title: The Taking of Getty Oil: The Full Story of the Most Spectacular - and Catastrophic - Takeover of All Time
author:  Steve Coll 
description: The financial disarray in which J. Paul Getty's death in 1976 left his family and the Getty Oil Company has led to sibling contention, corporate intrigue, courtroom high drama and, most recently, to an unprecedented $11-billion damage judgment over the Texaco-Pennzoil acquisition. Using "reconstructed dialogue" and suspenseful narrative, Washington Post financial writer Coll spins the story of family trustee Gordon Getty who sows confusion; a beset Getty Oil management; Texas oil-patch "good ole boy" Hugh Liedtke of Pennzoil fulfilling his dream to buyout Getty, only to be outmaneuvered by Texaco's Wall Street merger-brokersbut eventually winning in a down-home jury trial the biggest civil monetary damage award ever. Coll's behind-the-scenes account of investment banking and legal high jinks is at times startling and always intriguing. Major ad/promo; first serial to the Los Angeles Times Magazine. <BR>Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  Destroyer 122: Syndication Rites
  
  By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
  
  Chapter 1
  
  Drugs were Cal Dreeder's stock-in-trade. He had realized this sad truth in an
  alcohol-inspired epiphany just a few short days before his untimely death.
  That cold winter night the last of his dreary life-he mentioned his revelation
  to Randy Smeed.
  
  "Stock-in-trade means you deal it, Cal," Smeed explained to the older man. He
  tried to force a bored tone, but there was a tightness to his voice.
  
  The two men were crammed along with twelve others in the back of a windowless
  van. They jounced uncomfortably on their hard seats as the nondescript vehicle
  turned off the New Jersey turnpike. The road soon became rough.
  
  "It's what you do business with," Cal said knowingly. "I looked it up. And
  without drugs, we're out of business." He sounded almost disappointed.
  
  "We'd find something else to do," Randy insisted dryly.
  
  "You, maybe. No