The Chairman (28 page)

“It just isn’t true,” Price said evenly. “We have less than two hundred million in nonperforming loans. That’s about half of 1 percent of our total asset base. That’s nothing. It’s right in line with industry averages. A little better, actually.”

“Then why does Congressman Allen hold up a folder in front of the television cameras and say he has proof that you have billions in nonperforming loans? How do you explain that?”

“I can’t,” Price replied simply.

“You gotta do better than that, Walter. I told you to have a report ready for me. You haven’t prepared anything.”

“There’s nothing to prepare. We’re fine.”

“Walter, I—”

“Look, Christian, we have state and federal examiners around all the time. It’s ridiculous how much time they spend in our offices. And we have our own internal people constantly spot-checking. If there was anything to find, someone would have.”

“You’re telling me I have nothing to worry about.”

“I’m telling you to go out and buy as many shares of our stock as you can. By this time next week our share price is going to be back up where it was before all this bullshit. Maybe higher.”

Gillette sat back in the leather chair and thought for a second. Assume what Price was saying was true. Assume there wasn’t anything wrong. Assume all of this had been neatly choreographed. But if you assumed that, you also had to accept what Price was saying would happen, that when no one could find anything wrong with Dominion, its stock would go shooting back up. There’d be some pissed-off investors who’d dumped at the bottom because they believed they might as well get something before the shares were delisted. But there would also be some extremely happy people who’d speculated and bought when the price was a buck and change because the downside was so small. So what was the point?

Then it hit him. Of course. This was Strazzi’s way of manipulating the widow, of scaring the hell out of her so she’d sell her stake in Everest. Strazzi had tried to get information on the portfolio companies from Mason to cement his case, but he’d been beaten to the punch. However, it hadn’t mattered. All he’d ultimately needed was Dominion’s implosion. And, after Monday, it wouldn’t matter if the stock came roaring back. Strazzi would own the piece of Everest he wanted. The widow might cry foul, but he’d just tell her to go screw herself.

Gillette nodded to himself. There was a way to check it all out.

“I appreciate you meeting with me, Walter,” he said, standing up and shaking the other man’s hand. He needed to get going right away.

Because the answer wasn’t in Washington. It was back in New York.

23

The Showdown.
Someone must lose.

“THEY HAVE TO GO,” GILLETTE said firmly, pointing at Galway and another aide as he and Stiles entered Stockman’s office.

“All right,” Stockman muttered, motioning for them to leave.

“But
my
man stays.” Gillette gestured toward Stiles as the two aides disappeared through the doorway.

Stockman nodded.

Gillette sat in front of Stockman’s desk while Stiles moved to the window, checking on the two men he’d left on the street with Gillette’s driver.

“It’s two o’clock Saturday afternoon,” the senator spoke up. “What in the hell’s so damn important that you had to see me right away?” the senator asked angrily.

“I think you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Quentin gave your aide the photographs last night,” Gillette answered. There was no need to be evasive. It was time to hit Stockman between the eyes. “I’m sure you’ve seen them by now.” He watched Stockman clench his teeth, then take a deep breath. Trying to stay in control. The senator had a nasty temper, and Gillette could tell he was close to erupting. “Right?”

“Yes,” Stockman admitted curtly.

“You’ve been seeing the Jones woman for a while, haven’t you? In fact, you’ve brought her to Washington a few times.”

“Well, haven’t we been busy?” Stockman asked.

“All things done in the dark eventually come to light.”

“Your father should have listened to that advice, son,” Stockman said, and sneered. “If he had, he might still be alive. Or maybe you don’t know why your mother drank so much.”

Gillette’s eyes flashed to Stockman’s. It wasn’t the first time someone had implied that his father’s plane might have been sabotaged, and, for a moment, it threw him. Which he knew was exactly what Stockman wanted. To distract him. Maybe tempt him to trade pictures for information about the crash instead of the conspiracy.

“You should be glad I’m a rational man, Senator,” Gillette finally said, his voice devoid of emotion, forcing himself to focus. “Glad this is only about you and me reaching an understanding that benefits me in business. Glad I don’t have time for revenge.”

“If all you wanted was to destroy my chance of being president, these damn things would already be at
The New York Times,
” Stockman said, reaching into a drawer and dropping the envelope full of photographs on the desktop. “I know that.” He hesitated. “So, what
do
you want?”

“Answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“Are you and Paul Strazzi working together to force me out of Everest Capital?”

Stockman hesitated.

“If you answer my questions,” Gillette continued forcefully, “I burn the duplicate set of those photographs. If you don’t,
The Times
will have them within the hour.”

“Yes,” Stockman answered quietly. “We’ve been working together.”

“Why?”

“I want votes and Strazzi wants Everest. It’s as simple as that. Plus, Paul hated Donovan,” Stockman added. “There was that, too.”

“What about Dominion Savings & Loan?”

“What about it?” Stockman hissed.

“There aren’t really billions of bad loans at Dominion, are there?”

“It’s your investment,” Stockman retorted snidely. “You tell me.”

“Goddamn it, answer me.”

Stockman clenched his teeth again.

“Senator.”

“No, there aren’t. No more than there are at any other savings and loan that size.”

“Why does Congressman Allen think there are?”

“What do you mean?” Stockman asked, grimacing as he glanced at one of the photographs.

“I saw the press conference yesterday afternoon. Allen claimed he had evidence that there were billions.”

“Allen owes me.”

“Still, I don’t think a prominent congressman calls a press conference and accuses the partners at Everest Capital of fraud without documentation—no matter how much he owes you. He could be writing his own ticket out of Washington.”

Stockman mulled over the question. “Okay, we had help.”

“Where?”

“Inside Dominion.”

“What kind of help?”

“Earlier this week, somebody ran a few official-looking reports indicating that the loan portfolio was in terrible shape. Grossly inflating bad loans. I gave Allen that report.”

“Who was the person inside Dominion who ran the false reports?”

“I don’t know,” Stockman snapped. “I wasn’t involved in that. That was Strazzi’s responsibility.”

“Who’s Strazzi using inside Everest?” Gillette demanded.

Stockman’s eyes flashed to Gillette’s.

“Come on, Senator. You must have someone inside Everest, too. That’s the only way Strazzi would have been able to convince a senior person inside Dominion to cooperate, to run those reports for Allen.”

Stockman looked around the office like a caged animal. “Marcie Reed.”

Gillette made certain not to react, despite being elated to have nailed the rat. He’d deal with her later. “A few more—” His cell phone rang and he pulled it out quickly. Isabelle. He’d bought her a cell phone yesterday and, like a child, she couldn’t stop using it. He shut off the ring and shoved the phone back in his pocket. He was going to see her in a few hours anyway. “Is this Dominion scam something Strazzi’s been planning for a long time?” he asked.

Stockman drew a measured breath. “No. Strazzi was just being opportunistic,” he answered deliberately. “I know he’s been trying to figure out a way to take Bill Donovan down for a long time. But, like I said, in terms of Dominion, he just took advantage of the situation.”

“You mean you don’t think he had Donovan killed,” Gillette said bluntly.

“That thought never crossed my mind.”

“Bullshit, Senator. That’s exactly what you were thinking. Because it makes so much sense. Without Donovan around, Marcie Reed can pin the bad loans on him, claim he was the one who knew and didn’t tell anyone. Am I right?”

Stockman stared at Gillette, a blank expression on his face.

“You really only have to convince one person there are problems at Dominion,” Gillette pointed out. “And that’s Ann Donovan. So she’ll sell her Everest stake to Strazzi for a rock-bottom price. Then he can throw me out with that huge voting bloc of hers. Right?” he asked again, boring in on the truth. “Once Strazzi has her stake, you don’t care if the world finds out that the story about the bad loans isn’t true. It doesn’t matter then. I mean, Allen will be hot as hell, but what do you care? You’ve probably got something on him that’s ten times worse than the fraudulent report you provided him. So, what’s he going to say? Nothing,” Gillette answered his own question. “I would have come after him with everything I had for screwing our reputation. But if the plan had worked, I wouldn’t have been around to do that. Strazzi would have been chairman. After Strazzi takes over, you tell Allen he has nothing to worry about, that you’ll protect him. He’s pissed, and he loses a little credibility, but the public has a short memory.” Gillette stared hard at Stockman. “That’s how it was supposed to go down, right?”

“Yes,” Stockman agreed.

“You provided access to Allen. In return, you got Strazzi’s support, including his multibillion-dollar money bag, I’m assuming. That’s why you weren’t concerned about being able to raise campaign money when we had lunch. You knew you had whatever you needed.”

“Nice work, Detective.”

“How long has Marcie Reed been working with Strazzi?” Gillette asked.

The senator shrugged.

“Come on.”

“Six months.”

“How long have
you
been working with him?”

“Longer than Marcie Reed.”

“Did Donovan know about you and Strazzi working together to take him down?” Gillette asked, thinking about what McGuire had told him, how Donovan had found out something nasty about Stockman.

“Yeah,” Stockman admitted. “He found out about it three months ago. He had someone on the payroll in my office here in New York who reported back to him. I fired the fucker when I found out what was going on.”

“So why did you approach me at the funeral reception about supporting you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You already had Strazzi with you,” Gillette pointed out. “If I’d agreed to help you, I’m assuming you wouldn’t have given Allen the fraudulent Dominion loan reports. But then you would have lost Strazzi and all his money.”

“I wasn’t convinced Strazzi’s plan to fleece the widow was going to work,” Stockman answered. “Besides, what I wanted
most
was your TV and radio networks. I can always raise money when the media endorses me.”

Gillette stood up. Marcie and Kyle were meeting him at Everest, and there was something he needed to do before they arrived. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, reaching the door.

“Well?” Stockman asked, standing up, too.

“Well, what?”

“I answered your questions. Give me the other set of photos.”

Gillette stopped and turned around. “Let me ask you one more time. Did Strazzi have Bill Donovan killed?”

Stockman shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “Paul’s a tough son-of-a-bitch, but he wouldn’t take it that far.”

Gillette gazed at Stockman for a few moments, then motioned to Stiles. “Let’s go.”

“Hey!” Stockman roared. “What about the photographs?”

Gillette glanced back again. “Senator, I’m not sure I’m done with you yet.”

As they waited for the elevator in the hallway outside Stockman’s office, Gillette and Stiles were silent. But after they’d gotten into the car and the door had closed, Gillette spoke up. “Send the photographs to
The Daily News
Monday afternoon. We’ll claim we don’t know anyone at
The News,
and we have no idea how they got them. Okay?”

“Yup.”

Gillette checked his watch as he sat in front of Marcie’s computer: 3:30. Marcie and Kyle were supposed to be here at 4:00 so he could go over the companies each of them would be taking charge of as chairperson. They’d grumbled about it being short notice—and Saturday—but both had agreed to come.

He flipped on the computer, drumming his fingers on her desk as the CPU hummed to life. While the virus program scanned the hard drive, he picked up her phone and dialed the lobby.

“Yes?” Stiles was sitting at the front desk.

“Quentin, don’t let
anyone
past you until I say so.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“I’m in Marcie Reed’s office.”

“I know.”

Gillette was about to hang up, then brought the phone back to his ear. “You know, if this security thing doesn’t work out, you always have a job as the Everest receptionist.”

“You’re a helluva guy, Christian.”

Gillette grinned as he hung up and inputted Marcie’s password. He kept everyone’s password in a file on his computer, which updated automatically if anyone changed theirs. Early last week, he’d brought in a technology specialist from the outside to set up the program. The guy had promised him that the internal technology people at Everest would never detect what he’d done.

Gillette hit the Enter key, then went quickly to Marcie’s e-mail, searching her messages for any correspondence related to Dominion. He wanted to have something other than Stockman’s claim that she was Strazzi’s rat, some tangible piece of evidence, because Marcie was tough. He assumed she wouldn’t roll over at just an accusation.

Of course, she was probably going to join Apex as soon as Strazzi bought the widow’s stake. She’d certainly inked that deal before agreeing to help Strazzi, so it wasn’t as if threatening to fire her was going to get him anything. But if he had evidence that she’d helped Strazzi manipulate Dominion’s share price, she’d have to answer to the SEC for securities fraud. The public had lost billions, and she’d be facing a long prison sentence. Under those circumstances, she’d talk.

He searched her incoming messages first, then the deleted ones. There were hundreds, and it would take time to do this thoroughly. He checked his watch again: 3:45. If he couldn’t find anything now, he’d come in tomorrow and go through the files with a fine-tooth comb. He’d have plenty of privacy then.

Finally, Gillette searched the sent items folder, reading certain ones based on the subject line. Scanning quickly. As he scrolled down, one message caught his eye. He raced back up to it, having flashed past it in his haste. The subject was “Payments” and it had been sent to a [email protected]. MP Brands was one of Everest’s portfolio companies, the one Kathy Hays worked for. His eyes narrowed. KHays had to stand for Kathy Hays—the woman he’d caught Mason with in the basement of Donovan’s mansion, the woman Lefors had told him about as he’d come out of Donovan’s study.

Gillette clicked on the message.

“Christian.” Stiles’s voice blared through the intercom.

“What?”

“Marcie Reed just got off the elevator.”

“Stall her,” Gillette urged, his eyes flashing over the e-mail. It said:

You’ll be paid $250,000 when it happens, and $25,000 a month for six months after that. At the end of six months, you’ll be on your own. You’ll resign from MP Brands as soon as it happens.

Gillette checked the date and time of the e-mail—two weeks ago yesterday, at 1:45 in the afternoon. He glanced down and reread it.