When we emerged into the lobby calmly as we could muster, fire engines
were racing up outside, cops were crowded around the elevators, and
Eddie was so frantic yelling about the holocaust up on eleven he didn't
even bother to say hello. We searched in vain for Henderson as we
worked our way through the milling throng, headed for the pay phone in
the corner. Bill had to be somewhere; nobody else would have blacked
out the DNI offices.
My first thought, though, was that we needed to make tracks. The
brouhaha to come would best be handled from the safety of a foreign
shore. Fortunately in my pocket was just enough change for one call,
and as luck would have it, our man was in.
"Sure, Matt, no problem. But this is damned sudden."
"Right now, Patrick. And hurry. Could be the perfect moment for an
extended vacation. How about just sending the car around? Over on
Third, near--"
"That Japanese place you told me you work for?"
"Worked for, Patrick. No more. Just got laid off."
"Hell, I know where they are. It's all over the tube. I'm sitting here
right now watching Jack O'Donnell blow his stack at a press briefing
down in D.C. Wish you could see the guy. It's live on CNN. Is this
thing for real? What was that Dai Nippon outfit trying to do? Buy up
every--"
Incredible. Henderson had really come through.
"Patrick."
"Yeah."
"Fill you in on all the details over a drink someday. Right now,
though, we could really use Charlie and the car ASAP. We'll be waiting
outside."
"We?"
I looked at the smoke-smeared woman standing beside me. "Truthfully,
I'm hoping for some company."
Tam smiled, then reached out and took my hand. Not a word about
"strictly business."
"Okay, Matt, Charlie just walked in. I'll send him straight on over."
"Thanks a million. Owe you a big one."
As we moved on out through the revolving doors, we finally spotted
Henderson, wearing his gray topcoat and mingled in among the crowd on
the sidewalk. The lowest of low profiles. For a second I almost didn't
recognize the man. He looked a wreck, standing there shading his eyes
and squinting up. Then I followed his gaze and realized smoke was
pouring out of the windows on eleven. Seems we'd demolished a little
exterior plate glass, too, along with everything else.
"Bill." I signaled. "Over here."
"Walton, thank God." He waved and pushed our way. "I was worried stiff
you two might still be up there. What in hell happened? Did you just
blow up--"
"Long story. There was a small war, a new one and an old one. But how'd
you get here? Noda said he was having your place watched. A couple of--"
"Yeah, I saw those two apes. They were in my lobby in handcuffs, being
grilled by New York's Finest when I came through. Our doorman figured
they were casing us for a robbery and called the cops. What's Noda
think--I live in a fucking tent? I pay for top security, friend. The
best."
"Anyway, nice work with the lights. Much appreciated. The bad news is,
you might want to get out of town for a while. Maybe go skiing
someplace. The whole thing fell apart. Noda just brought in a whole new
load of funding."
"Hell, I figured that out the minute I saw the Times lying there
outside my door. Only one place the market could be getting this kind
of dough. Tokyo pension funds. So I went back in and called Jack."
"You made the right move, tipping him off."
"Maybe he can get trading shut down. Stop it somehow."
"We stopped it ourselves," Tam interjected, then indicated the paper
bundle in her hands, black metal stock protruding out of one corner.
"God Almighty." He stared around at the policemen racing by, walkie-
talkies chattering. "Where's Jim Bob? I got a good mind to--"
"Your hotshot screwed us, Bill. Noda got to him and bought him off."
"I figured that out too. Little fucker." He grimaced. "Guess I trained
him too well."
"He didn't deserve his payoff. Somebody'd better hustle a medic up
there fast."
"Let them take care of it." He thumbed at the firemen piling off their
trucks, then bent over and pecked Tam on the cheek. "Well, Professor,
it's been short and sweet. Keep 'em honest." He reached for my hand.
"Walton, you know how I hate to travel on short notice, but considering
the situation . . . St. Moritz might be nice for a while."
"Drink some Pear William for us."
"Will do. Best of luck."
"Same to you." I watched him flip up the collar on his coat as he
turned. "Oh, by the way, Bill, one last thing."
"Yeah?" He glanced back.
"Want a little insider information?"
"Wouldn't dream of listening." He returned like a shot.
"Might not be a bad idea to short every high-tech stock DNI currently
holds. There's a finite possibility all hell's going to break loose at
the opening tomorrow."
"What's the story?" He was all ears.
Tam turned to me. "Are you finally going to explain what that scam with
Jim Bob was all about?"
"Well, now there's some time. What I did was sucker him into posting
buy orders for an additional five percent of every company on your kill
list."
"I'm well aware of that." She just continued to stare.
"Which means that when the SEC reports those holdings, it'll trigger
the new provisions their majority stockholder-- with whose power of
attorney I acted with full legal authority--voted last week."
"Which was?"
"It's a little like what's being called a 'tin parachute' these days,
the latest twist on the antitakeover 'poison pill.'"
"Isn't that where managements have their boards vote that a hostile
buyout will trigger big disbursements of a company's assets to the rank
and file? What's that got to do with . . . ?"
"That's the play. Great takeover defense, by the way."
"But Noda had already taken those companies over." She frowned,
puzzling.
"Right. Obviously, nobody's supposed to institute one _after _a
takeover, but that's what Dai Nippon voted to do last Wednesday and
Thursday for every company it owns. The way it's set up now, if the
majority stockholder in any of those companies, which just happens to
be DNI, acquires another four percent or more, all that stockholder's
stock is automatically disbursed to the employees."
"Just like that?"
"Fully legal. Like a 'tin parachute.'"
"But what will . . . ?"
"Let me finish. In my version there're some strings attached. The money
can't be used to just go out and buy Toyotas. I arranged it so that all
the stock will be held in escrow for ten years and used as collateral
for loans specially earmarked to finance expansion and R and D. In
other words the employees are about to become those companies' new bank
partner."
"What in holy hell are you talking about?" Henderson appeared to have
just entered shock. His bloodshot eyes were like saucers. "Noda's piece
of those high-tech outfits is just going to be given to the troops,
then locked up as security for new financing?"
"Bill, try and think of it as a different kind of 'restructuring,' that
grand new corporate scam. But instead of the standard rip-off where
managers entrench themselves by loading up a company with debt and
bribing their shareholders with the money, I turned the whole thing
upside down. Gave the control of those companies to their workers,
who'll now have a stake in dividends and profits."
"Walton, you idiot. Stock prices for those outfits are going to
nosedive the second news of this hits the Street. It'll scare the
institutions shitless. I've never heard anything so crazy."
"Who knows what'll happen? Let the 'supply side' economists try and
figure it out. My guess is we're about to find out if anybody here
still believes in the working man. In any case it can't make things
worse, and it should be great fun to watch. At least American industry
is about to be owned by the people who punch the time clocks. Maybe
working for ourselves instead of investment bankers will help things
get rolling again."
"I don't believe you did this." Tam fell against me laughing. "Do you
realize what it really means? Noda's totally destroyed. He'll have to
sell off that new portfolio of blue chips just to have enough profit to
cover the claims of his original Eight-Hundred-Year-Fund investors.
After this, no Japanese money manager is going to give him a yen. He's
history."
"_Bushido_. When you break the rules, things like that can happen."
"Jesus, I'm not going to screw around short selling. I'm just gonna
load up on puts before the opening tomorrow. You oughta do the same,
Walton. When the Street gets wind of this and all those stocks crater,
you could clear millions." Bill headed briskly up the avenue.
"Stay well." We watched him disappear into the crowd, then started
searching for Charlie Morgan and the car.
Incidentally, the recipient of that phone call wasn't really named
Patrick. Since there are laws about smuggling firearms in and out of
countries, and we damned well were going to take along the Uzi, it
seems only right to give him a pseudonym. His charter outfit, which
works out of that hangar off to the side of the majors at Kennedy,
keeps a Lear that can make the Caribbean in one hop if it's not too
full. He even picks you up in a limo, his come-on for the carriage
trade.
About ten minutes later we saw Charlie working the Rolls around all the
fire engines double-parked on Third and waving for us.
"Good to see you again, Matt." He glanced back as we settled in.
"Christ, you two look terrible. Were you up there?"
"Just left."
"Must have been a hell of a fire from the looks of it." He hit the gas
and made a right turn. "Where to? Straight down Fifth to your place?"
"One quick stop first. Over on West Seventy-eighth."
"The West Side? In this traffic? Come on, Matt. I still haven't had
lunch."
"Just cut through Central Park. Should be a snap."
While he and Tam waited outside the West Side "Free School, I went in
to try and kidnap Amy. It wasn't easy. I finally explained to Ms.
Winters that my daughter's Christmas vacation had merely been delayed a
little this year, but better late than never. After some haggling, we
struck a deal on homework. Then, in a limo piled high with school
books, class projects, lunch boxes, and a black Israeli Uzi, we headed
downtown.
"Dad, you've gone nuts." My only offspring was in heaven.
"Honey, we're going to snorkel for two weeks solid. Think you can stand
the old man for that long?"
"Can we have a Christmas tree? You promised."
"I'll cut it myself."
"And a Christmas party too?"
"Might have to call it something else, but I suppose we can give it a
try. If you keep up on the homework." I looked at her, failing as usual
to understand the movements of her mind. "Sweetie, why do you want to
throw a party? This is supposed to be a vacation."
"Dad, really. Don't you remember that neat boy from Sweden whose
parents have that house across the bay? He was teaching me windsurfing
last summer. He's in junior year now, but if he's there, we've got to
have a party. Don't you understand?"
"Guess we'll have a party."
What can you do? Nobody said you're supposed to win them all.
Bad news, or maybe it was good news, travels with amazing speed in this
day and age. The late edition of the Tuesday New York Post found its
way to the Caribbean on an evening flight, and since it took us a while
to get out of town, it actually reached the Virgin Islands shortly
before we did. However, since we flew directly into St. Croix instead
of the main island of St. Thomas, we missed the delivery.
As it happened, though, an old acquaintance was passing the house that
night on a personal mission, and he was kind enough to drop off Rupert
Murdoch's Tuesday contribution to journalism.
The time was around ten P.M. Amy was sound asleep, conked out from
twilight windsurfing, and Tam and I were working on a pitcher of
planter's punch by the pool when there came the sound of honking out
front. I went in and unlocked the entry, then peeked out to see who it
was. The red, white, and blue jeep belonged to none other than Artie
Wilson, dressed to the nines.
"Walton, my man, you done gone and got yourself famous." He grinned
with delight, then threw a rolled-up newspaper toward the door. "Tole
you it'd be yo' ass."
"Artie, what in hell. Turn that thing off and come in for a drink.
Somebody I want you to meet."
"Hey, late for a reception at that new place down the beach. Think all
them hot New York divorcees jus' come down here for nothing but
sunshine an' vitamin D? Gotta keep the tourists satisfied." He revved
his engine and began backing out of the drive. "Tomorrow, maybe, Feds
ain't nailed yo' honkie butt by then."
With which enigmatic pronouncement he sped into the humid night.
I picked up the bundle, then snapped on the yard lights and strolled
back out where Tam was sitting, still wearing her pool robe. What was
Artie talking about?
As I settled down beside her and unrolled the paper, staring back at us
from the front page were two very familiar faces.
"Off one of my book jackets," she said. "I never much cared for it."
"Mine's from their photo morgue, during some takeover circus."
Guess we should have been keeping closer tabs on the news. Seems that
Matsuo Noda, president of Dai Nippon, Int., had held a press conference
mid-afternoon Tuesday to refute all the misinformation being spread by
Senator Jack O'Donnell. As he claimed, it was actually two Americans,
former employees of DNI, who had been responsible for Dai Nippon's
secret hostile takeover of the U.S.'s largest corporations. He made
this point to dispute Senator O'Donnell's assertion that they had been
the ones who'd stopped it. (See photo, page 1.) He went on to apologize
for what apparently had been a severe communications mix-up within DNI,
which brought about this unauthorized action, and he was pleased to
report he personally had taken steps to terminate the buy-up this very
morning, as of 11:53 A.M.
Run that whopper by Jack's subcommittee, Noda-san.
There was more. Seems the body of an unidentified male--young,
Caucasian, and badly burned--had been recovered by firemen on the
eleventh floor of DNI's offices. Noda had no idea who this person was,
perhaps a misfortunate prowler. . . .
"Matt, look!" She was pointing at a paragraph on the lower half of the
page.
There'd been a second casualty, although not as serious. The well-known
Japanese financial commentator Akira Mori had been borne, unconscious,
from the premises. Acute smoke inhalation. As of press time she was in
intensive care at Mt. Sinai Hospital.
"We saw her come out of the office. It was pretty smoky by then, but
how could . . . ?"
The answer followed. Firemen reportedly had discovered her in the
computer room near the mainframe's burned-out storage banks.
Speculation was she had been attempting to save the hard disks, the
vital DNI files.
"Mori wasn't trying to save anything." Tam tossed down the paper. "She
wanted to make sure all the disks were destroyed.