The Insider (4 page)

“I do,” Jay said calmly. Now he understood why Oliver had exploded at the idea of Jay’s taking two weeks to leave National City. At McCarthy & Lloyd you were expected to produce immediately. The pace there would be frenetic from the opening bell and would only intensify after that. Losing would not be tolerated. “I won’t forget what he’s done for me.”

“Good.” McCarthy checked his watch. “I’ve got to get to a dinner at the Waldorf. Do you have any questions?”

“Just one.” Jay held up his forefinger. “What’s it like to have half a billion dollars?”

McCarthy glared at Jay for several moments, then stood up and walked around the desk until he was standing directly in front of the younger man. “Maybe you’ll find out someday,” he growled, then grinned in spite of himself. He took Jay’s hand. “Welcome to the club, Mr. West.”

CHAPTER 2

Jay placed his briefcase on the arbitrage desk, then removed his suit coat and hung it neatly on the back of his chair. Jay, Bullock, Abby, and a secretary had seats on this side of the bulkhead, while Oliver’s spot was on the other side of the computer monitors and telephone banks beside an administrative assistant. On either side of Oliver’s chair were two unused positions. He had mentioned the possibility of bringing people on board to fill the vacant spots several times; however, Jay had now been at McCarthy & Lloyd for just over a month and nothing had occurred to make him believe Oliver really intended to hire anyone. Hiring more people meant sharing the wealth, something Oliver was loath to do.

“Hello, Abby,” Jay said cheerfully. It was early, a few minutes after seven-thirty, and she was the only one on the desk. He peered over the computer screens but couldn’t determine if Oliver had arrived. A rumpled suit coat was slung over the back of his chair, but Jay noticed that it was the same one Oliver had worn the day before. “How are you this beautiful July morning?”

Abby stopped tapping on her keyboard and looked up from the jagged historical graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing from left to right across one of her monitors. “Hot.”

“I know what you mean.” New York City was suffering through an oppressive heat wave, and the subway ride from Jay’s Upper West Side apartment down half the length of Manhattan to Wall Street on the number 2 train had been muggy and unpleasant. “This heat is incredible.”

“Especially when your air conditioner goes on the blink.”

Jay glanced down at Abby. She was short—a few inches over five feet—and had olive skin, dark brown hair with red highlights, an engaging smile, and a voluptuous figure. Her face was plain, but her constant smile made her ordinary features seem unusually attractive. “That’s no good.” Abby lived across the East River in a one-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a Queens walk-up. She had invited Jay to a small get-together a week after he had joined the firm to introduce him to several of her friends. With the window unit on the blink, her place would be a steam bath in this heat. “I’d be happy to come over and take a look at it,” he offered. “I’m no engineer, but my father taught me a thing or two about moving parts.”

“I bet he did,” she teased, raising one eyebrow and giving Jay a sly, suggestive once-over before bursting into laughter.

He eased into his chair, grinning. He and Abby had become good friends over the past month. She hadn’t been resentful at all about his joining the arbitrage desk from the outside as a more senior person than she. In fact, she had gone out of her way to make him feel comfortable. Unlike Bullock, who was still doing his best to make Jay’s first few weeks hellish.

“Don’t worry about the air conditioner,” she said. “My father’s coming over tonight to try to fix it. If he can’t, he said, he’ll get me a new one. But it’s nice of you to be concerned.”

“No problem.”

“Oh!” Abby snapped her fingers and picked up a pink message slip. “I think you better talk to this guy. He’s called three times in the last ten minutes.”

Jay took the slip from Abby. “Brian Kelly.” He read the name aloud. “Kelly works at Goldman Sachs. He brokers common stock to institutions. Oliver went on a rampage last night trying to reach Kelly.” Abby had taken the previous day off and hadn’t been around for the fireworks.

“Why was Oliver trying so hard to get Kelly?”

“It had to do with the Bates Corporation,” Jay explained.

“Bates is the company that’s been trying to fight off a hostile takeover bid from that British conglomerate. Right?”

“Yes,” Jay confirmed. “The Brits offered sixty-five a share for Bates two weeks ago.”

“Didn’t Oliver buy a large block of Bates shares the day after the takeover bid was announced?”

“That’s right. Oliver was sure another company was going to come in and make a higher bid for Bates than the British conglomerate. He thought we could make a few dollars a share very quickly. But so far nothing’s happened. Nobody else has made a bid for Bates.”

“What does Brian Kelly have to do with it?” Abby asked.

Jay glanced around furtively. “Oliver got a phone call last night here on the desk from somebody telling him that General Electric was going to be making a rival bid for Bates.” Jay touched the scar beneath his eye. “A bid way in excess of the Brits’ bid.”

“Who called him about the GE bid?” Abby asked suspiciously.

“I don’t know,” Jay admitted.

“He never does say, does he?”

“No.” Jay had wanted to ask Oliver about the source of the GE information, but hadn’t because it seemed clear that Oliver didn’t want to talk about it. “When Oliver heard about the GE deal last night, he tried to reach Kelly right away. Kelly had told Oliver earlier in the day that Goldman had some Bates shares to sell. But Oliver didn’t like the price Kelly was quoting, and at that point Oliver didn’t know about the GE deal. When Oliver called Kelly last night, no one at Goldman could find him. I guess he’d already gone home for the evening. Oliver was yelling into the phone at the top of his lungs.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You should have heard him. He was going crazy. The veins were bulging out of his neck. When he couldn’t get Kelly, he tried all of his other good contacts on the Street, but no one had any Bates shares for sale.” Jay exhaled heavily. “If there are shares at Goldman available and we don’t get them, Oliver will go ballistic.” Jay stood up and checked the floor. “Has Oliver or Bullock come in yet?”

“No,” Abby answered. “I’ve been here since five-thirty, and I haven’t seen either of—”

“Five-thirty?” Jay asked incredulously.

“I couldn’t sleep. My apartment was about a hundred degrees.”

“Oh, right, the fritzed air conditioner.” Jay checked the trading floor again. Oliver would be furious if they missed the double-down opportunity on Bates and General Electric announced a huge takeover. Leaving money on the table was a more serious crime than murder to Oliver. It ranked right up there with sharing the wealth. But he’d be equally as angry if Jay purchased the shares at too rich a price and the GE offer never came. “Do me a favor, Abby,” he said calmly.

“Sure.”

“Get Kelly on the phone. Find out where he’s offering the Bates shares and how many he has.” Jay stood up. “I need to go check something.”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “But remember, Jay, I don’t have trading authority.”

“I know.” He touched her arm reassuringly. “I’m not going to put you in a bad spot. Just get the information. If Kelly starts yelling and telling you that he has to know what our decision is immediately, hang up.” Jay turned and moved off.

Five minutes later he was back. “Did you get Kelly?”

Abby nodded. She seemed shaken.

“And?”

“He has a million Bates shares to sell,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “It was like you said, Jay. He was yelling at me from the get-go that I had to make a decision right away. He said he’s got other buyers interested. He wants to do the deal with Oliver, but time’s running out.”

“What price did Kelly quote for the shares?” Jay asked, grabbing his phone and checking his computer for an off-hours price.

“Seventy-three,” she answered nervously.

“Bastard,” he whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

“Kelly’s gouging us,” Jay answered. “The price on the screen is only seventy dollars a share, which is the same price our equity guys quoted me a minute ago.” He considered his options. “But a million shares is a big block, and Oliver mentioned that the GE bid is expected to be in excess of eighty dollars a share.”

Abby’s eyes opened wide. “Eighty dollars?”

“Yes.” Jay gazed at her. “If we buy the Bates shares from Kelly at seventy-three and GE offers eighty, we make seven dollars a share. That’s seven million dollars if we buy all million shares. And we could make that seven million dollars overnight. Literally.”

“But the British company’s bid is only sixty-five,” Abby pointed out. “If you buy a million shares at seventy-three and the GE bid never comes, McCarthy and Lloyd will
lose
eight dollars a share. That’s eight million bucks.” Abby shook her head. “You’d have based your purchase of Bates shares on nothing but a rumor. And we all know that rumors in the takeover world are worth about as much as presidential promises of fidelity.”

Jay smiled wryly as he dialed Kelly’s number. “This could get interesting.” He motioned for Abby to pick up on her extension so she could listen.

“Hello!” The line hadn’t finished its first ring.

“I need to speak to Brian Kelly.”

“This is Kelly.”

Jay heard commotion on the other end of the line. “Brian, this is Jay West at McCarthy and Lloyd.”

“Yeah? Where’s Oliver? I want to talk to him.”

“Oliver isn’t in yet.”

“Great,” Kelly groaned.

“I can make the decision regarding Bates,” Jay said calmly.

“Yeah? Well, you’ve got three minutes to do it. Oliver’s been a good client in the past, but I’m not waiting around for him.”

“Give me the offer,” Jay demanded.

“I told whoever it was who called a minute ago. The price is seventy-three.”

“Bid seventy-one,” Jay said quickly.

“I guess we don’t have a deal.” Kelly snickered.

Jay felt Abby’s long fingernails digging into his right arm. He whipped around, gazed at her for a second, then grabbed the paper she was holding out.

“I’m waiting,” Kelly said smugly.

Jay scanned the paper.

“The silence is really loud,” Kelly added, pushing. “I’m hanging up and selling to—”

“Seventy-one for five hundred thousand shares,” Jay cut in.

“I’ve got a million shares!” Kelly shouted. “I told the woman who called from your shop before that it’s a block sale. A matched set. No breaking it up. A million shares or nothing.”

“That’s my bid,” Jay said evenly. “And it’s final.”

“I’m gonna count to three, Jay West, and if I don’t hear seventy-three for a million shares, I’m gone!”

“You can count to a
hundred
and three if you’d like, Kelly. But the bid won’t change. I’m sure Oliver will be happy to learn how accommodating you were. I’ve been here only a month, but I know how much volume he puts through you and how much money you make off us.” Jay paused. “I wouldn’t count on that gravy train continuing.”

The silence now came from Kelly’s end of the line.

“Kelly?”

Still no answer.

“Well, have a nice day,” Jay said politely.

“All right!” Kelly yelled. “Done. Five hundred thousand at seventy-one. Damn it!”

Jay winked at Abby. “Good. The operations guys can settle up later. Nice doing business with you, Kelly.” But all he heard was the sound of the phone being slammed down in his ear.

“Nice going, Jay.” Abby smiled as she put down her phone. “You were great.”

“You saved me, Abby.” He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “I would have purchased all one million shares if you hadn’t reminded me that a million shares would have given us more than five percent of Bates.”

When a single entity owned 5 percent of a company’s shares, the purchaser was legally bound to report its share position to the Securities and Exchange Commission— a disclosure that would have been available to anyone checking SEC filings. Oliver had strictly forbidden anyone on the arbitrage desk to make a purchase that would give McCarthy & Lloyd more than 5 percent of any company. He didn’t want anyone knowing what he was doing.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Abby said.

Jay gazed at her. She had quickly become quite a good friend. He had no doubt that Bullock would have let him purchase the million shares, then left him to endure Oliver’s temper, which Jay had witnessed several times in the past few weeks. Volcanic explosions that sent the innocent scurrying for cover and the target cowering. But Abby would never set him up that way. He smiled at her. Strangely, there was no sexual tension between them. She subtly made it clear to everyone that she wasn’t available. But she had never mentioned a boyfriend and didn’t seem to receive calls from suitors on the desk.

“Good morning.”

Jay and Abby swiveled at the sound of Oliver’s nasal voice. He stood before them, his face emitting a healthy bronze glow.

“You look nice.”

“Thanks, Abby.” Oliver ran his eyes over her legs. “I spent the weekend on the sailboat. It was great. A nice breeze and not a cloud in the sky the entire time. I must have picked up some color.”

“You definitely did.” Abby looked at Jay. “That’s what we have to look forward to when we become senior managing directors: Sundays sailing on Long Island Sound picking up tans.” She let out a frustrated breath. “But for the time being we toil in obscurity earning minimum wage and spending summer weekends in Central Park because that’s all we can afford.”

“Uh-huh.”

Jay glanced at Oliver. Despite all of his bluster about how everyone at McCarthy & Lloyd knew what everyone else earned, Oliver had ordered Jay not to tell others about the January million-dollar-bonus guarantee. “So you took your wife sailing this past weekend,” Jay said pleasantly.

Oliver shook his head. “No. Barbara was away at a horse show,” he explained curtly.

“I see.” It was strange. During Jay’s first day at work, Oliver had played the part of a proud father, escorting Jay around the firm to meet the important players. They had eaten lunch in the firm’s formal dining room with Bill McCarthy and enjoyed a delicious rack of lamb served on sterling-silver trays by an attentive staff. But since that day a month before, Oliver had turned cool. Not unfriendly, but not cordial, either.

“What was going on here?” Oliver asked suspiciously, pointing at the phones. “As I was walking over, it looked like a lot of action.”

“Jay just pulled off a great trade,” Abby volunteered. “He bought a bunch of Bates shares from that guy Brian Kelly at Goldman.”

“How many?” Oliver asked quickly. “Don’t tell me you went over the five per—”

“Relax,” Jay interrupted. “Kelly was trying to sell us a million, but I only bought half. We’re still under five percent. No disclosures to be filed.”