Stephen Frey (2 page)

“So true, brother,” Bo said, forcing a smile.

“Well, I've got a few more calls to make, Melissa,” Paul announced, “then I'll be down to rescue you.”

“Don't hurry on my account,” she said quietly as he disappeared from the balcony.

Bo took a long swallow of scotch, considering his next question. It was crude, but she had entered into the quid pro quo as well. “Do you ever enjoy it?”

“No,” Melissa said curtly, her mood darkening as she thought of what lay ahead tonight. “It's a job and that's all. In two years I've paid off all my school loans and saved twenty-five thousand dollars,” she said defiantly. “Now Wall Street calls me.”

“I'm sure. The I-bankers rarely care whose money it is as long as they can take their crumb.”

Her chin quivered slightly. “I've hated every minute of it.”

“We all make choices, Melissa. And there are challenges down every path.”

She rolled her eyes. “With a billion dollars, what challenges could you possibly have?”

He took a deep breath. “From the time I was a child, I've never known why someone wanted to be my friend. Was it me, or what we have? Nine times out of ten they were using me. It took a while for me to figure that out, but once I did, I was better off.” He heard her low, unimpressed groan. “Money changes the rules, Melissa, and not always for the better. Until I graduated from Yale, I had a chaperon wherever I went. My parents called him a bodyguard, but he was really there to watch me and make sure I didn't take liberties with the family name. A girl had to be screened carefully before I could see her.”

“We all know that the elite must stick together,” Melissa said sarcastically. “God help us if there were ever a mixing of the gene pools.”

“Hey, I didn't say I liked it,” Bo countered quickly. “My parents were preoccupied with maintaining our family's good reputation in society as well as in the press. Actually,
obsessed
is a more accurate description.”

“Why did they care so much?”

“The press is always looking to trash prominent families. Always after the blood of the rich and famous because our scandals sell more copies. You know that.”

“So your parents were obsessed with maintaining the family's good reputation, but I'm the reality. A woman kept in the shadows.” Melissa's eyes narrowed. “Does Paul's wife know about me?”

Betty Tweed Hancock, Paul's wife, was a plain, pale-skinned woman whose father was the managing partner of one of Manhattan's most prominent law firms. He had many valuable contacts inside the Washington beltway, and those contacts would prove invaluable to Paul as he progressed onto the national political stage. As a bit of political maneuvering, Paul and Betty's marriage was a triumph. In the bedroom, however, it was less than satisfying. So a year ago Melissa had entered the equation. Paul made it a point to see Melissa at least once a week. Sometimes for fifteen minutes, sometimes, when he could arrange it, all night.

Bo shook his head, thinking about the fact that Betty was less than a mile away in Paul's mansion just over the hill from the playhouse. “Betty has no idea about you. She thinks Paul is attending a political function in another part of the state tonight. Paul has his staff well trained.”

“Your family is so concerned about the public image, but the reality is much darker.”

“It wasn't when my mother was alive,” Bo answered. “Ida Warfield Hancock ran a tight ship. Without her around things have been different.”

“When did she pass away?”

“About a year ago,” Bo said softly.

They were silent for several minutes before she spoke up again, trying to recapture their earlier mood. “So, do you have a day job, Bo?”

“I'm one of those Wall Street guys who weren't impressed with your résumé. I work in Goldman Sachs's corporate finance group. In a few years I'll be brought in-house to run Warfield Capital, the family investment fund.” Bo took another swallow of scotch. “I'm the blocking-and-tackling guy of the family. Paul is the quarterback. The one everyone is watching.”

“Does that bother you?”

Bo's posture stiffened. “No.”

“Is Paul worried that you'll tell his wife about me?” she asked. “Is that why he seemed upset when you showed up tonight?”

“He isn't worried about that at all. He knows I won't say a word. My father would disown me if I did anything to hurt Paul's image or reputation. My father believes Paul can be president.”

“Of the United States?” She sounded incredulous.

Bo nodded. “Look around you, Melissa. Paul is as connected as anyone, he has tremendous firepower behind him and he can sell ice cubes to Eskimos. He can make people believe anything he wants, whether it's in person or in front of a camera. He's part movie star and part cult leader. It's a helluva combination.”

“I know,” Melissa agreed.

“Once it became clear—when Paul was still a teenager—that he would be a natural leader, that he possessed that unique power of persuasion and the looks to boot, the Hancock machine went into action.”

“What do you mean?”

“Paul is just thirty years old and he's met and been photographed with everyone who counts in the political, business, entertainment, and sports worlds. He's been the chairman of several important charities and been given full credit for their successes in the press, even though he has no more appreciation for what the charities do than he does for how hard the common man works every day. He's gone to the finest schools and traveled around the world.” Bo's expression hardened. “And he won his state senate seat virtually unopposed. His next objective is to be governor of Connecticut.”

“Governor?”

“Yep. And my father will make it happen. Jimmy Lee's influence is remarkable. He has a lot of friends who owe him favors.”

Paul's voice interrupted them. “Melissa, I'm ready.”

Bo and Melissa turned around quickly.

Paul stood in the veranda doorway. “I've finished the calls I needed to make,” he announced. “Come on.”

“I'll be right there,” she answered, wondering how long he had been standing there.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I want to say good night to Bo,” she said hesitantly, aware that she risked facing his considerable wrath by not being immediately obedient. But she wasn't ready to leave Bo yet.

Paul eyed Bo. “Don't be long,” he warned Melissa. “I'll be inside, by the pool.”

When he was gone, she touched Bo's hand. “I enjoyed this.”

“So did I.” Bo had a feeling that she wanted to say more.

“Well, good night,” she finally said, and started toward the door.

“Good night, Melissa.” Bo reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out another cigarette. “You asked me why Paul was upset when I ran into you two tonight inside the playhouse.”

Melissa turned back to face him. “Yes?”

“He really was afraid that I'd try to steal you,” Bo said, lighting the cigarette.

Melissa hesitated. “Did it ever cross your mind?”

“What?”

“Stealing me.”

Bo inhaled, sucking smoke deep into his lungs. “I love Meg.”

“But you're tempted.”

“Any man with a pulse would be, Melissa.”

“Isn't wanting as bad as doing?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Thoughts come and go. The key is controlling your actions.”

Melissa gazed at him for a long time, then moved to the doorway, where she stopped and turned around once more. “Bo.”

He looked up. “Yes?”

“Remember that all things done in the dark eventually come to light.” Then she was gone.

For a few moments Bo stared at the empty doorway. Finally he dropped the cigarette, stepped on it, and moved to the door. Down a long corridor leading to the indoor pool, he could hear Paul, obviously drunk, talking loudly. Bo put his empty scotch glass down on a coffee table and collapsed into an easy chair, exhausted. Paul's laughter rang in his ears as he drifted off to sleep.

“
B
o. Bo!”

Bo's eyes flashed open. The expression on Paul's face was one of intense panic. “What's the problem?” Bo asked blearily, coming slowly out of a nightmare.

“I . . . I don't . . . I mean—” Paul swallowed his words and held out his hands as if giving himself up.

Bo rose unsteadily, still anchored in the terrible dream. “Tell me what the hell's going on,” he demanded, shaking his head to clear it.

“The girl.”

“Melissa?”

“Yes . . . I suppose,” Paul said, his expression blank. “Was that her name?”

“Yes,” Bo snapped, realizing with a chill that Paul had referred to Melissa in the past tense. “Tell me what's going on!” Paul was drifting slowly toward the veranda door. He seemed detached, only vaguely connected to reality, as if he'd suffered a blow to the head.

“She's . . . I saw her, but . . . but I couldn't . . .”

They stepped out onto the veranda together. “Where is she?” Bo roared, grabbing Paul by the shirt and shaking him. “Where is she?”

Paul gestured toward the lake. “Down there.”

Bo sprinted down the slope, guided by the spotlights illuminating the playhouse. When he reached the shoreline, he spotted Melissa. She lay facedown in the black water, nude, arms outstretched. “Jesus Christ!” He plowed into the water up to his knees, sending a foamy wake into the darkness. He grabbed one of her arms, pulled her to the sandy beach, and rolled her onto her back, dropping beside her and touching her soft neck. His fingers urgently searched for a pulse.

He lifted her neck, leaned down, and pressed his lips to hers, forcing air into her lungs, then pumped her chest several times with his hands. “Breathe,” he urged, certain that he had felt a heartbeat. “Come on, Melissa. Stay with me, sweetheart. Breathe! Please!”

For five minutes he labored over her limp form, trying desperately to revive her. Finally he fell back on the sand, exhausted, staring at her delicate face in the dim light. Her dark eyes were wide open, but they saw nothing. The heartbeat he had felt had been her last.

Bo's head dropped and he put his face in his hands. “You bastard.”

CHAPTER 2

April 1999

“
W
hat the hell do you think you're doing?”

Bo looked up from behind an array of computer monitors stacked three wide and two high on his immense wooden desk at Warfield Capital. His brother Teddy, oldest of the five Hancock siblings, stood in the office doorway. Tall, blond, and still boyishly handsome despite his forty-seven years, Teddy had a strong physical resemblance to Paul. Teddy's facial features were rounder and less defined than Paul's, and he carried a slight paunch and a double chin, but there was no mistaking the fact that he and Paul were brothers. “What are you talking about?” Bo asked, irritated at the intrusion.

Teddy stepped into the office and slammed the door, hard enough that a picture atop the credenza behind Bo's desk tumbled to the floor. “The damn gold thing,” he snarled. “That's what I'm talking about.”

“What gold thing?”

Teddy jammed his hands in his pockets and stalked past Bo's desk to a window overlooking Park Avenue forty floors below. “You know exactly what gold thing,” he said, furious.

Bo leaned down over the arm of his chair and picked up the fallen picture. It was a panoramic shot of the beach in front of the playhouse, taken from the top of a hill across the lake. “I'm involved with billions of dollars' worth of transactions a day here, Teddy,” he said. “Work with me. I know you only like to deal with the wide-angle view from thirty thousand feet, but for my sake dig into the details for a second.”

“The guys on the commodities trading floor tell me you're taking a mammoth risk with a ton of our capital in the gold markets.”

As if on cue, an intercom on the front right corner of Bo's desk buzzed.

“Yeah?”

“It's Fritz.”

“I know who it is,” Bo said calmly. The console lights on the intercom were marked by name. “What do you want?”

Fritz Peterson was head of commodity trading at Warfield Capital, the primary Hancock family investment vehicle. Fritz was responsible for buying and selling huge amounts of everything from gold and platinum to oil and cattle. Warfield Capital also operated several massive stock portfolios, an equity arbitrage department, a huge foreign exchange desk, a government and a corporate bond desk, and a private equity operation through which the firm purchased large stakes in nonpublic corporations involved in everything from furniture manufacturing to the latest Internet technology.

All of these groups, including the commodity trading group run by Fritz, reported directly to Bo, the firm's chief operating officer. Teddy, Warfield's chief executive officer, was a figurehead, rarely at the firm more than a few hours a week. Warfield was Bo's life, and despite the massive size and breadth of the firm's investment portfolio, he knew what was in it like he knew what was in his wallet.

“I got a report from a reliable friend that several French banks are going to be aggressively selling gold at the European open in a few hours,” Fritz shouted through the box, the roar of the trading floor audible in the background. “The latest consumer price index report is out tomorrow morning here in the States. The frogs must have gotten a peek at that report ahead of schedule, and they've found out that the CPI is going to be down, so they're selling ahead of its release. We could get stung big on this thing, Bo.”

Investors bought gold largely as a hedge against inflation, so if the CPI—a widely used gauge of inflation at the retail level—was down, the price of gold would likely fall as investors perceived the threat of inflation to be low. Warfield had a huge gold investment, so even a tiny per-ounce drop would cost the firm millions.

“How reliable is your friend?” Bo asked calmly, checking his watch. It was six-thirty in the evening.

“Very reliable,” Fritz answered. “He's inside the foreign exchange group at one of the Paris banks. Do you want me to trim our position?”

“No.”

“In the next few hours I can dump a good chunk of it without anyone in the market noticing.”

“No,” Bo replied again, cutting off the connection abruptly.

Teddy moved from the window to the front of Bo's desk. “We pay Fritz a great deal of money to manage our commodities desk,” he said, his fair skin becoming flushed.

“That we do,” Bo agreed, grinning slightly. He knew Teddy hated that grin.

“Fritz is in constant contact with market insiders, and he knows what's going on.” Teddy was grinding his teeth, as he always did when he was angry. “Why are you disregarding his recommendation?”

Bo shrugged. “Just a feeling.”

“Sell!” Teddy demanded.

“Pound sand, brother.”

“I mean it!”

“No.”

Teddy slammed the desk with his fist. “Wipe that Goddamned smirk off your face, Bo, before I do it for you.”

Bo rose to his feet.

He was five inches shorter than Teddy, but Teddy still took an instinctive and unsteady step back.

“I'd like you to try,” Bo said quietly. “I really would.”

“Exactly how big a gold position do we have?” Teddy asked, ignoring the invitation. Once provoked, Bo was like a wolverine. He didn't stop until the other man was down and defenseless. Bo had been a star hockey player at Yale, and from the stands Teddy had watched him single-handedly and simultaneously take out three opposing players in an all-out brawl one night. “How much do we have?” Teddy repeated. But his voice was subdued as he recalled how Bo had been in uniform the next night for another game despite the loss of blood and two bruised ribs. “Or don't you know?”

Bo stared at the perfect knot in Teddy's Ferragamo tie, then at his perfect hair, not one strand of which, it seemed, was ever out of place, even when Teddy was zipping around Connecticut in his Porsche with the top down. Chief executive officer of Warfield Capital, Bo thought to himself. A bigger joke he'd like to hear. Teddy wouldn't know an interest rate collar from a dog collar, yet Jimmy Lee still gave the oldest brother ultimate authority over Warfield Capital.

Their father had formed Warfield twenty years before to hold the lion's share of the Hancock family fortune. Since then the firm had grown from a billion dollars in assets to a hundred-billion-dollar fund that used the Hancocks' eleven-billion-dollar net worth—and four billion more from other wealthy families with close ties to the Hancocks—as its deep capital. On top of that fifteen billion dollars of combined family net worth, Warfield Capital borrowed eighty-five billion from insurance companies, pension funds, and other long-term lenders to leverage the deep capital and generate tremendous returns for the Hancocks and their associates.

It was a risky structure. If the aggregate value of the investment portfolio dropped, the families could quickly suffer substantial losses because their money would be used to cover margin calls. However, in the last ten years—since Bo had joined the firm after spending several years at Goldman Sachs—Warfield had enjoyed outstanding results. The financial strategies Bo had employed had worked to perfection and the Hancocks' net worth had grown exponentially.

As CEO, Teddy received most of the credit in
The Wall Street
Journal
and
The New York Times
for Warfield's success, but Bo was the mastermind, the wizard behind the curtain. Finance came as naturally to Bo as breathing.

“Answer me,” Teddy demanded, regaining his confidence. He was fairly certain Bo would never physically confront anyone here at Warfield. That would get back to Jimmy Lee quickly, and then there would be hell to pay. Not even Bo would dare to cross Jimmy Lee. Now in his midseventies, their father maintained his absolute power. “Or don't you know how big our gold position is? Maybe that's the problem, Bo. You're always so damn certain of exactly what's in the portfolio. Has that steel-trap mind let you down this once?”

Bo checked one of the computer screens and quickly performed the calculation. “At this moment the market value of our gold position is five hundred forty-two million, seven hundred and nine thousand dollars.”

“How do I know you're telling me the truth?”

“You don't,” Bo retorted, “and that's the problem. You've got no idea what's going on here at Warfield, but you don't mind taking the credit for its success.”

The intercom buzzed again. “What now, Fritz?” Bo watched Teddy pull out a cell phone.

“I got another report from a friend in Moscow confirming what my guy in France said about the European open tomorrow,” Fritz answered, his voice urgent.

“You're full of reports this evening, aren't you? The big question is whether you're full of crap too.”

“The reports are accurate,” Fritz replied firmly.

Bo watched Teddy finish his call, noticing the furtive way in which Teddy had made certain to cover his mouth and speak softly. Fritz's voice continued like a foghorn through the intercom.

“Does the guy in Moscow know the guy in France?” Bo asked.

Fritz hesitated. “I don't know.”

“Find out,” Bo ordered, and cut off the connection once more. “Teddy, who did you just call?”

“Tom Bristow.”

Tom Bristow was Bo and Teddy's brother-in-law, married to their sister Catherine. A wisp of a man with a receding hairline who always wore tortoiseshell glasses and his club or college tie, Tom came from a prominent Boston family who a decade earlier had invested a hundred million into Warfield Capital alongside the Hancocks as part of the firm's deep capital. In return for the investment, Bristow senior had required that Tom be provided a job at Warfield, and, as further insurance over the well-being of the investment, had also required that Jimmy Lee pledge Catherine as collateral. Ten years ago a hundred million had been a meaningful amount to the Hancocks, enough to secure Warfield the additional loans with which to leverage its equity and reap huge incremental profits. So Jimmy Lee had consented to the union. Tom and Catherine were married on a lovely spring day. The grand ceremony took place on a beautiful lawn overlooking the Charles River. Since then Tom had managed Warfield's overnight cash investments. A job, as Bo put it, that could have been handled by a chimp.

“Why did you call Tom?” Bo asked.

“I want his advice on this gold thing. I've asked him to come down here from his office.”

Bo's face contorted. “Tom doesn't know anything about the gold markets.”

“Just the same, I want his advice,” Teddy replied. “I've come to find that Tom is a very useful man.”

“Tom is weak.”

“Not everyone is a warrior, Bo.”

“Which is a damn shame,” Bo retorted, grabbing his desk phone and punching out a number. “Warriors are loyal. They follow a code.”

Teddy rolled his eyes. “Spare me.”

“They stand up for themselves too,” Bo continued. “They don't spend their lives kissing their father's ass even when he's wrong. They think for themselves.”

“Shut up.” Teddy bit his lower lip as if he'd been about to say something else, then thought better of it. “And get a haircut,” he said, noting that Bo's dark hair was down to the bottom of his shirt collar in the back, “and wear a suit once in a while.” Teddy pointed disparagingly at the flannel shirt Bo was wearing. “People here would have more respect for you. You are COO after all.”

“People here have plenty of respect for me.”

“Do something about this office too,” Teddy went on, kicking at the frayed carpet. “It's dreary as hell in here. It should look more like the office of someone with money. We have a certain image we need to maintain at Warfield Capital.”

Bo didn't care about decoration. Things in his life were functional, not aesthetic. He liked his office to look worked-in, as he liked his living room at the estate to look lived-in. He reached for the phone and punched in a number. “You touch my office and I'll cut off your—hello.” The person at the other end of the line had picked up. Bo rotated the chair so his back was to Teddy. Ten seconds later the conversation was over.

“Who was that?” Teddy demanded.

“You don't want to know.” Bo pressed a button on the intercom. “Fritz.”

“Yeah,” Fritz's voice crackled back.

In the background Bo could hear people yelling. Warfield's trading floors operated at a frenetic pace twenty-four hours a day. “Buy more gold. Every ounce you can get your hands on. Increase our position!”

“What?”

“You heard what I said.”

“But, Bo, like I told you, the French banks are going to be selling heavily in a few hours,” Fritz protested. “It's going to cause a panic and we've got to sell ahead of them. Otherwise we'll get our lunch handed to us.”

“Buy everything you can get your hands on up to our internal limit price of this morning,” Bo ordered calmly. “Do it quietly, but do it.” He cut off the connection before Fritz could object.

“Who did you call just now?” Teddy's asked again, nodding at the phone.

“I already told you. You don't want to know.”

“Yes, I—”

“No, you don't!” Bo slammed the desk and glared at Teddy fiercely. “You, Paul, and Dad have always wanted me to do the dirty work so you don't have to be down in the trenches where things get nasty. You and Paul get the glory while my uniform is always dirty, and I've accepted that.” Bo leaned over the desk. “But do me a favor, brother. Don't get in my way while I'm trying to do my job. Stay out of my world. You can't handle it.”

“I can handle anything you can, Bo. I'm as tough as you.”

“Tough for you is playing a golf course that won't let you ride a cart,” Bo scoffed. “You and Paul have had everything handed to you your entire lives.”

“Like you've had it so rough. I've never seen you headed off to the coal mines with a lunch pail in your hand.”