Bull Street (29 page)

“When were you thinking about telling us this?” Toto said. Her nostrils were actually flaring. She was looking at Richard now like she might smack him. Jack’s and Steinberg’s faces didn’t show any emotion.

“We couldn’t quite believe it ourselves,” Kathy said.

“They were just keeping their equity percentage at the same level after management took bonuses in shares instead of cash,” Steinberg said. “We were allowed to do that under the agreements with Schoenfeld and GCG when we put the amalgamation together.” Richard looked at Kathy, who rolled her eyes. She wasn’t buying it. Toto looked Steinberg in the eye for a moment, and then sat down in her chair behind her desk.

“Have a seat, everyone, please,” she said. She leaned forward, put her forearms on her desk while they all sat down, looking like she was ready to leap across at one of them. Richard wasn’t sure she trusted any of them at that moment. He didn’t blame her. Then Toto sat back in her chair, sighed.

“Is there any reason to believe any of you is likely to get hauled away in handcuffs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the next twelve hours? I’d like to know so I can plan my evening,” Toto said. Richard saw Kathy wince and arch her back. He wanted to go over to calm her down, then realized he wasn’t exactly cool himself.

Jack muttered, “The perfect ending to a perfect day.”

“Alright, let’s regroup,” Toto said. “We should try to stay one step ahead of this thing. There’s no sense in seeing it unfold before us in the newspapers.”

“No shit,” Jack said.

“You all better get out of here,” Toto said. “Charlie Holden is likely to shoot first and ask questions later. I’m nervous that he’s processing warrants. I’ll call him.”

“What are you up to?” Steinberg said.

“In the first place, I’d like to see what else I can get out of him. In the second place, if somebody’s going to give Walker & Company immunity, I’d like to know what he has in mind, and negotiate the whole thing out. I am, after all, Walker’s attorney, aren’t I?”

“Absolutely,” Jack said.

Richard thought about the forms he’d signed at Walker upon entering M&A, and his initial conversation with Toto. She was still Walker’s attorney, still Richard’s attorney, as long as no conflict existed.

After leaving Toto’s office, in the limo back downtown, Jack decided. These kids could screw up the whole deal. They were supposed to be given up to the Feds with the Source X deal. LeClaire, a bunch of junior stooges, and, of course, Milner, neatly packaged. So the whole thing would be firewalled; it would hurt, but wouldn’t kill Walker. But now these kids: they knew more than the Feds. And once the Feds squeezed them, they’d tell everything they’d figured out. They’d unravel the whole Source X deal and bring it all down around them.

“These kids know too much,” he said to Mickey.

Mickey nodded. “More than the Feds,” he said.

“At this point they’re our only loose end.”

“Milner’s still out there someplace, as far as we know.”

“Yeah, but I don’t care if Milner gets caught or gets out. He can’t prove anything past what the Feds already have. But the kids can. They have to go.”

Mickey just looked out the window, nodding, blinking.

Jack would drive to Canarsie this evening, talk to Preston. Jack hated this shit; he liked Blum, but sometimes you had to do lousy stuff to cover your ass. It wasn’t any different than back in Canarsie when they set up Splits Duncan for the fire Jack and Bucky Pierson set in the Timex warehouse on Avenue L.

Richard and Kathy sat in the corner of the Bull and Bear bar at the Waldorf, Richard looking over Kathy’s shoulder at a guy who glanced over at him before sitting down.
Anything?
He didn’t think so. Richard had seen the corner booth and walked straight for it. He slid into the high-backed seat and crawled in all the way to the wall. He wasn’t taking any chances. Well, they were; Kathy and he could just as easily be having a drink from the minibar in the room, but when Richard said he felt like getting away for a half hour, Kathy agreed. They hunched together over the table, sheltered in the corner among dark mahogany paneling in dim lighting. He smelled beer nuts, spilled wine and the sweaty tourists who kept comparing New York to St. Louis at the booth next to them.

Kathy said, “I never imagined things could get turned so crosswise.”

“This is pretty high on the weird scale.” He checked out the guy again who’d glanced at him.

“I guess the good news is that the mole turned himself in and we’re eventually going to get off the hook.” Richard didn’t respond. He was turning the last few days over in his mind. Kathy went on, “Whoever’s at the top of this thing, it looks like they’ve packaged it for the Feds in such a way that it’s going to get resolved without us getting screwed. Once Toto gets the immunity negotiated and all the arrests get announced, we can go back to—whatever.”

Richard looked over at Kathy, couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “You’re dreaming,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t over yet. I feel like we’re in a labyrinth. Stuck wandering around. And when we get to the exit, somebody’s gonna be standing there with a baseball bat.”

“You mean other than the Feds?”

“Think about it. Ever consider they might not want us to get out?”

“Who? Jack and Mickey? You said yourself you think it’s possible they’re clean.”

“I was kidding myself. Think about it. We said it before: it looks like it goes all the way up to the foreign partners. You said yourself, crooks at Walker, GCG, Schoenfeld. What if they’re all in on it—Sir Reginald, Delecroix, Jack, Steinberg? And we already know LeClaire’s the mole.”

“What good does it do them to screw us?”

“Negotiating chips. We’re expendable anyhow. You know how Wall Street works better than I do.”

“But the Feds already have the mole—LeClaire.”

“And he’s protecting the firm. Why?”

Kathy thought for a moment. “Walker’s paying him off.”

It was exactly where Richard came out. It fit with Source X holding out for immunity for Walker. “Yeah. He cops a plea, goes to jail, and he collects his $200 when he gets out.”

“It’s too farfetched. God, he’s got Elaine and the kids to think about. Way too extreme medicine for LeClaire just for some money.”

“Probably a lot of money. And if he’s guilty then he’s hosed already anyhow. Might as well get something out of it.”

“And we’re an extra bone to throw the Feds.” Kathy was finally getting it.

“Yeah. His word against ours. Plus the wiretaps, plus the emails. Add my desktop computer with all the mole’s emails on it. And if they could get a hold of it, my laptop.”

“A couple of bodies.”

“A few in New York added to those in Paris and London they’ll throw in. Makes a nice neat package.”

Kathy thought for a moment. “But in these things you always follow the money. They can trace the money to all of those institutions, the trading accounts.”

“How much you wanna bet they’ll never find it? It’s buried in numbered accounts in Switzerland, the Caymans. They’ll never find out who owns them. Or if they could, it would take years. So the Feds get some quick convictions, look like heroes and everybody else goes back to business as usual.” Kathy’s eyes were unfocused, glazing over. Richard went on, “Or worse, they could see us as a threat and try to get rid of us completely.”

“How?”

“Permanently. Kill us. Look what happened to Milner’s CFO and Walker’s General Counsel.”

Kathy’s face went blank. She stared at the wall above Richard’s head for a few moments. When she finally spoke her voice was jagged. “You’re just speculating.”

Richard nodded. “Speculating, yeah. The situation is highly ambiguous, I agree, but we need to act or we’re gonna get swept away.” Richard saw Kathy smirk. Then it grew into a smile. What had she figured out? “What?” Richard said.

“I’m just remembering what Jack said in the
Fortune
article on Milner.”

It dawned on Richard, too. He smiled. “Something like: ‘This business takes a high tolerance for ambiguity. Markets are uncertain. People are untrustworthy. Your ally today could be your adversary tomorrow. You need to make judgments based on imperfect information, and act.’”

“So we can’t go to the Feds. And if you’re right, not Jack or Mickey,” Kathy said.

“That leaves Milner. He’s the only angle I see.”

“That’s nuts if he’s really at the center of this thing.”

“Even better. Go directly to the source. And he’s the one who stands to lose the most. I say we go to him.” Richard was speaking, but no longer to Kathy. He was thinking aloud, then to himself, deciding how to go about it.

While Kathy took a shower, Richard walked up Park Avenue to 55
^th
Street, then crossed to the West Side, still thinking about the profits he’d just calculated for the mole’s ring. He’d never totaled it before, but all it took was a minute to add the formula to his Excel spreadsheet. He only now understood the scale of this thing. He got a creepy feeling in his guts just thinking about
it again. The body count was two so far. He didn’t want it going higher.

He had to walk all the way over to 9th Avenue before he found a pay phone that worked. He pulled out Roman Croonquist’s business card, put his watch on the platform of the phone and dialed Croonquist’s 24-hour emergency number at the SEC. He kept his eye on the second hand of the watch.

“Been doing some thinking, I gather,” Croonquist said.

“How could I not?”

“You’ve come to the right conclusion. I’ll arrange for someone from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to bring you in and we can talk everything through. Where are you?”

One minute, thirty seconds. He wished Croonquist had picked right up, that Richard didn’t have to go back and forth with the woman at the SEC switchboard on the reason for the call; she’d said she’d see if he was available, Richard finally having to insist, “Just give him my damn name, he’ll know who I am.” And Croonquist was wasting time now, too.

Richard said, “Let’s cut to it—what if I can deliver the heads of Walker’s trading ring?”

“We have them,” Croonquist said, sounding confident.

“Bullshit. You’ve only scratched the surface. Will you deal?”

Croonquist didn’t respond right away, sounding maybe confused, then saying, “Maybe. What’ve you got?”

“I can prove it’s a $2.0 billion scheme with links all over the world. And I’ve got more data on more deals going back more years than you do.” Two minutes, five seconds.

“We’ll need proof. Come in and we’ll talk. If it makes sense, we can go easy on you if you cooperate. If you help us bring in Milner we can make it very, very painless for you.” He was back to his smarmy Mr. Nice Guy routine again.

“So you still don’t have him?” Richard laughed.

Croonquist didn’t say anything.

Richard waited a moment, said, “Can we cut the bullshit? I haven’t done anything, whatever line of crap LeClaire is feeding you, and I’ve got enough to bring down the
real
guys who put this thing together. So will you deal?”

Croonquist didn’t respond right away again, apparently thinking about it, then, “We’ll need proof. Bring everything in and we’ll give you a wire to wear.”