Swimming with Sharks (50 page)

“No I’m not. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have fallen for Vitali.”

“Many other women would fall for him, too,” Nick said. “He’s good looking, charming, and incredibly rich.”

“Oh yes,” she said and laughed bitterly. “He reserved the entire Crows Nest at the Water Club for one evening—the whole staff, and a band.”

“Did you love him?”

Alex hesitated, surprised by this very personal question.

“No,” she said slowly, “it wasn’t love. I was impressed and flattered that such a powerful, famous man was courting me. I aspired to become one of the city’s famous and powerful people, and I thought that I could accomplish that through him. How could I have known that I was only a small cog in the wheel of his dirty business?”

“Are you still in contact with him?”

“Do you mean, do I still sleep with him?”

“No.” Nick blushed slightly. “I…I didn’t mean it that way.”

“He asked me to marry him the last time I saw him.” Alex’s face hardened. “Most likely because he’s afraid he won’t be able to bring in those lucrative deals anymore. I moved out of the apartment he rented to me. A friend signed a new lease for me in his name, and since then, I have been afraid that Vitali will find out where I live. I change trains three times in the subway and sneak out of the building through the back. He knows that I was with you at the cemetery. The man who tried to shoot you recognized me.”

Nick looked alarmed. “Did he tell you that?”

“His wife came over to my place to warn me,” she replied. “She left him because she’s convinced that Vitali ordered the death of his own son.”

“Vitali’s wife came to you?” Nick asked in disbelief.

“Yes. She hates him and wants revenge. And she’d like to talk to you, Nick.”

“You’re in great danger, Alex.”

“I know. But he won’t touch me as long as I’m coordinating his dirty business. But once he no longer needs me…” She fell silent.

“I can arrange personal security for you,” Nick offered. “Where do you live now?”

“On Reade Street. Just around the corner.” Alex ate a bite from her already cold kabob, although her stomach felt sealed shut. “Personal protection is unnecessary; I work at a company that he largely owns.”

When the waiter came to clear the table, Nick had hardly eaten anything. He handled a piece of bread, lost in thought.

“Do you know why I don’t want to pass on this information?” he asked in a throaty voice. “I’m afraid that Vitali will hurt you.”

On their way out, they saw that the restaurant had filled up since their arrival. The four bodyguards were waiting for them at the street corner.

“Isn’t it better if I have someone drive you home?” Nick asked, and Alex detected true concern in his eyes.

“No, it’s okay. It’s so close.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. It’s better if I use my secret paths.”

“I’m worried about you, Alex.”

“I’m really in hot water, aren’t I?”

Nick looked at her with a grave expression.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

She dug both her hands into her jacket pockets. “Would you pass the information against Vitali on to the US Attorney’s Office if I quit my job and leave the city?”

“Is that what you’re planning to do?”

“I hardly have a choice.” Alex felt a painful lump in her throat. She was more aware of the hopelessness of her situation than ever before.

“Maybe you’re right,” Nick said and sighed. “I toyed with the idea of packing it all in myself. No one could blame you for it. Who the hell cares.”

Still standing outside the restaurant, they gazed at each other under the lantern’s dim light.

“I have to go,” she said. “Thank you, Nick, for the lovely evening.”

Nick extended his hand and she took it. Alex remembered how she had held him in her arms as he cried, and she fervently wished that she could stay with him a little longer. She didn’t care who he was, although it would have been much easier if he hadn’t been—of all people—the mayor of New York.

Alex let go of his hand, but he didn’t seem ready to leave either. Then she impulsively flung her arms around him and nestled her face against his rough cheek. They remained in a comforting embrace for a brief moment until another customer came out of the restaurant.

“Take care of yourself, Alex,” Nick whispered gruffly. She nodded silently and then turned around and disappeared with quick steps.

Vincent Levy’s face was grim as he hung up the phone. LMI’s board was anxiously awaiting their president’s explanation of just what had interrupted their extraordinary meeting on this rainy December afternoon. Levy looked around the group, and then he walked over to the large window. Everything seemed to shift in the hazy air. The Verrazano Bridge was just visible in the distance, and even the Statue of Liberty seemed farther away than usual. There was complete silence in the room as Levy turned around.

“Gentlemen,” he said, clearing his throat, “I’ve just learned that the acquisition of Database Inc. by Whithers Computers is off. Database has agreed to a friendly takeover by Softland Corporation. First Boston made the cut. We’re out.”

Everyone in the room was speechless as they stared at the president. The deal, worth almost two billion dollars—one of the biggest ever in the technology sector—seemed signed, sealed, and delivered long ago. The M&A department had been working on little else for weeks. St. John finally broke his board colleagues’ numb silence.

“That stupid bitch screwed it up!” he yelled. He banged his fist on the table with such force that the glasses and bottles rattled. “I could wring her neck!”

“What do you mean, Zack?” Hugh Weinberg asked in surprise.

“Just like I said!” Zack’s face turned bright red, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “This was a surefire deal, but she was too stupid to seal it!”

“Zack, I beg your pardon!” Levy interrupted. “You can’t blame Alex for the Database shareholders’ decision.”

“What the hell!” Zack jumped up and laughed derisively. “You’re all blind because she closed a few good transactions! But she just screwed up the year’s biggest deal in the technology sector!”

“That’s not true!” Michael Friedman objected. “She did the best she could. She made a solid offer. Database stock was to be acquired for forty dollars a share—”

“I don’t give a shit how good that damned offer was.” Zack cut him off harshly. “It wasn’t good enough. Why are we paying her all of this money if she can’t even keep an eye on the market properly?”

“That’s not fair, Zack,” John Kwai said. “Alex has closed a lot of good deals for us. We can’t condemn her just because one of them goes sour!”

“Come with me, Zack.” Levy threw an imploring look at his managing director. He was the only one who knew why Zack was overreacting like this. Since Alex had told them about the planned deal, MPM had established a large position in Whithers shares—causing their stock price to skyrocket accordingly. Levy guided the incensed man to an adjacent office and closed the door.

“We’re ruined, Vince!” Zack exclaimed in agitation. “Jack and I bought a shitload of Whithers stock for thirty-eight a share, fucking hell! We’ll never get rid of them at this price!”

“Calm down, Zack,” Levy said in a conciliatory tone. “We can handle a loss of a few dollars per share.”

“No, we can’t!” Sweat was running down Zack’s face. “I invested a fucking
hundred million dollars
!”

“Excuse me?” Levy went pale. “Are you crazy?”

“It was a sure thing! According to Weinberg’s forecast, the stock would have gone up thirty points after the announcement of the takeover.”

Zack’s body shook. His face flashed red and paled again.

“I financed the hundred million through LMI.”

“You’re joking.” Levy couldn’t believe his ears. “How could you do such a thing? We talked about buying for ten million, maybe fifteen—but one hundred million…That can’t be true!”

“I’m not joking, damn it!” Zack roared at him. “Fucking hell, I still can’t believe it!”

“We have to get rid of these shares immediately,” Levy said, struggling to stay calm. “Call our broker on the West Coast. The exchange is still open there. Tell him to sell at any price!”

Zack didn’t hesitate. While Zack was on the phone, Levy paced, looking panicked.

“Whithers is trading down to thirty-one at the Pacific Stock Exchange and thirty and seven-eighths on the OTC market,” Zack said in a sepulchral tone. “Koons will try to sell as much as possible, but it doesn’t look good.”

Levy shook his head with a sense of helplessness. Because of Zack’s greed, they were sitting on a pile of devalued stock that was on its way to hitting rock bottom.

“I have to talk to Vitali,” Levy murmured. “This is a catastrophe.”

“This is more than a catastrophe,” Zack said grimly as he dialed another number. “MPM is ruined.”

“How could you do this without discussing it with me in advance?”

Real horror scenarios played back like a film in Levy’s mind’s eye. He saw himself at the center of an SEC investigation, his name in the headlines, his firm on the brink of bankruptcy.

“Don’t freak out!” Zack snarled at him. “Maybe there’s a way to get us out of this mess unscathed.”

“What do you mean?”

“As of now, no one knows about the Database shareholders’ decision. I know a few people who would be thankful for a tip. I could sell the Whithers stock to them.”

“No!” Levy said sharply. “Under no circumstances will you do that! No employee of LMI will pass on insider information with one hundred million dollars on the line. If that got out, we’d be ruined. No one would do business with us again.”

Levy left the room and rushed into his office to call Vitali.

It was seven thirty when Sergio Vitali entered Levy’s office.

“What’s going on here?” The look on Zack and Levy’s frozen faces soured his mood. Zack had four telephones in front of him, and an ashtray overflowed next to them.

“The Whithers deal is off,” Levy said gloomily.

“So what?” Sergio looked back and forth between the two men.

“We were sure that the deal was sealed, so Zack bought one hundred million dollars’ worth of Whithers through MPM. The share price has already fallen thirteen dollars since news broke that Database is merging with Softland Corporation. The hundred million was financed by LMI. We’re done.”

Zack turned around. His face was pale, and his voice sounded strained.

“I just managed to sell another hundred and fifty thousand shares at thirty-one dollars, but that was it.”

“If Whithers opens below thirty dollars tomorrow, we’re ruined,” Levy said. “That will certainly happen. I even think they’ll halt trading in Whithers altogether. Not a single soul will want to buy Whithers stock.”

“How could this happen?” Sergio asked. He suddenly fully understood the consequences.

“That dumb bitch screwed it up,” Zack said.

“Who is he talking about?” Sergio looked at Levy.

“Alex Sontheim,” Levy replied, “but it’s not her fault. She prepared a good offer. Everything went well and the lawyers agreed, but then this white knight appeared and made a better offer. That’s business, it happens. It was unfortunate that Zack bought so much of it.”

“This is the second time in a very short time span.” Sergio turned toward Zack. “What was that other deal?”

Zack threw him an angry look.

“Syncrotron.” He clenched his teeth in anger.

“What can we do now?” Sergio asked. “It’s pointless to sit around and wait for the exchange to open in the morning.”

“There’s nothing more we can do.” Levy poured himself a double shot of whiskey. “We’re sitting on a pile of shares that no one will take off our hands. MPM needs to liquidate its position tomorrow and raise a hundred million dollars. LMI is financially solid, but we can’t write off such a large sum just like that.”

“Tell Lang to sell other shares…of something…what do I know!” Sergio suggested.

“We already considered all the scenarios.” Levy shook his head. “Even if MPM liquidates all of its assets, we have a maximum of fifty million. MPM will be in violation of capital requirements tomorrow morning, and therefore insolvent.”

“And what does that mean?” Sergio asked in irritation. “Can you please explain it to me in plain English?”

“It means,” Levy said in an annoyed voice, “that MPM is bankrupt.”

“Never has a company of mine gone bankrupt!” Sergio said, struggling to keep his voice down. “Get Alex here immediately, and also Friedman, Weinberg, and Fitzgerald.”

“We can’t do that,” Levy reminded him, “because they don’t know that MPM belongs to us. They didn’t understand why Zack was freaking out. For them it’s just a lucrative deal that slipped through our fingers.”

Sergio sat down and began deliberating feverishly. If that was the case, then it would inevitably become public who was behind MPM and SeaStarFriends. His name would be tied to a bankrupt company in all the newspapers. And not only that: if the press caught wind of the fact that he and Levy—as the president and a board member of LMI—were involved in insider trading through their own brokerage firm, they would be ruined. It would have unforeseeable consequences for all of his businesses. Sergio knew how sensitively his business partners reacted to negative headlines. If he were charged with serious violations of securities law, it would even be worse. He needed to prevent this at all costs.