The Underwriting (26 page)

Her head rolled back on the headrest and she noticed a box on the other seat, with a note on top.

I ordered you the berries, but threw in everything else on the menu in case you were tempted to try. CR.

She opened the box: there were six desserts carefully arranged. She dipped her finger into a caramel pudding and licked it off with her finger, laughing lightly at herself when a piece fell on her skirt.

NICK

W
EDNESDAY
, A
PRIL
16; S
AN
F
RANCISCO
, C
ALIFORNIA

“You have to erase the databases, immediately,” Phil Dalton said, making an effort to keep his voice calm. “All
three
of them.”

“What are you offering?” Josh Hart asked from across the table.

“This isn't a game, Josh!” Phil slammed his hand on the table angrily.

Nick's chest was tight, his eyes glancing from venture capitalist to CEO. They were in the fishbowl. The shades were drawn, but the dampness from the bay outside was seeping through the windows, making the room cold. Rachel Liu was next to him, tapping her pen lightly.

“What three databases?” Nick asked his mentor. “There are only two, and we—”

“There is information in there that will ruin people's lives, Josh.” Phil tried to keep his voice steady, ignoring Nick.

“There is information that would ruin
your
life, Phil,” Josh corrected, “but maybe you should have thought of that before you started using the app.”

“What are you—” Nick started. Phil was married, with three daughters. Why would he ever use Hook?

“What do you want, Josh?” Rachel intervened.

“Buy me out,” Josh said calmly, looking at Phil.

“Your shares are worth a billion dollars.”

“Good thing you run a five-billion-dollar fund.”

Phil rubbed his eyes. Was he actually considering this? “Even if I did, the road show starts next week. We'd have to disclose that, and then”—he shook his head—“it wouldn't work.”

“You could fire him.” Rachel turned to Phil.

“You can't fire the CEO right before an IPO,” Nick jumped in. Who did she think she was?

But Rachel didn't turn, she kept her eyes on Phil. “Investors don't like him, anyway. We can say the syndicate meeting today made it clear he was no longer the person to be in charge, that the company has outgrown him. We pay him out and then resell those shares in a secondary offering.”

Phil looked from Rachel to Josh, who sat back in his chair, waiting.

“Does that work for you?” Phil finally asked Josh.

Josh shrugged. “Fine by me.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Nick's mouth was hanging open. “What the hell are we talking about here? You're going to fire Josh and pay him a billion dollars all because of some stupid database?” Nick stood up. “I'm going to call the rest of the board and—”

“Sit down, Nick,” Phil commanded. “What's your problem?”

“Well . . .” Nick shook his head in disbelief. He'd just taken out a loan for two million dollars: nothing could jeopardize this IPO. “For one thing, who's going to be CEO? I mean, I'm going to have to work with someone entirely new, and—”

“You, Nick,” Phil said, with exasperated patience. “You'll be CEO.”

TODD

F
RIDAY
, A
PRIL
18; N
EW
Y
ORK
, N
EW
Y
ORK

“Where have you been?” Todd snapped at Neha.

“I came straight from the airport,” she tried to apologize. “I took the red-eye back—”

“Why weren't you answering your e-mail?” Todd was furious. “Do you seriously expect to get a promotion when you don't answer your fucking BlackBerry?”

The girl looked at the device in her hand, showing him the screen. “Nothing came through, Todd. I don't know what's wrong with it.” She started to panic, letting her suitcase drop. “I'll call Tech right away.”

“Don't,” Todd snapped. “Get in the room. We have to redo everything.”

“What? Why?”

“Josh Hart was fired.”

“Is Beau here yet?”

“No, Neha!” Todd shouted. “Please just get to work.”

This was not good. Not good at all. It was seven forty-five a.m. and Todd had been up since five fifteen. He'd gotten back to New York yesterday morning, feeling great about the syndicate meeting and their momentum heading into the road show.

And then he'd woken up this morning to a call from Tara. He'd ignored it, but picked up when she called again, his still-half-asleep brain imagining that she was booty-calling. But instead she'd asked him if he'd read the e-mail from Nick.

The little punk hadn't even had the balls to call: he'd sent a fucking e-mail at fucking two a.m. our time announcing that he was the new CEO of Hook and “could L.Cecil kindly work with Crowley Brown to revise the necessary documents.”

What a fucking prick
. Nick knew this fucked up everything. Not only would it be a PR nightmare, it meant they had to redo all the filings, all the marketing materials, all of—“Dammit!” Todd slammed his fist on the table.

“It's okay,” Tara said seriously from the seat across from him. “We'll work it out.”

She was typing away, calm and steady.

“I just don't understand—”

“Don't waste your energy trying,” Tara said. “It is what it is.”

“Why were you up at five a.m. anyway?”

“I run in the mornings,” she said without looking up.

“At five a.m.?”

“Yes,” she said as she typed, as if that weren't insane.

“Fuck. Every day?”

“Sundays I do yoga.”

“Jesus. Why?”

“I can't think clearly otherwise,” she said, then looked up and admitted, “and I don't want to get fat.”

Neha came into the room with her laptop and printouts of all the documents that needed to be redone. “Hi, Tara,” she said.

Todd looked at her: since when did she say hello to Tara?

“Hey, Neha.” Tara smiled.

“Is Beau coming in?” Neha asked.

“I'm sure he's on his way,” Todd said. Who cared about Beau? He was worthless for anything other than being a wingman anyway.

“What happened with Josh?” Neha directed the question to Tara.

What was going on? Todd looked at the girl: she was
his
analyst.

“It's not important, Neha,” Todd said sternly. “We just need you to redo the filings, with Nick Winthrop as CEO and all of Josh Hart's holdings going to Dalton Henley, to be included in the initial offering.”

“According to Nick,” Tara said, ignoring Todd, “Phil Dalton decided Josh wasn't the right person to lead the company forward, and fired him. But Dalton Henley also bought all of his shares, which makes me think it was actually Josh's idea.”

“Why? Why would Josh leave when the company's just about to go public?” Neha's brow was furrowed.

“It doesn't matter!” Todd yelled. “Can you please just get to work?”

The two girls finally acknowledged Todd and went back to their computers.

Jesus Christ
, Todd thought. Was everyone going mad?

Todd's phone rang. “Hello?” he answered, exasperated.

“What's going on, Mr. Kent?” Harvey Tate's voice was irritated.

“Harvey!” Todd clenched his jaw. This was not what he needed. “Good morning, how are you?”

“Concerned. I heard there have been some changes at Hook.”

“Yes,” Todd said. How did Harvey Tate know? “But we've got it under control. I think it will be better, actually. Josh was a loose cannon. I think we can convince investors to see the change as a good stabilizer to take Hook to the next level.”

“How long is it going to take to amend everything?”

“I don't know,” Todd said.

“I don't pay you not to know.” Harvey's voice was shifting to anger.

“Sunday,” Todd said, confident. “That's my goal. But you know we have to submit everything to the SEC again, and that could take weeks.”

“That can't happen,” Harvey said. “We need this deal in May.”

“I can't control the SEC, Harvey.”

“Careful of your tone, Mr. Kent,” Harvey said, and Todd felt his stomach churn. “We need to report this deal in our second-quarter earnings. If you can't figure out how to make that happen, I'll find someone who can. Don't think Phil Dalton is the only one with the authority to make personnel changes.”

“I'll talk to Crowley Brown and see what we can do,” Todd said. “I've got a call scheduled with them at eight.”

“You better go, then,” Harvey said. Todd looked at his computer: it was 8:02.
Fuck
.

He hung up the phone and dialed Chris Papadopoulos.

“Sorry I'm late,” he told the lawyer. Harvey's threat repeated in his ear: he couldn't take him off the deal, could he?

“You're fine,” the lawyer said. He sounded like he'd been up all night. “So this is going to put us back at least a month.”

“Not possible,” Todd said. “The deal has to be finished in Q2.”

“It's not me, Todd, it's the SEC.”

“You got the first pass filed quickly,” Todd insisted, his heart starting to race as reality set in: Harvey
could
replace him. Larry would revel in the opportunity to take this over, and with Josh gone, there was no one at Hook interested in protecting Todd. “Surely there's someone over there you know,” he half pleaded.

“Are you asking me to bribe someone at the SEC?”

“No,” Todd lied, a second reality—that Chris wasn't going to budge—settling in. But desperation breeds ideas, and Todd suddenly had a thought. “Chris, I gotta go. Neha's working on the updates. Let's talk again end of day.”

He hung up and checked his contact folder, his brain moving fast now. He'd slept with a girl at the SEC a few times: what was her name? Joan! Joan Hillier.

He scrambled to dial her number, collecting his breath as the phone rang.

“This is Joan.”

“Joan! It's Todd Kent.”

There was a pause.

“Joan?” he asked. “I'm sorry, maybe you don't remember me. We—”

“I remember you,” she said. “What do you want?”

“Well”—his brain raced—“I know it's been a while, but I wanted to see if I could take you to dinner. I was going through such a shitty time when we met before, and I'm in a better place now, and I think it would be great to get reacquainted.” He bit his lip, eyes tightly shut as he waited for her answer.

“What do you really want?”

Todd opened his eyes and hesitated before conceding: “I'm working on a deal and I need”—he paused—“your advice. Because I remember you worked at the SEC at one point, and—”

“I still do,” she said. “Which I'm guessing you know since you called my office line.”

“I did?” he asked, trying to sound surprised. “I thought it was your cell!”

“Don't bullshit me.”

“Listen,” he tried again, letting a little desperation seep into his voice, “I'm leading a deal and some things just changed and we're going to have to resubmit our filing and I need it to get through quickly.”

There was another pause.

“Where is dinner?” she finally said.

Yes
. “Gramercy Tavern?” he suggested. “Eight o'clock?” He needed a restaurant where no one he knew would see him.

“I'll see you then.”

“Thank you, Joan.” He punched his hand in the air. “I'll—” But she'd already hung up.

“What are you doing?” Tara was staring at him suspiciously.

“Saving this deal.”

Tara sighed heavily, looking back at her computer. Was she upset that he was going out with another woman? He felt a wave of vindication, thinking about her drinks with Callum.

“What's wrong?” He couldn't help himself.

“It's not important.”

“What?” he pressed. “Are you jealous?”

“My sister's wedding is May tenth,” she said.

Todd scoffed, disappointed. “Guess you're off the hook for finding a date.” The deal ought to have closed by then, but with the delay, they'd still be neck-deep in the road show that day. There was no way she'd be able to go.

“You're a jerk,” she said, and actually seemed to mean it.

He let it go. He had more important things to worry about now.

JUAN

F
RIDAY
, A
PRIL
18; S
AN
F
RANCISCO
, C
ALIFORNIA

“I need you to erase the third database—the one that correlates private and collected information,” Nick said from across his desk, then added, with a note of accusation, “Don't think I don't know about it.”

Juan looked at him carefully. “Is everything okay?”

Nick had sent Juan an e-mail yesterday asking him to meet at seven thirty a.m., before the mandatory all-company town hall at nine. The e-mail had said there would be a sign-in sheet and any employee not in attendance would be fired. Juan was pretty sure half the company had never shown up to work before eleven, and he was cautiously anxious about what might be going on.

“Everything is great,” Nick said, sitting back in his chair confidently. “Couldn't be better, actually.”

“What is the town hall about?”

“You'll find out at the town hall.”

“Why are you dressed up?” Juan asked.

“Some things are going to change around here, Juan.” Nick sat up straighter as he said it. “And one of them is that we're going to start acting like professionals.”

“Is Josh on board with that?”

“No more questions.” Nick's voice dripped with condescension. “Please just erase the database and make sure that from now on any information the app collects from users which they do not provide directly is only stored for twenty-four hours so that statistics can be compiled and that it is then deleted from our servers. You're dismissed.”

Juan started to say something, but changed his mind. He stood and returned to his desk, uneasy.

He logged into the third database and opened the code behind it.

It had to be because of Phil Dalton. He was probably afraid someone would find out about his affairs. It made Juan wonder how many of Hook's users were old men using the app to cheat on their wives, and suddenly he felt less proud of its prolific influence.

Juan stared at his screen. Whatever the reason, he should be relieved. If he erased the database, everything would go away: he would never have to worry about Kelly and the user she'd been with the night she died. It would be as if Hook had never collected the information in the first place, and then it would be like it had never even happened. He could just erase it, forget it, collect his two hundred million dollars, and move on.

He sat forward in his chair again and went to work.

WARNING:
ACTION WILL PERMANENTLY ERASE DATA FROM SERVER. DO YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?

Juan's finger hovered above the mouse.

Just click it
, he told himself.

“Brah,
what
is going on?” Juan jumped and turned to Brogrammer Brad, who put his bag on the seat beside Juan. “Nine freakin' a.m.? I haven't been up this early since, like, high school.”

Juan looked at the time: 8:46. He clicked out of the database. It could wait until after the town hall, at least.

“Should we get down there?” Juan asked, standing.

“Totes,” Brad said. They picked up breakfast burritos from the cafeteria and made their way to the tiki bar, which was the only room in the building big enough to seat the entire staff.

Someone had set up chairs in long rows, pushing all the palm tree decorations out of the way and installing a podium in place of the life-sized hula girl statue.

“What's going on?” one of the new programmers whispered to Juan.

“I'm not sure,” he said, realizing that lots of eyes were on him, searching for a cue.

“Good morning, team.” Nick stood behind the podium at precisely nine a.m. “Please make sure you all get your names on the sign-in sheet.” He indicated the back door, which had been shut to keep out latecomers.