Bull Street (39 page)

“So we jawbone the guy for half an hour or so, and then you guys are free to go. Any questions?” They both shook their heads. Shane nodded and turned to pour himself another cup of coffee,
then looked at his watch.
Ten minutes,
he thought. Fitzgibbons stood up and went back to the telephone.

“Stanley!” Shane said in his practiced, melodious baritone when an attractive blonde showed Stanley into the conference room. The blonde lowered her eyes demurely and pulled the door closed behind Stanley.

“Jack, always great to see you,” Stanley said in a Northeastern-boarding-school voice, while pumping on Shane’s hand. Stanley was tall, blonde and thin. He parted his hair in the middle and wore a correspondingly WASPy three-button suit. Shane smiled and extended an arm toward the center of the room. He made sure his brown eyes swam with goodwill.

“Thanks, Stanley, and you, too. And let me introduce my colleagues, John Bates, Managing Director and Head of all ABC’s Corporate Finance activities, and John Fitzgibbons, Managing Director and Head of ABC’s Mergers & Acquisitions Group.” Shane threw a look of collegial affection at each of his colleagues as he introduced them. They walked across the room to shake hands with Stanley, Bates with his jacket buttoned and Fitzgibbons with one hand still in his pocket, bright blue suspenders showing against an English striped shirt of yellow and blue, and a matching blue Gucci tie with the label splayed outward.

Coffee and breakfast was offered. Additional pleasantries were exchanged. They sat down around one end of the table with Stanley at the head and got down to business.

“Stanley, as I told you, I thought you might like to hear from the Department heads who would oversee your transactions, and
whose teams would report in to me.” Shane gave Stanley another of his client smiles, then nodded to each of his colleagues. “Our objective for today is to give you the comfort that we can bring the resources to bear on your proposed deals, give you a sense of the commitment of the firm to Kristos & Company, and of course to you personally Stanley, and then we can handle some of the details on our engagement structure later, perhaps after lunch. We’ve got a dining room booked across the floor at 12:30. I’ll be introducing you to Steven Dick, the Chairman of our firm at that time. But for now, I thought it might make sense to let you hear from John and Charles, here, about what we see for the respective deals. Sound okay?” Shane said and opened his palms toward Stanley.

“Absolutely,” Stanley said and rested his folded hands on the table.

“Maybe I should speak first, since the M&A transaction on Milstein Brothers Stores is the crux of the whole thing,” Fitzgibbons said. “As you know directly from your own meetings with the Milstein brothers, they are favorably disposed and we’re drafting the definitive purchase agreement right now. Through Jack’s good offices we know you’re being well taken care of, but you should also know that one of our other colleagues has the direct relationship with the Milstein brothers and he also says they’re delighted with the prospective transaction. Everything seems poised for a deal thanks to Jack, and I’ve got some of my best guys working with Jack and your attorneys at Winston & Sterling.”

Shane’s mind drifted off as Fitzgibbons went through his shtick. IPO and high-yield financing and M&A fees. Then there was the bank financing of about $1 billion.
All-in about $90 million in fees,
Shane thought.
And after these guys get done
salami-ing off whatever they can get their hands on, it should still about make my year. Let’s hope the markets hold up.
He looked at Stanley. Shane noted the pinkish glow under his skin, a glow of vulnerability.
And let’s hope you don’t get hit by a truck, dear Stanley. And that old man Nick decides not to step back in and change the game plan.

After Fitzgibbons was through, Bates did his part. Shane was actually impressed. Bates carried it off with style, relating the history of the growth of the 1,000-strong Investment Banking Group of Abercrombie, Wirth & Co., describing its downtown roots from a 50-person boutique firm specializing in corporate advisory to its current stature as the last privately owned of the elite Wall Street firms that dominated the underwriting, mergers and acquisitions, and capital markets businesses. “We’re considered the guys to watch, because we’re the ones with the momentum. And we’re having fun,” Bates said, smiling with sincerity, conveying a warmth that again surprised Shane. “We like our business, we enjoy our clients, and we’d be happy to count you among them.”

Afterward Shane walked Stanley back along the same route through which he had entered, then downstairs to the 42
^nd
-floor trading room. The trading floor took up the entire 100,000-square-foot floor and was three stories high, extending up to the 45
^th
floor. The effect was intoxicating, as always. Hundreds of shouting, gesturing and athletic young bodies, barking into telephones, hollering at each other, all banked in row upon row of high-tech Bloomberg and analytical trading screens stacked two and three high, blinking in multihued colors. The noise, the phones, the energy, all rose in a multitudinous dim that said, “This is where it happens. This is where it is. The money.” Stanley seemed awestruck.

Over lunch he spilled his wine, which delighted Shane.
Great, keep him off balance.
Shane zeroed in on Stanley after that. By 2:00 p.m. he was in front of the building with Stanley to deposit him in a limo.

“Great day,” Stanley said, pumping Shane’s hand again. “We’ll have to do that golf game before the deal’s done.”

“Absolutely,” Shane said and closed the limo door.
Golf,
he thought as he headed back into the building,
now there’s a dumbass game.
Thousands of hours of practice to sit in a goofy little cart with a numbskull twit like Stanley for five hours. He’d rather get his fingers smashed in a car door. If Stanley’d said tennis, maybe. At least that was a man’s game. There you worked up a sweat, got a chance to pound out some aggressions, even smash the shit out of the ball down the other guy’s throat.
Golf, my ass.

Five minutes later Shane sat with his feet up on his desk, an executed original of his engagement letter propped in his lap. “Alright, Stanley, away we go,” he said aloud.

D
ANI
N
ORTH WALKED DOWN
W
EST
End Avenue toward the Mercer School, her son Gabe at her side. The air was cold and fresh. Minutes earlier, crossing Broadway, she’d seen tulips on the median, and the leaves on the maple trees were ready to pop. Now, scents of spring—wet earth and hyacinths in window boxes—were apparent. She yawned, bone tired from the hectic weeks of the Tribeca Film Festival wearing her down on top of work and the daily routine of single-parenting a preteen. Tired or not, she was on a high and Gabe walked close enough that she thought to take his hand.
That is, if he’d let me.
She reminded herself it was perfectly normal for a nine-year-old not to want his mom to hold his hand anymore.
Normal.
What would those morons at Division of Youth and Family Services in New Jersey say about that? Probably still call him ADHD and drug him up. She’d love to run DYFS into the ground, along with their partners in crime, the pharmaceutical industry. Legalized drug pushers.

Leave it,
she told herself. Channel the anger into something productive. That made her smile. She had, and well. It was starting to feel real that
The Drugging of Our Children,
her latest film, had won best documentary at Tribeca last night. That channeled anger was doing some good, getting the word out. Educating parents about their choices, ones she hadn’t been aware of for Gabe.
Who knew? If she had, she might never have lost that three-year nightmare of lawsuits with DYFS in Hackensack. It forced her to accept mandatory drugging of Gabe, because otherwise the court would have taken him from her.

She looked over at Gabe now. Chin high, proud of how he looked in his Ralph Lauren blue blazer, gray pants and white oxford button-down, school tie snugged up against his neck. Only his black Vans betrayed his age.
Yes, normal.
Thanks in part to Dr. O.

Gabe caught her looking at him. “Now that you won, you gonna get a bonus and turn the electric back on?”

“You mean ‘going to’ and ‘electricity.’” She thought about the last two weeks of burning candles at night. She’d put off the electric bill in order to scrape up Gabe’s tuition for this semester at Mercer. “Besides, we were camping, remember?”

“C’mon, Mom, that worked on me when I was like five years old. I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Yes, you are.”

Gabe thought for a second. “Alright, but I’m not stupid.”

“No, I’m not getting a bonus,” Dani said, running a hand over Gabe’s hair, “but I get paid today and we’ll be back to normal. Lights and TV.”

“Next time I’m telling Nanny. She’ll pay it.”

“Do that and you can forget about TV until you’re eighteen.”

They reached the corner diagonally across West End from the entrance to Mercer. “Leave me here,” Gabe said, looking away from her.

Dani didn’t respond, just grabbed his shirtsleeve between her fingers and started across the street. He pulled out of her grasp and increased his pace. Dani saw Damien Richardson on the opposite corner as they approached. He stood looking at the
half dozen kids grouped around the entrance to Mercer, tentative. She knew the bigger boys picked on Damien. She felt a tug at her heart. “Morning, Damien,” she called.

Damien turned to them. His face brightened and he smiled. “Hi, Mrs. North. What’s up, Gabe?”

“Come on, Damien,” Dani whispered when she reached him. “I’ll walk you in.”

Ten minutes later she crossed 79
^th
Street toward Broadway, her mind buzzing with last night’s triumph and her upcoming day. She pulled her BlackBerry out of her pocket, checked the screen.
8:10.
Enough time to get through her voicemails and emails before Dr. Maguire, the researcher from Pharma International, showed up. Now she wondered again what his agenda was, why he was so anxious and secretive about the meeting. But it was something important—at least to Maguire. She’d been calling him for weeks, coaxing him into an interview for the new documentary on autism she was just beginning. She’d been referred to Maguire by his friend, John McCloskey, the KellerDorne Pharmaceutical technician who’d served as whistleblower on KellerDorne’s painkiller, Myriad, after patients who took it started dropping dead from heart attacks. Dani’s interview of McCloskey published in the
Crusador
was well after McCloskey went public, but somehow it managed to electrify the issue. As a result, the contributions had flowed into Dr. Orlovski to fund the documentaries he produced, including Dani’s
The Drugging of Our Children.

Maybe Maguire needed to get something off his chest, too. Dani picked up her pace. Her BlackBerry rang and her breath caught in her throat when she saw Mom’s number on the screen. How could she forget?
Dad.

“Hi, Mom. How are you doing?”

“Okay.” She paused. “You know what day it is, don’t you?”

Dani’s mind automatically did the math. She’d been 22. Seven years. “Of course.” She stopped walking and leaned over the BlackBerry as if sheltering her words from passersby. She said, “Each year I think about him constantly during this day. Sometimes it seems like…” her voice trailed off.

“I miss him more each year, too,” Mom said. Her voice was steady, like she’d steeled herself to get through the day.

“When’s his Mass?”

“One o’clock.”

Dani didn’t respond right away. “I can’t make it this year.”

“I know, sweetie. I just wanted to hear your voice. I knew you weren’t coming. You had a big day yesterday. Congratulations. I’m sure lots of people want to talk to you.”

“It’s not that. I’m just jammed with the usual stuff. Will you light a candle for me?”

“Sure. I’ll speak to you later. Gabe okay?”

“He’s great. Maybe we’ll get out this weekend. How’s Jack?”

“The same.” Dani felt her hand muscles tense around the BlackBerry.

“Anything going on?”

“The usual. He was out most of the night, couldn’t get up for work.”

“I’ll get out there this weekend,” Dani said. They signed off. She continued walking, feeling guilty. Lisa and George lived far enough away that they never made Dad’s Mass. And Jack was high half the time, so it was like she was alone even if he came with her. At least Mom could count on Dani. Or so she thought. This was the second year in a row Dani would miss Dad’s Mass. It hurt. Particularly knowing how devout a Catholic Mom was, how much Mom wanted Dani to experience her faith the way she
did. She sighed and kept walking, thinking she’d find a way to make it up to Mom, feeling unworthy.

Dani reached the entrance to Dr. Yuri Orlovski’s office at 79
^th
and Broadway. A half dozen patients already sat in the waiting room when she stepped through the door. She paused to wave at Carla behind the reception desk, who mouthed, “Congratulations.” Dani nodded and smiled, then headed up the steep 20 steps to her office. By the time she reached the top, she reflected as she usually did,
What would I do without Dr. O
? It was the best job she’d ever had, even aside from him rescuing Gabe a year ago from Child Protective Services, New York’s equivalent of New Jersey’s DYFS. Dr. O’s homeopathic remedies and detoxification had purged Gabe’s body of the mercury and other poisons that Dr. O maintained were largely caused by vaccines. And he certified as an MD that Gabe’s ADHD was “cured.” That got Gabe off Child Protective Services’ list and off mandatory ADHD medications to attend public school. This year she’d scrounged up enough to afford to get him into Mercer.

And now she ran the nonmedical practice side of Dr. O’s mini-empire, as he jokingly called it. But it was no joke. It was a flourishing Internet business of whole food based vitamins; health-related DVDs and books; and healthy lifestyle products like juicers and water filters. And a good portion of the profits funded Dr. O’s real passion: documentaries on health issues, the only thing—except, of course for Gabe—that got Dani out of bed every morning.

Her colleagues, Richard Kaminsky, Jason Waite and Seth Weinstein stood talking near the entrance to Dr. O’s Vitamin Shop when Dani got to the top of the steps. Richard started applauding and the others joined in. She stood, cringing from
embarrassment, yet secretly relishing the recognition. They walked over and greeted her with hugs.

“I knew you’d do it,” Richard said.

“Absolutely,” Ralph said.

They were joined by a half dozen others, including Kaitlin Drake, her editor. Dani was gradually overcome by an odd sensation of discomfort. She recalled how she’d wilted under the spotlight when asked to say a few words on accepting her award last night. It made her feel as if her colleagues would think she was undeserving of their praise if they’d seen her frozen with panic. She’d wanted to say something about creating a film that spoke her truth, and that of thousands of other mothers, but she was unable to utter more than “Thank you,” in front of 2,000 people.

It took Dani another 10 minutes to reach her desk. She booted up her computer and started going through her emails.
Eighty-four today. Oof.
The usual: mothers with no money and sick children, desperate to see Dr. O. Many she was counseling on vitamins and remedies. A few like Jennifer Knox: a mother with an autistic child who Dani had interviewed for her new documentary, who needed to vent to someone who understood, keep her from going crazy. Finally, a number of congratulatory wishes. Then her voicemails.
Thirty-six, more of the same.
One was from James, at first congratulating her, next a little pathetic and finally lecturing her about not throwing away five years. As she neared the end of her voicemails she heard his voice again, and feeling nothing at all—rather than angry or impatient— deleted the message without listening to it. That one probably hammered at James’ constant theme: commitment. After she finished with her voicemails she checked her blog: 3,748 pageviews yesterday, about 50% more than usual. She wrote
a quick blog post thanking her supporters and urging them to continue to spread the word on
Drugging
and its message, looked at the time—8:58—then sat back in her chair to wait for Dr. Maguire.

Stevens waited while his partner, Turnbull, double-parked their police black-and-white in front of the doc’s office. “Don’t be long, Alice,” Turnbull said.

“How come I gotta listen to your shit every time I go to buy my vitamins?”

“And don’t catch a wittle cold while you’re there, girlie-man.”

Stevens opened the door. “I need five minutes, asshole.”

“Five more minutes for the crooks to prey on our harmless citizens.”

Stevens stepped out of the car, looked back at Turnbull and said, “Less time than it takes you to feed greasy fries and cholesterol to your fat ass at Burger Heaven.” He slammed the car door and headed toward Dr. Orlovski’s. At the top of the steep stairway he turned right and got in line behind three other customers at the Dutch door, open at the top, that served as the sales window for the Vitamin Shop.

Hunter Stark sat behind the wheel of a Ford Taurus across the street from Dr. Orlovski’s office, a spot he’d staked out at 6:30 a.m. to make sure he was positioned properly. He rubbed his hands, admiring his custom-made nappa lambskin gloves. They were an essential element of his professional toolkit, as important
as his Ruger; form-fitting and almost like wearing nothing at all. At $500 a pair from Dominic Pierotucci’s shop in Genoa, they were a bargain.

Stark’s gaze scanned the street in front of Dr. Orlovski’s office. He was tense. These jobs were tough enough in a low-risk environment, but this last-minute bullshit didn’t allow for any planning, choice of site or operational subtlety. Still, figuring out things like this and taking the risk were why he got paid the big bucks.

The girl had entered about 8:15, and now he checked his watch again—just before 9:00—as he saw a cop car pull up. One of the uniforms got out and walked through Orlovski’s front door.
Not good.
It would be a complication if Maguire showed up with the cop in there.

He felt one of those odd pains he got behind his eyes when things were about to go wrong. Less than a minute after the cop went in, he’d seen a guy that matched Maguire’s description on the corner of 79
^th
Street. Stark glanced down at the picture he held in his lap. Maguire, no question about it. Shit, they told him the man was big, but he must be 6’5”, shoulders like an ox. A guy who looked like he could take right lead from Muhammad Ali and keep coming. Maguire walked with his head tilted down at the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, real purpose in his stride, moving fast.