The Last Goodbye (45 page)

“Then tell them to get in here and wrap it.” I said. “We've got two hours to get to Nicole Frost's office at Shearson Lehman. All of us do.” I looked at Michael. “Did you get the money together, like I told you?”

Michael nodded. “Thirty-eight hundred bucks. It's all I could get.”

“It'll have to do.” I turned to Robinson. “Did Michael tell you?”

“Yeah. What's this all about?”

“Did you get it?”

“I don't have any real money, Jack. I've mostly been getting paid in Grayton stock. It seemed like a good idea at the time, when it was selling at about thirty.”

“What's it at now?”

“About five.”

“How many shares do you have?”

Robinson shrugged. “There was the signing bonus, and everything since then . . . about a hundred and sixty-eight thousand shares, all together.”

I was too tired to do the math, but I knew it would be enough. “It's okay,” I said. “I'll have to explain while we travel.”

“It's all I have,” Robinson said. “It's my retirement.”

“You gotta do what you gotta do. But if you can trust me, you're going to be glad you did.”

Robinson watched me thoughtfully a moment, then nodded. “When I met you I was finished. The only thing left was the funeral. Thanks to you, I've got my life back. So yeah, I can trust you.”

“Good. Get me wrapped up, and get Detective Little over here. In exchange for us delivering him on a silver platter the case that makes him a lieutenant, he's going to do us a little favor. And that favor is going to pay you both back for helping me.”

The next few hours were lived in spite of a broken heart. There would be time for grief, I knew that. And it would take the shape and form that it took. But for a few hours, I had no choice but to cordon off a seared part of my heart and stay focused. Because I was going to play one final card, and the timing had to be exactly right.

At nine o'clock, Nightmare, Robinson, and I—leg tightly wrapped, and helped by a cane—stood in the lobby of Atlanta's Shearson Lehman offices, looking like hell. We had arrived with not a minute to spare, so no one had cleaned up from the night before. My leg was in a tight bandage, throbbing like crazy; Robinson, managing under the effects of sleep deprivation and a powerful antiviral drug, looked like walking death; Nightmare, meanwhile, was disturbing the ambience of one of Atlanta's most conservative business environments with his previous day's choice of army fatigue pants and a sleeveless, orange-and-black T-shirt for the band System of a Down. Predictably, he was nervous as hell. “Explain this to me again,” he said, vibrating slightly.

“I've gone over it the whole way over here,” I said.

“I know. But there was something about how we might get crushed.”

“Or go to jail,” Robinson said. “He said that, too.”

I turned and faced them both. “You don't have to do this. We can walk back out the door. I just wanted to pay you back for what you did. If this doesn't work for you, I understand. It's all I've got.” After a moment Robinson nodded, and eventually Nightmare did the same. “Okay,” I said. “Horizn is going public today. We're going to buy it as high as we can, and sell it short. We're betting the stock will go down.”

“And we're buying it on margin, which lets us control way more stock than we can actually afford,” Nightmare said slowly.

I nodded. “We buy at a set price, and for every dollar it goes down after that, we win.”

“And if it doesn't go down?” Nightmare asked.

“We're crushed,” I said, wincing. My leg was hurting like hell. “They don't play nice around here.”

“And it's not going to be insider trading.” Robinson said, doubtfully.

“That's right.”

“Because of the timing.”

“Correct.”

Robinson looked dubious. “Are you sure they won't cancel the IPO after everything that's happened?”

I shook my head. “You don't stop an IPO a few hours before it's scheduled. Anyway, as far as Stephens knows, everything went as planned. He may have tried to reach Pope, but he isn't going to pull the plug based on not getting a phone call returned. He's millions into investment banker fees, and pulling the plug would put a light on them that there's no way they could survive. Trust me. This IPO is going off, without a doubt.”

The large doors behind us opened, and Nicole walked in with her usual cheery impeccability. She saw us and stopped cold. “Jack?” She looked at the bandage. “Oh, my God. What happened to you?”

There wasn't time for a long explanation, so I skipped it. “We want to open a margin account.” Nicole laughed nervously, as though she'd decided I had lost my mind. “We're serious,” I said. “And we're in kind of a hurry.”

The laughter stopped. “Have you looked at yourselves?”

“For the sum of two million, five hundred and thirty-one thousand, four hundred dollars, please.”

There was a hushed silence, then she grabbed my arm and whispered, “Are you crazy, Jack? I know things have been bad, but playing the market on margin isn't the answer.” She pointed to Nightmare and Robinson. “Who are these people, and what are they doing here?”

“There's collateral,” I said. “One hundred and sixty-eight thousand shares of Grayton Pharmaceutical. It's trading at about five.” Nicole's mouth, then in the process of reloading, snapped shut. “We also have a cashier's check for thirty-eight hundred dollars, courtesy of my business associate, Mr. Michael Harrod. Michael, shake hands with your new broker.”

Michael stuck out his hand like a Rockefeller. Nicole regarded it warily, shook it, and looked like she wanted a washrag. The doors behind us opened again, and several impeccably dressed executives spilled out into the lobby. “You'd better come upstairs, Jack,” she said. “You and your friends aren't doing my image any good.”

Nicole bundled us onto the elevator, which we rode up to the second floor. The doors opened, and we walked into the catwalk overlooking the Atlanta trading room at Shearson Lehman, a place that makes NASA look old-fashioned. It's a spotless world in which row after row of gleaming plasma screens monitor the continuous transfer of the world's wealth from one set of hands to another, mostly in an upward direction. The executive offices, including Nicole's, look down on the traders' area like Romans on gladiators. And as at the Coliseum, at the end of every trading day there would be the dead, the wounded, and the privileged winners. It was Nicole's job to make sure her clients stayed firmly in the latter group.

Nightmare, Robinson, and I followed Nicole out of the elevator toward her office. There were a lot of suits walking around, even more than usual, according to Nicole. Some of the higher-ups had gathered, ready to watch the fireworks when Horizn opened. One office we passed had a bucket with a bottle of Cristal Roederer cooling expensively in ice. Four or five people were in the room, chatting with the high, anxious voices of children on Christmas morning.

Nightmare walked in a haze, probably imagining the damage he could do if he ever got access to their computer system. We filed into Nicole's office, a comfortable space containing a modern-looking desk, a coffee table, a leather couch and some fabric-covered wing chairs. A LeRoy Neiman painting hung on one wall. I pointed and gave her a questioning look.

“I loathe it, but it makes my male clients feel better,” she said. “Before I ask them to give me all their money.” She motioned for us to take a seat and pulled up a chair herself. “Now, why don't you tell me what this is all about? This is a busy morning.”

I set the briefcase on her coffee table and flipped it open. “These,” I said, “are certificates of Grayton Technical Laboratories stock. Together with our cashier's check, their current value is eight hundred forty-three thousand, eight hundred dollars. I trust they're self-explanatory.”

Nicole stared at the briefcase. “I see.” She pulled out a calculator and punched some buttons. “It's not enough, Jack. Margin accounts can't exceed fifty percent.”

“We intend to sell short. It's seventy-five percent for that, right?”

“Intend to sell what short?”

“It's seventy-five percent, right?”

She watched me a moment, then said, “Yes, Jack. It's seventy-five percent for selling short. Technically.”

“So that's two million, five hundred thirty-one thousand, four hundred dollars.” I pulled out a piece of paper and put it on her desk. “This is my life insurance,” I said. “It has a cash value of twenty-one thousand dollars. I've made Shearson Lehman the assignee. You can cash it at your leisure.”

A longer pause, as Nicole—who, although an absolute minx socially, handled her business affairs like a nun—considered. “It's hardly conventional.”

“It is legal, though. That's the point.”

“You gentlemen realize that if this stock goes down you are going to suffer huge losses.”

“We do.”

“Which means you are going to get called.”

“Right.”

“There's no grace on a margin this big, Jack. You'll have to cover at the close of every business day. No exceptions. You could lose everything before you know what hit you.” I nodded silently. “You do understand the commissions on margin are higher.”

“I do.”

Nicole watched me levelly a moment, then said, “If you gentlemen will wait here a minute, I'll have some paperwork for you to sign.”

I had set my grief aside for a few disciplined hours, because I was burning inside. It wasn't a righteous flame, exactly. I had made too many of my own mistakes for that. But it was white hot, and it had a well-earned target. After we signed, I stood pacing as Nicole started her trading software on her desktop computer. The side wall facing the trading area was glass, and Nightmare and Robinson pressed up against it, noses against the window. The traders were already at their places, chatting between themselves, beginning the morning's caffeine assault on generic fatigue.

In the four or five minutes between that moment and the opening of trading, we were like a little band of brothers, three unlikely
compadres
thrown together by circumstance. And we were about to go to war. You could feel the energy between us, part hope, part anxious fear. I walked over to the glass, and we stood there, mesmerized, thinking about what was about to happen. At ten o'clock, Nicole's voice pulled me back into reality. “Boom,” she said, smiling. “Off to the races. Now tell me what we're doing.”

“Put Horizn on the screen,” I said.

“Horizn.” She looked paler, if that was possible, than usual.

I walked back over to Nicole, looking over her shoulder. My entire body went tense as I watched the numbers. Horizn's stock symbol, HZN, flickered an instant at the starting price of 31, but that lasted seconds. Quickly, it rose to 32.50, then 33.17. Nicole looked at me. “Tell me what you're doing. It's going to get expensive.”

“Not yet,” I said levelly. Thirty minutes later, Horizn was at 38.12. Nicole was growing anxious.

“Jack, this is crazy.”

I shook my head. By eleven-fifteen, Horizn had exploded to forty-six dollars, well on its way toward its anticipated one-year level. Buying was frantic, as traders made bids only to see the price vanish before the order was filled. I glanced at Robinson, who was giving me a nervous look. “When it hits fifty,” I said.

Nightmare was trembling. “I hope you know what you're doing,” he said.

“You can get off the train anytime you like,” I said. “It's your decision.”

Nightmare turned back to stare at the trading floor, but shut his mouth. At about eleven-thirty, the buying pace slowed. Over the next ten minutes, the price glimmered in the mid-49s, flirting with but not hitting the magic number.

“It's running out of steam,” Nicole said. “There's some day traders taking quick money.”

I looked at my watch; it was twenty minutes until twelve. “Buy five thousand shares,” I said. “At market.”

Nicole looked stricken. “C'mon, Jack. It's flagging. Go a quarter under and wait.”

“Market,” I said, eyes fixed on the screen.

“It's your money,” Nicole said, typing on the screen.

I watched my order flash a moment, then get devoured. That reenergized things for a while, but the magic 50 hadn't been broken. “Buy another five thousand,” Robinson said. Nicole looked up.

I nodded at Robinson, who was wide-eyed, but otherwise calm. “He's right,” I said. “Another five thousand, at market.” Nicole typed, and within seconds, we had our buyer. A few seconds after that, the price started back up—nothing dramatic, but with renewed energy. A few minutes later, HZN crossed the magic fifty-dollar mark. With that psychological barrier passed, another round of buying took over, pushing the stock even higher.

“Blessed Virgin,” Robinson said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Blessed Virgin, come to us in our hour of need.” I looked at my watch one last time, turned to Nicole and said, “Turn on the TV. You can leave the sound off. Tune to Channel Five.”

Nicole looked at me, her expression blank. By now, she was in a dream state, just along for the ride. She picked up a remote control and turned on a TV across the room. It was a soap commercial. I looked back at the trading numbers. Horizn had just crossed 53.

The commercial ended, and a “Breaking News” banner popped up at the bottom of the screen. The picture changed to the PR room the Atlanta Police Department used for press briefings. Billy Little was standing behind a group of microphones. The room was silent as we watched Billy Little make a short announcement. Nightmare watched from across Nicole's office, his face white. Robinson, on the other hand, went calm. His eyes were fixed on Little, waiting for the detective to say the words that would make his life make sense again. “I'm going to sell some Horizn shares short, Nicole,” I said. “I want you to get it on your screen, ready to send.”