by Stephen Frey
Angela stared at Jake Lawrence for several moments. The only noise was the faint sound of the television coming from the other side of the doors. She reached for her wineglass and took a long swallow.
“Can I take that as a yes?” he asked.
She gritted her teeth. She hated being used, but there was no other way, not if she wanted to accomplish her goal. “Yes,” she said quietly. He was right. This was life, and it wasn’t pretty. Sometimes it was downright ugly.
“Good. You’re making a wise decision, Angela.” He put down his wineglass. “I had my people prepare an information package concerning Proxmire. I brought that package with me tonight, and I’ll give it to you before you leave. I want you to be intimately familiar with all of the information in the package no later than tomorrow afternoon, and I expect you to attempt initial contact with Walter Fogel no later than Tuesday morning. His curriculum vitae is in the package.”
“I won’t sleep with him, Jake,” she said adamantly. “Not even to get my son back.”
“I’m well aware of that, Angela,” Lawrence agreed smoothly. “Remember?”
She stared deeper into the dark eyes, trying to find a hint of emotion behind the cool facade.
“Let’s talk share price,” Lawrence suggested. “Proxmire has been trading in the $8 to $10 range for the past three months. It was as high as $50 at one point, but it’s dropped off the table in the last eighteen months. I’m willing to go as high as $25 a share to get the company. Start at $17 with Fogel when you negotiate with him, but go no higher than $25 in the end. Twenty-five bucks a share implies a valuation of almost half a billion dollars. That’s very generous.”
Angela shook her head. “Why do you care what you pay? If you’re so hot on ESP, why do you need to negotiate? You’ve got the money.”
“First of all, I never overpay, no matter how much money I have. It’s the principle of the thing. Second, if I did come in with a bear hug, an offer that Fogel couldn’t responsibly refuse, he still might try to sell ESP out from under me. Just to spite me.”
The wine was beginning to have its effect. She could feel herself becoming light-headed. She finished what remained in her glass anyway. Tucker was outside and, besides, this was fascinating. They were deciding what to bid for a public company. Once the tender was announced, it would be splashed all over the financial newspapers. It wasn’t a huge transaction, but it was big enough. And she’d been so certain that Lawrence had been bluffing about the M&A project, certain there was no Proxmire or ESP, certain there was only Sumter.
“My suggestions as far as target share price and pricing strategy are covered in the package,” he explained, standing up and refilling her wineglass despite her halfhearted attempt to stop him. “But I figured I’d provide you with a coming-attraction trailer.”
“Thank you,” she replied, her voice raspy. They had locked eyes for a moment as he’d towered over her.
Lawrence chuckled as he moved back to his chair. “I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when you met with Dudley and Hill. Pretty upset, were they? Trying to figure out my intentions.” He paused. “By the way, what did you tell them?”
Angela glanced up. If Sumter was just an investment, why did Lawrence care? Why did he keep bringing the conversation back to Dudley and Hill? “I told them just what you told me in Wyoming. That you had no intention of entering into a hostile takeover battle with them, that you believed it was a well-run bank in a high-growth market, and that it was nothing more than a passive investment for you.”
“I assume Dudley was more aggravated than Hill. I bet Dudley was the one asking most of the questions.”
“The tough ones anyway. Hill seems like a decent enough person.” She bit her tongue, trying to keep herself from saying too much. But the wine had done its work. “Dudley doesn’t.”
“Tell me more.”
She looked down into her lap. “Bob Dudley is a racist.”
“Why do you say that? What has he done to give you that impression?”
“Nothing specific,” she answered quietly, thinking about the memo she had discovered in Ken Booker’s office.
“Are you Liv Jefferson’s informant?” Lawrence asked suddenly. “Are you the one who provided her information so she could write that article about the bank not serving the black community?”
Angela stared back at him. She’d anticipated him asking this question again, and was ready with her answer this time. “Maybe John Tucker needs to join us at this point,” she said calmly.
“There’s no need for that.” Lawrence picked up his menu. “Let’s order.”
“How do I know you’ll follow through on the custody battle?” she demanded, unwilling to let him change the subject. “How do I know that this isn’t just a lot of show? How can I be certain that when you get what you want, Kate Charboneau won’t call out of the blue to tell me that everyone’s memory has turned selective again? I won’t have a job either if you abandon me. We both know that. Dudley will kick me out Sumter Bank’s front door himself. I need to know that you won’t abandon me.”
“You have my word,” he said, putting down the menu.
“I need more.”
“Too bad. The bottom line is that you want your son back more than I want ESP. You know it. I know it.”
He was right. If the Proxmire acquisition didn’t work out, he’d simply move on to the next deal. But her life would be changed forever. What could be gained versus what could be lost: perhaps seeing her son more, perhaps never seeing him again. The risks and rewards had never been greater.
“You have to trust me, Angela.”
“I told Dudley last week that the reason you contacted me as opposed to other bankers was that I had extensive industry experience,” Angela said, wondering how she could ever trust a man like Lawrence. A man who had so many agendas. “That the target company operated in an industry I knew a great deal about. Dudley will figure out very quickly that I don’t know much about information technology because I don’t have any of those kinds of companies in my loan portfolio. He’ll find out from his subordinates that I focus on Old Economy companies. He’ll be suspicious about why I’m helping you analyze Proxmire.”
“Don’t tell him why.”
“I have to tell him something.”
“Tell him anything you want except the truth. I do not, under any circumstances, want you to tell him that the company you and I are looking at is Proxmire Consulting.”
“But—”
“As I’m sure you know,” Lawrence interrupted, “the government scrutinizes all public takeovers for possible insider trading activity. I don’t want word of my intentions leaking out. I do not want this transaction being held up by federal and state regulators while they review unusual trading patterns in Proxmire shares prior to our takeover announcement. Right now the only people who know about this are you, one assistant of mine, and me. I want to keep it that way as long as I can. At least until you contact Walter Fogel.”
She was silent for a few moments. She’d made her deal with the devil. “All right.”
Lawrence waved, an irritated expression on his face. “In addition, if Dudley found out what the target was, he might try to use Sumter’s resources to get in my way. He might have his trading floor buy up blocks of Proxmire shares to bid up the price. Just to piss me off.”
That didn’t seem logical. Why would Dudley want to irritate Lawrence? Then Lawrence might come after Sumter just for revenge. “Why aren’t there any pictures of you in the family history book?” she asked.
Lawrence blinked, then laughed. “What?”
“The family history book. I found a copy of it on the plane coming back from Wyoming last week. It was stashed in an overhead compartment. There were pictures of your mother and father but none of you.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t a very photogenic child.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Believe what you wish.”
“You’re a
n only child, right? That’s what the press reports, and what the book said.”
“That’s right.”
“Was it lonely growing up?”
Lawrence chuckled. “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.”
She’d struck a chord, but she wouldn’t press. If she did, he might never open up again. And there could come a time when she would have to get beneath his surface to find out something she desperately needed to know. “Your father made it huge in software.”
Lawrence took a swallow of wine. “That’s right, Angela. Billions and billions and billions from a tiny little investment. Tiny for Dad anyway. All those billions, and he didn’t even have to lift a finger. A programming nerd he met at a Harvard symposium took Dad’s two hundred grand in return for a big chunk of a fledgling software company, and the rest is history. Literally. Now that fledgling software company is one of the most powerful juggernauts in the world. Its operating systems control almost every personal computer in the world. What a country America is, huh?”
She’d spent two hours perusing the family history book, fascinated. She’d been tempted to take it with her, but in the end, she’d put it back where she’d found it before getting off the plane. “But your family was already wealthy at that point.”
Lawrence glanced up. “Very.”
She could tell the wine was getting to Lawrence. His dark eyes were developing a glassy sheen. “Your family owned huge timber tracts in the West.”
“That’s true. Large areas of Montana and Wyoming. The ranch outside Jackson is a leftover piece of one of those tracts.”
“But the family’s start in the timber business didn’t begin in the West.”
Lawrence turned his head to one side. “Right,” he agreed slowly.
“It actually started in the South,” she continued. “In Georgia in the early 1800s. But your great-great-great-grandfather saw the Civil War coming and sold the business, worried that if the North won, he might lose everything. After he sold the business, he took the proceeds and bought all that timberland out West.”
“Mmm.”
“Or was it Alabama where your family got its start?”
Lawrence reached for his glass.
“Jake?”
“What?”
“I can’t remember what the book said, Jake. Was your family originally from Georgia or Alabama?”
“Georgia. Near Atlanta.”
“Do you still have family down there?”
“On the Callaghan side, as the book says. My mother’s side, God rest her soul.” For a moment, Lawrence’s eyes took on a distant look.
“Your father was—”
“Do you think Carter Hill could run Sumter Bank?” Lawrence asked. “Would he be an effective chairman?”
She hesitated. “I suppose, but I don’t think my opinion is worth much. I’ve only met the man twice.”
“Your opinion is worth a great deal.” Lawrence pushed a small button embedded in the edge of the table. “How do the rank and file feel?”
Angela considered the question carefully. “Bob Dudley is feared. People think he’s a dictator. It’s my impression that most of the bank’s employees think the other senior executives are nothing more than puppets. Including Carter Hill. I do think Hill is viewed as much more approachable, more of a consensus builder. But all of that is based on hearsay.”
“Perhaps Carter Hill is a man who is better suited to run a bank in this day and age,” Lawrence observed. “Particularly a bank with the lion’s share of its operations in the South.”
“Perhaps, but I don’t—”
“Take a look at your menu, Angela,” Lawrence suggested. “Please.”
Moments later the dining room door opened. One of Colby’s men entered first, followed by a nervous-looking waiter dressed in a white dinner jacket and black pants, then Colby. Colby’s aide quickly scooped up both silverware settings, then the waiter was allowed to take the dinner order. First Angela’s, then Lawrence’s. When the waiter had exited, the aide replaced the silverware in front of Angela and Lawrence and also exited the room, just ahead of Colby, who closed the door.
Angela relaxed only when the men were gone, aware that she had been as uneasy as the waiter the entire time the other men were in the room. She glanced across the table at Lawrence. He was fiddling with his steak knife, tracing tiny circles on the linen tablecloth with it.
“Are you all right?” she asked softly. She wondered if it was difficult to be constantly reminded that you could be a target at any moment, that even a waiter couldn’t be trusted.
“Fine,” he answered loudly, putting the knife down.
Too loudly, she realized. She smiled at him. “I’ve read on the Internet that you are supposed to be somewhat of a thrill-seeker. What kinds of things do you do?”
Lawrence finished what was left in his glass, then leaned over the table and smiled a sinister smile back at her. “Angela, I’m like the girl with a tattoo on her ass. I’ll do anything.”
Just coincidence, or did Jake Lawrence somehow know about her tattoo? As John Tucker guided the Town Car through the deserted downtown streets toward the Fan, she replayed Lawrence’s comment. The dead eyes had momentarily come alive as he’d spoken, dancing in the candlelight. She thought about how he’d been wrong about his family being from Atlanta. The book indicated that the Lawrences were originally from Birmingham. But maybe he had been trying to throw her off track for some reason.
“You okay, Angela?” Tucker asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
“I have to be honest with you.”
“About what?”
“I’m surprised you were willing to meet Lawrence again after what he did to you in Wyoming. Even with me there.”
Angela put her elbow on the door and rubbed her forehead. “Everything is so complicated at this point, John.”
“Things must bevery complicated. All of this must have something to do with that takeover you were talking about.”
“Well . . . “ She stopped herself when Tucker turned off the boulevard onto a side street. They were out of downtown now and getting into the Fan. “You could have just kept going straight there.”
“Oh, okay,” he said quietly, checking his side mirror again. “These are nice big houses,” he commented.
“Yeah, I like it here.”
“So are you going to give me a hint about the name of the company?” he asked. “Give me a little heads-up on the takeover?”
“No. I told you in Wyoming. I can’t do that.”
“Figures,” he muttered glumly.
“John, I can’t.”
“Whatever.”
“Telling you anything about that would be against the law. It would constitute insider trading if Jake announced a takeover.” She hesitated. “But you will find out what company it is before any transaction is announced, and then you can do what you want. You can make your own decision.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told Jake that I wanted you around. You aren’t going back to Wyoming—not any time soon anyway.”
Tucker glanced over at her. “Really?”
“Really.”
He chuckled. “Angela, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know you cared.”
“I want you around to protect me, John,” she replied quickly, watching his expression turn to one of disappointment. “That’s all. Don’t flatter yourself,” she continued, aware that his sad face was probably just a charade. “I took your warning about my son to heart. And I figure that if someone might want to kidnap my son to get to Jake Lawrence, they might do something to me, too.”
“Angela, I’m crushed,” he said dejectedly. “I thought maybe this was the start of something.”
She stole a quick glance at him, trying to see if he was serious. She liked him. There was no denying that. But a relationship with him would be too dangerous. “Nope. Sorry.”
Tucker pulled out onto the
next boulevard. “How am I going to find out the target company’s name if you don’t tell me?” he asked.
“Oh, you’ll find out all right.”
Tucker turned left onto the next side street.
“What are you doing?” Angela asked.
“Heading back to the boulevard we were on before. I thought you said I was supposed to go straight on it.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t get upset.”
“I’m not upset,” he muttered. “Just disappointed. You had me on cloud nine for a minute. Now I’m in the basement.”
She gazed over at him in the dashboard lights, still wondering if there was any shred of sincerity in the hurt-puppy-dog act, or if he was just having fun. “What happened to you after you left me in the cave up there on the mountain?”
He shrugged. “I went looking for whoever shot at us. I found tracks and two spent cartridge casings but that was it. Whoever it was got out of there.”
“You didn’t say good-bye. Didn’t come to dinner or take me back to the airport the next day.”
“Colby’s orders. He runs the show unless Lawrence overrides. I guess with everything that happened Colby wanted to be the one to monitor you. See how you were handling it all. I asked to speak with you, but he said no.”
“I was disappointed not to see you again,” she admitted, watching Tucker check the rearview mirror once more.
“How close are we to your place?”
“Pretty close,” she answered, wondering if he had heard her. He wasn’t acting as if he had. “A half mile or so.”
“Then let’s walk,” he suggested loudly, swinging the Town Car into an open spot.
“What? Are you out of your mind? I’ve got to be at work early tomorrow.”
“Ah, you’ll be all right.” He jumped out of the car and hurried to her side, yanking open the passenger door. “Come on!”
“John!”