Bull Street (13 page)

Richard was suppressing a smile. He’d see a breakup deal—pulling a company apart and putting it back together, or not—from cradle to grave, if Milner went forward. But he was also seeing his next few weekends evaporating into visions of the M&A conference room strewn with 10-Ks, annual reports, brown lettuce and stale sandwich crusts. And a smell like dirty socks.

“You will do a divisional black book on the company—with a separate section for each division.” LeClaire looked at Richard to see if he understood.

Richard froze, trying not to betray any emotion.
What the hell is a black book?
He wondered if he was supposed to know what it was.

LeClaire must’ve seen a glassy look in Richard’s eyes. “Relax; we will take this one step at a time. Get your Analysts started and we will revisit this with a first pass at the public comparables in the morning.” He smiled. “Okay? Here, take these two black books as guides,” he said and handed him two thick, tabbed presentation books from his desk.

Back in his office, Richard thought,
Starting over: new desk, new analytics, new boss.
But he felt certain LeClaire wasn’t gonna cut him off at the knees. Dissect him with that scalpel-like mind, yes. But slash him, he didn’t think so. And yet, he’d need to look sharp.

Richard was in the next morning at 8:00 a.m., earlier than his usual hour. As he unlocked the door to the M&A department he ran into LeClaire coming out of the War Room. It gave him a start, sent a rush of adrenaline through him.

“Shall we get started in about fifteen minutes?” LeClaire said.

“I’ll be there in ten.”
Shit, not much time for coffee.
Or to review his notes.

Sitting in LeClaire’s office, Richard started squirming almost immediately. LeClaire’s face assumed those angular lines he’d seen before. “Richard, before we get started I need to make a point.” He had his arms on the desk and his hands clasped. He perched forward at the edge of his chair. “Even in proceeding with something that may seem relatively innocuous, such as the selecting of appropriate public comparables
for valuation analysis, we must always keep in mind that our clients are relying on us. And they are paying us very, very well to work very hard and to give them our best possible input.” He leaned farther forward now. That syncopated accent. “As investment bankers, we are supposed to be among the brightest minds, the most energetic and most dedicated professionals in the business community. We are to bring both inspiration as well as sheer analytical force to performing for our clients.”

Damn.
Had he shown he was that much of a novice? Richard had to lick his lips before he spoke, they were so dry. “I understand that, and I do take it seriously.”

“Let me continue. Now, specifically, in this case, Harold Milner will be risking hundreds of millions of his money and exposing himself publicly if he decides to pursue this deal. That to a very great extent is based upon our advice and analysis.” He looked Richard directly in the eyes. “Harold Milner does not like to lose money. Harold Milner does not like to lose.”

Richard now felt his ears starting to burn red. He was clenching his fists.

“And so when we advise him, we must evaluate our analysis as if we are risking our own money and not just Harold Milner’s. We must evaluate the situation as if we will not earn our fees if we do not perform our job properly, and that therefore we will lose our jobs, and that therefore we will be unable to put bread on the table for our children.”

Richard now thought LeClaire was laying it on a little thick, but he still wasn’t moving.

“One little number that goes into one piece of analysis that is summarized on one little page which is in turn reflected in other numbers, each into another page, is equally serious and equally
important.” He glanced at his watch. “And we must not only be precise, we must be fast. So let’s get to it.”

Forty-five minutes later, LeClaire said, “Very good outline for your first pass.” Richard felt his shoulders relax, realized his biceps were sore from being tensed the whole time. “I must turn to this now,” he said, looking at a pile of materials on the corner of his desk. He smiled at Richard. Richard left.
One step at a time.
He had a long way to go. A day and a half to pick some comps and draft an outline. He couldn’t become Harold Milner overnight. Back at his desk he thought of Kathy. No Kathy Cella to cut up and laugh with, but a Milner M&A deal, and a big one. Five, maybe six billion. Above the fold in the
Journal,
if it got that far.

Eleven p.m. on a Friday night, and everyone in the M&A department had cleared out. Richard had been pretending to be busy for the last hour until Peter Blumenthal finally left. He waited a few more minutes, then went into the War Room. He’d already checked four of the six computers in the center row of desks in the room. He sat down in front of the fifth, starting to wish he’d never gotten into this. He went into Outlook, clicked on “Tools” and checked “Email Accounts.” No mole.

He moved over in front of the sixth, which always seemed to be turned off. He switched it on and waited while it finished booting up, logged into it using the generic M&A login. He opened Outlook, went to “Tools,” then “Email Accounts.” He sat up straight like someone had stabbed him with a fork, felt a rush of adrenaline. There it was: [email protected], one of half a dozen email accounts on the computer. He clicked out of
“Tools” and checked the Inbox for emails, alphabetizing them. He saw that all the mole’s activity, as far back as he’d seen it in the Comm Room and downloaded onto his own laptop, was on this computer as well. He glanced over his shoulder, making sure nobody was watching.

He closed Outlook and shut down the computer. He went back to his desk, shut down his laptop and unhooked it from its docking station. He packed it in his briefcase, put on his jacket and headed for the door.

As he turned the corner of his cubicle he heard the M&A Department door open and saw the shadow of someone approaching. He felt a bolt of adrenaline and ducked into the War Room, hid behind the door. When whoever it was walked past, Richard slipped out of the department, not sure if he was seen.

His heart was thumping in his chest as he rode the elevator downstairs. He reviewed in his mind who had access to the locked and sequestered M&A department. Other than M&A department members, it was only the most senior officers of the firm, even though he’d rarely seen one of them in there. That meant the mole was most likely someone in M&A. He hadn’t checked the mole’s emails since he last spoke to Kathy. Too busy. But now he was itching to turn on his laptop when he got home, see what was going on. He wanted to call Kathy, but it was too early in Paris, particularly on a Saturday morning. But he’d check this out tonight.

Washington, D.C.
When Croonquist got back to his office from a meeting, the email was waiting for him from Phil Johnson,
his old boss in Surveillance. It said he’d put taps in place on 12 phone lines at Walker’s, GCG’s and Milner’s offices. And Johnson had put his best computer hacker onto the Walker/GCG email chain. The hacker had already hacked into the netwiz.net account with the username walkerl. From there he’d found the usernames of accounts on three different computers at walker. com that walkerl operated from: [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]. Then he’d hacked into Walker’s system, grabbed a mine of useful emails from those accounts, and then set the accounts up for ongoing monitoring. Croonquist smiled and turned on his MarketWatch monitor.

New York City.
Milner looked out his conference room window, up Park Avenue. Glorious day. If only he could enjoy it. His lawyer, Sandy Sharts, sat with him. Sandy had just called to tell Milner he needed an immediate face-to-face with him about what he’d heard the Feds in Washington were up to. Milner said he wanted Chuck there, too.

Chuck walked in late and said, “Is this bad news?”

Milner shrugged. “Could be. But could also be nothing.”

Milner saw Sandy rise up in his chair. He said, “That’s not a realistic perspective. In fact, it’s a form of denial.”

The avuncular Mr. Sanford F. Sharts, Esq. Great guy, careful lawyer, but why always a lecture?

Milner said, “Well, can we review what we know? And what they know?”

Sandy cleared his throat. “I haven’t made any of this up.” He settled into the chair again like it was for a long talk.

Milner just looked at him.

“Okay, you stubborn old bird.” Sandy sounded impatient, rising up again to lean forward with his elbows on the table, looking up at the ceiling, as if reciting, “I got a call from my partner in Washington. Let’s leave his name out of it. He has friends inside the enforcement and surveillance divisions of the SEC, reasonably well placed.”

Milner was listening out of one ear, seeing Sandy’s mouth moving, but now not hearing. He was seeing how things might play out. He sees Mary Claire reading on the sofa in the New York apartment. Sees her look up as he walks in, sits. She reacts to his face: grave. She says, What is it? Her look says, Oh my God.

“One of his well-connected friends takes him aside at a cocktail party and informs him he should tell his boy in New York—that would be me—that he’s about to become a world champion in billable hours servicing his boy—that would be you, Harold—because the whole of our government’s machinery is about to catch your tits in their ringer, to use his phrase.”

Milner tells Mary Claire, I screwed up, I’m going to go away for a while. She says, What have you done? He says, I sometimes do business skating near the edge. I went over it. Her face now shows panic. His guts are twisting.

“My partner has the presence of mind to see to it that his smug friend gets more to drink, and then cajoles a fascinating narrative out of him. Seems they have this new MarketWatch system to track trades, analyze patterns like never before, and his boss in enforcement is using Walker and you as a test case.”

Mary Claire is now getting over her anger. No more why? how? what? questions. Now she asks, What will happen to you?
How long will they put you away? He says, A long time. She asks, How soon? He thinks for a moment, says, Weeks, maybe months. He sees her wounded look and feels his throat constrict.