Passing Through the Flame Read Online Free PDF

a development like that right in Hollywood should upgrade the area, provided we take care to provide plenty of free parking. Century City is a good model, but they did make some mistakes. We plan a complex with more appeal to the middle-middle class. A hotel, restaurants and a department store to be sure, but also an amusement area, a large shopping arcade like the Farmers’ Market, perhaps even a swimming pool. Our preliminary studies indicate that the property is large enough to accommodate all that and adequate parking, too.”
    Taub savored the icy bite of the caraway-flavored liquor along with the sweetness of Carbo’s words. Carbo was clearly telling him that his development plans were well advanced, that he was hot to get the studio property. If only my end of it was as far along! he thought.
    George brought in small bowls of cold gazpacho. With this, Taub had decreed a cold, dry chablis, though something red might have been justified. But they could continue the chablis along with the spinach salad, which would avoid the pretentiousness of serving three wines with a business lunch.
    “The financial aspects are a bit more complex,” Williams said. “We want to inflate the price somewhat.”
    “Inflate the price?”
    “As I said, it’s rather complex, in fact the more complex we can make it, the better. Basically, we want to buy two things; the physical property of the Eden studio and as big a tax loss as we can manage. So we have to agree on two prices: one for the actual studio property and another for the tax loss. Say ten cents on the dollar for the tax loss, seventy-five million for the property, just as working figures. We buy the package as a syndicate and sit on it for a year, during which we can contrive to take the loss, then we separate out the physical property and sell it to Tony at a depressed price, take another loss, then come back in as Tony’s partner in the development project. Everyone does nicely but the IRS.”
    “It seems a bit confusing to me,” Taub said, “but I’m no accountant. All I want out of this is the liquidation of Eden Pictures so that Eden Records can get out from under a losing parent company. What money EPI makes out of it is gravy from my point of view, though of course I have no objection to gravy.”
    “It sounds as though we’re going to be able to do business,” Williams said. Carbo looked relaxed, pleasantly attentive.
    The spinach salad arrived: crisp leaves of spinach barely wilted in hot bacon fat, dressed with the drippings, the crumbled bacon, fresh chives, crumbled hard-boiled egg, and just a dash of tarragon vinegar. Simple, elegant, a nonfilling lead-in to the heavy main course.
    “Very nice,” Carbo muttered after his second mouthful, the first verbal attention either of them paid to the food. The conversation lulled.
    It was Taub’s move now, and all three knew it. The deal was mutually acceptable, though details would have to be negotiated by lawyers and accountants. Taub’s problem was, that while Carbo and Williams were in a position to make a verbal agreement, he was only number two man at Eden Productions Incorporated, and at the moment controlled only a minority on the board of directors. It was a bad subject to have to broach, and he hoped to do it over the entree, which was really a knockout.
    “We understand that there are some problems on your end of things,” Williams said, finishing his salad, leaning back a bit in his chair, sipping his wine.
    Carbo swirled the chablis in his glass, smiled, and said, “Perhaps we can help you out there. Our interests, after all, coincide.”
    Taub pretended to be concentrating on his wine. It was important not to appear to be in the weak position he was actually in, but there was no denying that he hadn’t figured out a way to ace out Horst. Horst was fighting for his life, he knew it, and he was no patsy. Horst had been around. I can’t afford to turn down any help these guys can give me, Taub