Bull Street (18 page)

“Then you better do it quick. If the Walker guys are framing you, you may not have much time. Remember, the Feds are already onto you. If they come, the Feds and the U.S. Attorney will freeze all your assets. And if the Walker guys have worse in mind than framing you, you might wake up dead one day.”

After Sandy left, Milner turned and looked through the window up Park Avenue. When Sandy first talked to him about the Feds, Sandy said they would bust a small fry in the trading ring, then squeeze him to give up the higher-ups.
And I’m the top of the food chain.
But there’s always a bigger fish.

Milner waited until everybody else in the office went home, then walked downstairs to the wall where the Macintosh amps had been warming up for two hours. He pulled out a good Deutsche Gramophon LP of his favorite symphony, Beethoven’s Sixth, the Pastoral, and placed it on his Basis 2800 Signature turntable. By the time he walked back to his chair in the sweet spot, 12.5 feet from the big Wilson Maxx speakers, the opening strains were playing. He sat down, pointed the remote and turned it up. He had some thinking to do, and in about an hour this would clear his head.

Milner got to the office at 8:00 a.m., before anyone else would arrive. He turned to one of the foot-high Rolodexes on his
desk, cranked it to the card. He checked his watch, dialed the phone.

The secretary put him through.

“I’m surprised to hear from you directly, old boy.”

You mean concerned, don’t you?
Milner didn’t respond.

After a moment, old man Schoenfeld said, “Anything wrong?”

“No. I just wanted to speak with you personally to tell you I’ve decided to do the Tentron deal, and that it’s my last with you guys.”

“I didn’t know it was to be your last, but I knew you’ve been contemplating it.”

“I figured you did.”

The line was silent for a few moments, then Schoenfeld said, “Yes, well.”

“Are you buying yet?”

“Absolutely.”

Milner signed off and hung up.
Let’s see what the boys listening in do with that.

Washington, D.C.
It was just after 2:00 p.m., and Croonquist had his suit jacket on and was already halfway out the door, heading for an already late sandwich, when his phone rang.

“Roman, it’s Charlie Holden.”

“Charlie. Great to hear from you. How are you?” Charlie Holden, Assistant U.S. Attorney, his partner in prosecuting securities cases when Croonquist was Deputy Director of Enforcement in New York for six years.

“Good. But I’m jammed. Mind if I talk fast?”

“No, I’m on the run myself.”

“I just got something interesting from the NYPD on Milner’s CFO’s murder. It’s emails in the CFO’s computer showing some kind of accounting that looks like somebody’s been keeping tabs between themselves on profits on old deals. I heard you’re sniffing at Milner and thought it might mean something to you.”

Croonquist started smiling, then walked around behind his desk and sat down.

Holden went on, “I can forward a scanned copy of it to you in an email. You want it?”

“Hell yeah. When can you send it?”

“Right now.” Holden paused. “It’s on its way.”

“Thanks, Charlie.”

“Right, gotta go. See ya.” He hung up.

Thirty seconds later Croonquist heard the ping in his Outlook inbox. He opened the email. He felt a surge of adrenaline, then a warm feeling in his chest. One look at it told him it was related to his Walker/Milner surveillance. The emails to Milner’s CFO were sent from
[email protected]
, the email account at Walker that all the outgoing trades were ordered from. With this on top of his trading data and what he’d gotten from the wiretaps, he had enough. Screw lunch. He’d get Starsky and Hutch to start drafting indictments.

New York City.
Richard couldn’t see any real reason for him to ride uptown with Jack in his Porsche to Milner’s office. He figured by that time Jack just liked having him around.

The numbered trading account they’d opened for Milner stood at 4.9% ownership of Tentron’s stock, the legal limit
without filing his intentions with the SEC. They were heading up to Milner’s office for a team meeting on next steps. LeClaire would meet them there. Steinberg was to be patched in by phone.

“It’s like skiing,” Jack said, tooling the silver Porsche 911 Turbo up the FDR Drive at 60 miles per hour.

“Huh?”

“Skiing.”

“You mean this?” Richard asked, thinking Jack was referring to his slalom-like weaving through traffic. He arched his back as Jack raced up to slipstream a Chevy, tear around it.

“No, the deals, this whole business, the way we live.”

“How do you mean?”

“You don’t know exactly how you’re getting there, no defined route, just the direction you’re going in. And fast. Too slow is too late. And who has fun doing anything unless you’re scared shitless half the time? Just don’t fall down or it’s all over. Because even if you get back up, by then the competition’s past you.”

“What about missing gates?”

Jack didn’t say anything. He downshifted the Porsche from fifth into third, slalomed around a truck and a van with the engine screaming, then shot back into the left lane. Richard’s stomach felt light from both the acceleration and from hanging on an answer.
Why are you rooting for Jack to fit some mold?
For the first time Richard wasn’t sure he wanted to be like Jack.

Finally Jack said, “Depends if anybody sees you.”

After another long pause he said, “Relax. Enjoy yourself; this should be a fun meeting. We’re getting to the good part.” Richard was realizing that Jack’s idea of fun was dangerous.

Jack and Richard got off the elevator at Milner’s penthouse to a blaze of afternoon sun. They walked into a battle command center that Milner’s penthouse had been transformed into. Snakes of communications cables were everyplace. A 30-foot conference table was set up in the center of the main floor. Other tables overflowed with catered food. The place throbbed with motion. Stephanie, Milner’s secretary, stood at the center of activity, gesturing and pointing, as if directing traffic.

The information agents from Morrow & Company grouped together to the left of the room, clothed in muted grays.

Howard Blaine wisecracked with Shakespearean elocution at Milner. Richard couldn’t imagine Milner putting up with it for long. A handful of Blaine’s Associates talked on telephones set up in makeshift cubicles lining the east wall. Three guys from Devon & Company, Milner’s private investigators, sat in Milner’s living room furniture off to the east, looking serious. They wore rumpled gray suits and eyed the table decked out with hot buffet food the caterers were freshening. A cute brunette putting out egg rolls flashed a smile at Richard. She and the heroin-thin tall blonde worked slowly, seeming to enjoy that he was watching them.

The Walker team added the color. Jack was regal in a royal blue suit. LeClaire wore something double-breasted from Zegna, one of those borderline greens that sometimes look blue. Richard wore white collar and cuffs against an English striped shirt and a dark blue Polo suit.

Just before the meeting was to start, Richard stood at the mezzanine rail outside Milner’s glass-walled office and conference room. He looked up Park Avenue at all of midtown Manhattan. Cars and people moved noiselessly up and down the streets, Richard wondering how many below even imagined
what was going on up here. He turned, leaned on the rail and looked down at the war room below. One of Blaine’s Associates trotted from the phones to a group of professionals clustered at the conference table. Another group watched the plasma screens.

Richard wondered how many of his classmates from Michigan were seeing similar scenes unfold. He was on his way; he’d scrambled from almost not making it to the Street to playing the game on a level he’d never dreamed was possible in that short a time frame. He was on the fast track, ahead of his peers at Walker & Company. The Sterling & Dalton lawyers and all the other professionals on the deal team listened to what he said, because Milner, Blaine, Jack and the others at Walker had accepted him. He was learning directly from masters surrounding him. He was in an industry where knowledge ruled, but where looking and seeming and style were sometimes as important as knowing. He was where he belonged; he’d chosen well.

And he was making more money than he ever imagined. Only a week ago Jack said to him, “Just look at you. Last summer you were a fresh face, but a doe-eyed rube. Young man comes to New York, applies himself, starts to learn the game and gets some strut in his step. You’re kicking ass. Keep it up and you’ll make a $250,000 bonus this year, be wearing a different suit every day and riding taxis around town with long-legged models.”

I’m a success.

Now he thought about Jack’s “skiing” speech on the way uptown. No question, Jack was a master, and maybe that’s how they all operated—cutting corners. Richard decided he wasn’t doing anything to make waves, screw this up; he’d forget about the mole. Who knew? Maybe Jack was the mole. He remembered LeClaire’s words the day he’d offered Richard the “provisional” job: they’d test him to see if he was Walker material, maybe even
ask him to do things that might make him squeamish. And if the mole’s operation was really how it worked, maybe soon they’d ask him to send some emails ordering trades. Would he do it?