Bull Street (31 page)

“Sorry, we wanted to try and intercept you long before you ever got to 46
^th
Street. We saw you too late,” Harrelson said.

“Who were they?” Richard asked.

“We don’t know. Maybe somebody Walker set loose on you. But by now I think we’ve also got half the NYPD after us.” He looked out the back window as Richard drove west across 45
^th
. Richard checked the rearview mirror again, ready to gun the engine if he saw any police. He thought they’d get away with it, though. Nobody would be looking for a silver Porsche 911.

“Thanks,” Richard said.

“Head downtown,” Harrelson said.

“I need to know where we’re going.”

“Downtown. Location One.” He smiled. “I assume that’s the package,” Harrelson said. Richard had the Redweld folder wedged between his left leg and the door.

“Yeah,” he said, looking in the mirror again. He heard sirens in the distance behind them. Harrelson looked back through the rear window.

“Don’t worry, Richard,” Harrelson said, “we aren’t up to anything. We’ve just been asked to take you to Mr. Milner.”

They were approaching 45
^th
and Vanderbilt, two blocks from the van. It still sat in the middle of the street, surrounded by police, the two police cruisers still there. A cop directed traffic at 45
^th
and Vanderbilt. Richard felt his stomach muscles tighten as he entered the intersection, then a bolt of panic as the cop looked directly at him, did a double-take and started toward the car, reaching for his radio.

“Now would be a good time to tell me where Location One is,” Richard said. He gunned the engine and turned south on Vanderbilt, winding the Porsche out to 6,000 rpm before shifting into second gear. They shot past the van with the engine screaming near the top of second gear and in an instant they were to 42
^nd
Street. The light was orange, cars jamming up in the southbound lane, so he swerved into the uptown lane and shifted into third as he crossed 42
^nd
Street, laying on the horn. Pedestrians crossing Park Avenue South at 42
^nd
scattered as he shot through the intersection. Richard was amazed at what the car could do, realized it was him, then wondered if he could keep it up. He swerved around cars, then a truck as he continued down Park, the car leaving the ground for a moment, then bottoming hard as they passed 41
^st
Street. He slammed on the brakes to avoid a taxi, swerved left then cringed as he squeezed between two cars, unable to stop. He heard the crunch of metal and horns as he raked both sides of the Porsche on the two cars, tearing off both mirrors. He hit the gas and was past them, Park Avenue clear for a few blocks.

“Where the hell are we going?” Richard yelled.

“Wall Street heliport!” Harrelson shouted, “take the FDR if you can get to it!” Richard stomped the accelerator to the floor, heard the engine screaming again. He checked the rear view mirror and saw a police car behind them. He shifted into third, ran the light at 35
^th
Street and slowed down to turn onto 34
^th
Street. “Too much traffic,” Harrelson said, “take 30
^th
.”

Richard revved the engine again and they were at 30
^th
in seconds. As he turned left onto 30
^th
he saw another police car in the rearview mirror, lights flashing. He felt a burst of despair. Thirtieth was blocked with traffic. “Hang on,” Richard said. He backed up, stomped on the gas and shot down the uptown lane
of Park Avenue South, cars swerving out of their way, horns blaring. He turned onto 28
^th
, tucked into traffic crossing east, seeing the police car make the left onto 28
^th
just as he got to Lexington.
No time.

He turned left the wrong way up Lexington just as the light changed, laying on his horn, swerving around traffic, then right onto 30
^th
Street, then straight across 3
^rd
Avenue with the light. They bogged down in traffic again between 3
^rd
and 2
^nd
. “Clear behind us,” Harrelson said. Richard felt his heart pounding, his pulse thumping in his temples.

“C’mon,” he said aloud, waiting for the light to change, palms sticky with perspiration as he squeezed the steering wheel. He felt another surge of adrenaline crossing 2
^nd
, seeing flashing lights and hearing sirens up the avenue. He gunned the engine and in a moment was on the FDR Drive.

Harrelson said, “Better get off at Houston Street.”

“If we get that far.” Richard was doing 80 miles per hour on the FDR, the car responding to every twitch of the wheel. At Houston he slowed down to the speed of traffic, cutting across all the way to West Street. No sirens, no flashing lights. His mind was still racing, looking at each side street, ready to stomp on the accelerator again. He kept to the speed limit down West Street, finally starting to relax when he entered the underpass to the East Side at the bottom tip of Manhattan. He looked over at Harrelson. Harrelson nodded and smiled. What a weird business these guys were in. Even more weird than investment banking.

Richard eased the Porsche into the Wall Street heliport. They all got out. A gloss-black Sikorsky twin prop helicopter was
warming up. Richard squinted against the rotor airwash. The air was thick with the smell of jet fuel and heat from the chopper’s engines. Harrelson guided Richard up to the Sikorsky, Richard not sure about this now. But when he got there Milner was seated inside. He extended his hand as Richard entered.

“Richard, good to see you,” he said. They shook, that massive hand of his enveloping Richard’s. He’d forgotten how big a guy Milner was, now seeing him outside his larger-than-life office. “I was beginning to think I’d have to leave before we found you. I hear you had a scare up there.”

“Yeah.” That
was
a scare uptown. What the fuck, man, that guy in the car was waving a gun. Richard glanced sideways at Harrelson. Was he gonna chaperone them? He wanted to get right to it.

“Let’s talk in the chopper on the ride over to Teterboro.”

Richard nodded, feeling uneasy, but not seeing any alternative. Harrelson got out, closed the chopper door. The chopper headed out across the Hudson River toward New Jersey.

“That the package?” Milner said.

“Yeah.”

He nodded.

Richard gripped the Redweld folder in his lap with both hands, then said, “You said you had crucial information.”

He was anxious for Milner to respond. He wasn’t sure where this was going.

“As far as I’ve pieced it together, Schoenfeld and Delecroix were startled by how much money Walker was making on my deals. LeClaire was Delecroix’s boy, and he was always on my deal teams. Delecroix convinced him to be the conduit to feed information about my deals. They started front-running me— buying up stock in my acquisition targets before I made my
move. It was beginning to piss me off that I always had leaks running up the stock prices on my deals, making me pay more, so I put the Devon guys on it. They traced it back to LeClaire. When I confronted him he told me the drill. I can remember I was really pissed about them sucking LeClaire into this thing. I liked him. Still do. You remind me a lot of what he was like early in his career.”

“Thanks,” Richard said. His voice broke as he said it. “Why didn’t you go to the Feds?”

Milner didn’t answer right away. He tilted his head forward. He didn’t appear to be feeling sorry for himself, just feeling stupid about it.

Milner said, “I was gonna. I had a little ‘interview’ with Schoenfeld and Delecroix. I was gonna tell them I’d turn them in if they didn’t knock it off. I felt so ripped off that instead I demanded payback. Stupidest thing I ever did. They paid me off over time with their trading profits. Two hundred million. I
should’ve
turned them all in. Now I’m dirty, too. Once they paid me off I tried to get out; they wouldn’t let me.”

“When was that?”

“Two years ago,” he said, “and they finished paying me back just before the Southwest deal. That was when I tried to cut and run from them.”

Just before Tentron.
They rode in silence for a few moments. The chopper had crossed the Hudson and was heading north on the Jersey side.

“Whether you know it or not, you may have saved my ass— our asses.” He pointed to the folder in Richard’s lap. “That’s our leverage. Schoenfeld and Delecroix obviously wanna keep themselves out of this whole thing, and out of jail. Jack and Mickey, too. I’m sure they bought off LeClaire with enough money that
he’ll be able to live like a French prince when he gets out, in exchange for keeping his mouth shut about them. He also bargained for immunity for the firm; that’ll assure the trail never gets traced back to any of them. And LeClaire bought off the Feds. I already know he turned in some low level guys at GCG and Schoenfeld. They probably got paid off, too. But I’m the big prize, and he’s turned me in. That’s where the Feds will get their headlines.”

“How does my stuff link it to Sir Reginald and Delecroix?”

Milner smiled. “That’s where we need to be clever.”

Richard was getting a feeling in his gut, a tickle of anticipation, like Milner and he were gonna work a con.

“They’ve agreed to see us. Come with me to London now.”

“To negotiate a deal with Sir Reginald and Delecroix?”

“Yeah. I said we had information to trade with them. Your data, much more than what the Feds have—and an accounting of the profits of the ring going back four years. I told them you hid copies, so if anything happens to either of us the data finds its way to the Feds the next day. Told them I’m gonna live out my days in Switzerland, but I wanna cut a deal to keep quiet. And you want them to lay off you—for good.”

Richard tried to digest it. “I can see how the data helps, but where do I come in?”

“Just like any deal. You’ve got command of the information. I can talk broadly about it, but you’ve run your fingers around in it. Be my second in the negotiations. Cut a deal for yourself.”

“It’s not these guys I need to cut a deal with. We get the goods on them and do a deal with the Feds.” Richard pulled out his pocket Dictaphone. “We’ll get them to talk.”

Milner pulled out a tiny recorder and a wire. “My PIs have better technology; it’s digital—but wake up, kid. You don’t cut
a deal with these guys, you’ll never be sure you’re off the hook. If it turns out we can’t do a deal with the Feds, we still need to use our leverage with these bastards, or we’ll be looking over our shoulders the rest of our lives.”

That hit Richard hard. But Milner had a point. Richard’s fingerprints were all over this: the mole’s email account in his computer at work, the Feds’ wiretaps. They weren’t conclusive by themselves, but tough to explain away if LeClaire still maintained Richard was involved. Kathy, too, and maybe if the Feds really stretched it, somehow Dad. It made him want to throttle somebody.

“Got it. I do know this stuff cold. I can talk much more convincingly about it than you could on your own. And I can trace trades to Schoenfeld-owned entities, too. Ones even Delecroix may not know about. Maybe give them something to fight about between themselves.”

Richard saw Milner smiling at him with his eyes, hand cupped over his mouth. He said, “We’ll work out our strategy on the way to London. I already put you on the flight manifest. I got you a passport, too. I’m not traveling on my own, either.”

Richard saw out the window the chopper was landing at Teterboro Airport next to a big Gulfstream G550. Richard looked back over at Milner.
This is gonna be some show.

On a G550 over the Atlantic.
Richard had called Dad before he left for Milner’s office; he was a rock. But Richard was worried about Kathy, what she must be thinking. Probably sweating it out. The Feds still breathing down their necks and him off to see Milner, then disappears, out of touch. He couldn’t risk contacting her at
this point, but hoped the Devon guys got her a message. Milner said they’d think of some way.

Might as well get ready.
He watched himself in the mirror of the guest bathroom as if seeing a movie, putting on the suit Milner’s guys brought for him. Feeling numb inside, but calm.