might be.

“Any idea of exact­ly what you may need?”

“Well, yes.  But it would prob­a­bly be eas­i­est for us to vis­it the cen­ter and see for our­selves.  We don’t have a spe­cif­ic list, but by look­ing over your facil­i­ties, we would be able to judge if you’re suf­fi­cient­ly set up or if we might need some­thing in addi­tion.  And, if you don’t have it or can’t pro­vide it, we can make arrange­ments to get it ourselves.”

“How about this, then,” he offered.  “You get on over to the cen­ter when­ev­er it’s con­ve­nient and have a look around.  I’ll go ahead and let the man­ag­er know you’ll be com­ing and she can show you around and answer any ques­tions you may have.  Her name is Diane Welner.”

“Yes.  I’m sure that would work out just fine, John.  We should be able to get by tomor­row or the next day.”

“You keep using the plur­al.  I heard there was a young lady with you.”

“Right.  My asso­ciate.  Not sure exact­ly where she is right now, either by the pool or out shop­ping.  She did say some­thing about doing a bit of sight­see­ing before we get down to business.”

“Probably not a lot to see in Del Rio,” he sug­gest­ed, “but there are a few nice local shops.  Here’s my card.  You can reach me about any time over at the bank.  Just give me a call if I can help in any way.”

“Sure will.  I appre­ci­ate the heads up to the man­ag­er and you tak­ing the time to stop by.”

“No prob­lem.  Looking for­ward to the sem­i­nar,” he said as we shook hands and he turned to leave.

“Oh, by the way,” he said turn­ing in mid-stride, “If you’re into horse­back rid­ing, a friend of mine has a ranch not far from town.  I’d be glad to ask if he can pro­vide a cou­ple of hors­es for you and the young lady while you’re here.”

“I’m afraid the clos­est I ever get to hors­es is work­ing with a sawhorse,” I said.  I had a dis­tinct feel­ing that I knew which ranch he was refer­ring to.

After his depar­ture I couldn’t help think­ing about the dichoto­my between the out­ward appear­ance of Mr. Finster and the com­plete­ly unscrupu­lous activ­i­ties in which he was engaged.

It also crossed my mind that, in a lit­tle over twen­ty-four hours, Mr. Finster was going to be lying dead along with his fel­low scalawags.