by David Lender
Richard got halfway up the ramp toward the 90-degree turn to the right that started the roadway around Grand Central. He heard screeching tires and blaring horns. From the corner of his eye he could see his pursuer was only seven or eight yards behind him. He guessed the guy would overtake him on the long straightaway down the east side of Grand Central. He felt a moment of hopelessness, then pushed it back. Run! He dashed straight across in front of another taxi, slowing down to force the cab to swerve hard at his pursuer. He heard the crunch! of the cab’s fender on the concrete wall and the sound of the guy’s body slamming on the steel of the cab. Richard looked over his shoulder to see the guy sprawled on the hood.
Go, go, go! He ran as fast as he could along the straightaway down the east side of Grand Central Terminal. More horns, more screeches of tires and then the race of an engine filled his ears. He looked back over his shoulder and saw a car coming after him the wrong way on the roadway, and cars and taxis spewing in either direction to make way for it, crashing into each other and the side railing. Richard kept running.
The car pulled alongside him and now a guy was waving his hands and his head out the passenger window shouting something. Richard heard him call his name but the rest was just noise. He waved a gun in his right hand. They’re gonna kill me!
He looked up and saw a taxi speeding forward with its tires smoking, trying to stop. He lurched toward the car and at the guy waving the gun, causing the driver of the car to swerve left away from him. The taxi crashed head-on into the car, and Richard kept running without looking back. He reached the south turn, followed the roadway’s 90-degree right and then left, and ran down the descending ramp toward Park Avenue South.
He gasped for breath as he ran and now felt perspiration soaking his shirt, still pushing himself not to slow down. When he was thirty feet from the bottom of the ramp, a man in a gray suit jumped out into the roadway and held his arms out wide. Richard felt desperation flood through him and then immediately called up some reserve. He gritted his teeth, ran straight at the man. He was big, maybe 250, so he’d have to hit him hard.
“Mr. Blum, I’m a friend,” he called as Richard got near him, still at a full run. “Mr. Milner sent us. We’re with Devon & Company.” He raised his hands above his head as if in surrender. “We can get you out of here.”
About ten feet from him Richard cut hard right and crossed to the other side of the ramp. The guy didn’t make a move to try to stop him. Richard ran to the bottom of the ramp where it deposited traffic onto Park Avenue South and crossed to the west side of the street. He stopped on the corner with his chest heaving, dropped to his knees. The taste of stomach acid filled his mouth. His lungs burned. He kept looking at the guy standing there motionless on the ramp.
“Let us help you,” he called. Richard didn’t respond, still panting. He looked around, got to his feet. The man walked to the side of the ramp and looked over the railing.
“There’s not much time,” he said.
“I don’t recognize you from the Tentron team,” Richard shouted between gasps. His panic had subsided. He started thinking what to do next, where to go. He looked from side to side, picking his route, ready to bolt if the guy came any closer. His legs were trembling, the left starting to cramp.
“I wasn’t on the team, but you’ll recognize Mr. Harrelson there,” he said, pointing to the corner of 42nd Street and Park Avenue South. Richard recognized the man in the gray suit he pointed to. It was Harrelson, now jogging up from the corner. He waved at Richard. Richard was ready to run again.
“There’s not much time, Richard. Either come with us now or get out of here fast,” Harrelson said. People were now looking at them from all directions, some pointing. Richard decided; he jogged toward Harrelson.
“Alright, let’s go,” Richard said to Harrelson.
“The van is up the street on Vanderbilt Avenue,” the other guy said. He trotted up.
They ran across 42nd Street and now saw a beat-up, gray van on Vanderbilt Avenue near 43rd Street surrounded by cops, two police cruisers near it with lights flashing.
“We got a problem,” Harrelson said.
Richard felt a blast of adrenaline, then remembered Jack’s Porsche. It was worth a shot. “I think I can get us a car,” Richard said. “Follow me.” He jogged through Grand Central out to 45th Street and toward the One Lexington Plaza garage, Harrelson and the other man following.
Richard felt a wave of relief as he approached the garage. The silver 911 was there in its usual spot near the manager’s office, heading out, ready for “Mr. Jack’s” call. He slowed to a walk, trying to look casual, realizing he was sweating, panting. “Angel,” he said as he approached the attendant. He pointed to the Porsche. Angel looked confused at first, then recognized Richard. He waved and ducked into the office, a moment later coming back with the key. Richard tried not to squeal the tires pulling out.
“Sorry, we wanted to try and intercept you long before you ever got to 46th Street. We saw you too late,” Harrelson said.
“Who were they?” Richard asked.
“We don’t know. Maybe somebody Walker set loose on you. But by now I think we’ve also got half the NYPD after us.” He looked out the back window as Richard drove west across 45th. Richard checked the rearview mirror again, ready to gun the engine if he saw any police. He thought they’d get away with it, though. Nobody would be looking for a silver Porsche 911.
“Thanks,” Richard said.
“Head downtown,” Harrelson said.
“I need to know where we’re going.”
“Downtown. Location One.” He smiled. “I assume that’s the package,” Harrelson said. Richard had the Redweld folder wedged between his left leg and the door.
“Yeah,” he said, looking in the mirror again. He heard sirens in the distance behind them. Harrelson looked back through the rear window.
“Don’t worry, Richard,” Harrelson said, “we aren’t up to anything. We’ve just been asked to take you to Mr. Milner.”
They were approaching 45th and Vanderbilt, two blocks from the van. It still sat in the middle of the street, surrounded by police, the two police cruisers still there. A cop directed traffic at 45th and Vanderbilt. Richard felt his stomach muscles tighten as he entered the intersection, then a bolt of panic as the cop looked directly at him, did a double-take and started toward the car, reaching for his radio.
“Now would be a good time to tell me where Location One is,” Richard said. He gunned the engine and turned south on Vanderbilt, winding the Porsche out to 6,000 rpm before shifting into second gear. They shot past the van with the engine screaming near the top of second gear and in an instant they were to 42nd Street. The light was orange, cars jamming up in the southbound lane, so he swerved into the uptown lane and shifted into third as he crossed 42nd Street, laying on the horn. Pedestrians crossing Park Avenue South at 42nd scattered as he shot through the intersection. Richard was amazed at what the car could do, realized it was him, then wondered if he could keep it up. He swerved around cars, then a truck as he continued down Park, the car leaving the ground for a moment, then bottoming hard as they passed 41st Street. He slammed on the brakes to avoid a taxi, swerved left then cringed as he squeezed between two cars, unable to stop. He heard the crunch of metal and horns as he raked both sides of the Porsche on the two cars, tearing off both mirrors. He hit the gas and was past them, Park Avenue clear for a few blocks.
“Where the hell are we going?” Richard yelled.
“Wall Street heliport!” Harrelson shouted, “take the FDR if you can get to it!” Richard stomped the accelerator to the floor, heard the engine screaming again. He checked the rear view mirror and saw a police car behind them. He shifted into third, ran the light at 35th Street and slowed down to turn onto 34th Street. “Too much traffic,” Harrelson said, “take 30th.”
Richard revved the engine again and they were at 30th in seconds. As he turned left onto 30th he saw another police car in the rearview m
irror, lights flashing. He felt a burst of despair. Thirtieth was blocked with traffic. “Hang on,” Richard said. He backed up, stomped on the gas and shot down the uptown lane of Park Avenue South, cars swerving out of their way, horns blaring. He turned onto 28th, tucked into traffic crossing east, seeing the police car make the left onto 28th just as he got to Lexington. No time.
He turned left the wrong way up Lexington just as the light changed, laying on his horn, swerving around traffic, then right onto 30th Street, then straight across 3rd Avenue with the light. They bogged down in traffic again between 3rd and 2nd. “Clear behind us,” Harrelson said. Richard felt his heart pounding, his pulse thumping in his temples.
“C’mon,” he said aloud, waiting for the light to change, palms sticky with perspiration as he squeezed the steering wheel. He felt another surge of adrenaline crossing 2nd, seeing flashing lights and hearing sirens up the avenue. He gunned the engine and in a moment was on the FDR Drive.
Harrelson said, “Better get off at Houston Street.”
“If we get that far.” Richard was doing 80 miles per hour on the FDR, the car responding to every twitch of the wheel. At Houston he slowed down to the speed of traffic, cutting across all the way to West Street. No sirens, no flashing lights. His mind was still racing, looking at each side street, ready to stomp on the accelerator again. He kept to the speed limit down West Street, finally starting to relax when he entered the underpass to the East Side at the bottom tip of Manhattan. He looked over at Harrelson. Harrelson nodded and smiled. What a weird business these guys were in. Even more weird than investment banking.
Richard eased the Porsche into the Wall Street heliport. They all got out. A gloss-black Sikorsky twin prop helicopter was warming up. Richard squinted against the rotor airwash. The air was thick with the smell of jet fuel and heat from the chopper’s engines. Harrelson guided Richard up to the Sikorsky, Richard not sure about this now. But when he got there Milner was seated inside. He extended his hand as Richard entered.
“Richard, good to see you,” he said. They shook, that massive hand of his enveloping Richard’s. He’d forgotten how big a guy Milner was, now seeing him outside his larger-than-life office. “I was beginning to think I’d have to leave before we found you. I hear you had a scare up there.”
“Yeah.” That was a scare uptown. What the fuck, man, that guy in the car was waving a gun. Richard glanced sideways at Harrelson. Was he gonna chaperone them? He wanted to get right to it.
“Let’s talk in the chopper on the ride over to Teterboro.”
Richard nodded, feeling uneasy, but not seeing any alternative. Harrelson got out, closed the chopper door. The chopper headed out across the Hudson River toward New Jersey.
“That the package?” Milner said.
“Yeah.”
He nodded.
Richard gripped the Redweld folder in his lap with both hands, then said, “You said you had crucial information.”
He was anxious for Milner to respond. He wasn’t sure where this was going.
“As far as I’ve pieced it together, Schoenfeld and Delecroix were startled by how much money Walker was making on my deals. LeClaire was Delecroix’s boy, and he was always on my deal teams. Delecroix convinced him to be the conduit to feed information about my deals. They started front-running me— buying up stock in my acquisition targets before I made my move. It was beginning to piss me off that I always had leaks running up the stock prices on my deals, making me pay more, so I put the Devon guys on it. They traced it back to LeClaire. When I confronted him he told me the drill. I can remember I was really pissed about them sucking LeClaire into this thing. I liked him. Still do. You remind me a lot of what he was like early in his career.”
“Thanks,” Richard said. His voice broke as he said it. “Why didn’t you go to the Feds?”
Milner didn’t answer right away. He tilted his head forward. He didn’t appear to be feeling sorry for himself, just feeling stupid about it.
Milner said, “I was gonna. I had a little ‘interview’ with Schoenfeld and Delecroix. I was gonna tell them I’d turn them in if they didn’t knock it off. I felt so ripped off that instead I demanded payback. Stupidest thing I ever did. They paid me off over time with their trading profits. Two hundred million. I should’ve turned them all in. Now I’m dirty, too. Once they paid me off I tried to get out; they wouldn’t let me.”
“When was that?”
“Two years ago,” he said, “and they finished paying me back just before the Southwest deal. That was when I tried to cut and run from them.”
Just before Tentron. They rode in silence for a few moments. The chopper had crossed the Hudson and was heading north on the Jersey side.
“Whether you know it or not, you may have saved my ass— our asses.” He pointed to the folder in Richard’s lap. “That’s our leverage. Schoenfeld and Delecroix obviously wanna keep themselves out of this whole thing, and out of jail. Jack and Mickey, too. I’m sure they bought off LeClaire with enough money that he’ll be able to live like a French prince when he gets out, in exchange for keeping his mouth shut about them. He also bargained for immunity for the firm; that’ll assure the trail never gets traced back to any of them. And LeClaire bought off the Feds. I already know he turned in some low level guys at GCG and Schoenfeld. They probably got paid off, too. But I’m the big prize, and he’s turned me in. That’s where the Feds will get their headlines.”
“How does my stuff link it to Sir Reginald and Delecroix?”
Milner smiled. “That’s where we need to be clever.”
Richard was getting a feeling in his gut, a tickle of anticipation, like Milner and he were gonna work a con.
“They’ve agreed to see us. Come with me to London now.”
“To negotiate a deal with Sir Reginald and Delecroix?”
“Yeah. I said we had information to trade with them. Your data, much more than what the Feds have—and an accounting of the profits of the ring going back four years. I told them you hid copies, so if anything happens to either of us the data finds its way to the Feds the next day. Told them I’m gonna live out my days in Switzerland, but I wanna cut a deal to keep quiet. And you want them to lay off you—for good.”
Richard tried to digest it. “I can see how the data helps, but where do I come in?”
“Just like any deal. You’ve got command of the information. I can talk broadly about it, but you’ve run your fingers around in it. Be my second in the negotiations. Cut a deal for yourself.”
“It’s not these guys I need to cut a deal with. We get the goods on them and do a deal with the Feds.” Richard pulled out his pocket Dictaphone. “We’ll get them to talk.”
Milner pulled out a tiny recorder and a wire. “My PIs have better technology; it’s digital—but wake up, kid. You don’t cut a deal with these guys, you’ll never be sure you’re off the hook. If it turns out we can’t do a deal with the Feds, we still need to use our leverage with these bastards, or we’ll be looking over our shoulders the rest of our lives.”
That hit Richard hard. But Milner had a point. Richard’s fingerprints were all over this: the mole’s email account in his computer at work, the Feds’ wiretaps. They weren’t conclusive by themselves, but tough to explain away if LeClaire still maintained Richard was involved. Kathy, too, and maybe if the Feds really stretched it, somehow Dad. It made him want to throttle somebody.
“Got it. I do know this stuff cold. I can talk much more convincingly about it than you could on your own. And I can trace trades to Schoenfeld-owned entities, too. Ones even Delecroix may not know about. Maybe give them something to fight about between themselves.”
Richard saw Milner smiling at him with his eyes, hand cupped over his mouth. He said, “We’ll work out our strategy on the way to London. I already put you on the flight manifest. I got you a passport, too. I’m not traveling on my own, either.”
Richard saw out the window the chopper was landing at Teterboro Airport next t
o a big Gulfstream G550. Richard looked back over at Milner. This is gonna be some show.
On a G550 over the Atlantic. Richard had called Dad before he left for Milner’s office; he was a rock. But Richard was worried about Kathy, what she must be thinking. Probably sweating it out. The Feds still breathing down their necks and him off to see Milner, then disappears, out of touch. He couldn’t risk contacting her at this point, but hoped the Devon guys got her a message. Milner said they’d think of some way.
Might as well get ready. He watched himself in the mirror of the guest bathroom as if seeing a movie, putting on the suit Milner’s guys brought for him. Feeling numb inside, but calm.
This was it. If Milner and he pulled this off, they were safe. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure what would happen.
What kept preying on him was LeClaire. He still couldn’t get past the idea his friend would turn on him. He wondered if that might cloud his thinking at a critical moment, cause him to screw up. He tried to put it out of his mind. Get over it.
The kid was still in the other bathroom when Milner finished dressing and went out to his seat. He felt an anxious sensation of lightness in his legs. Richard had shown moxie up until now, but Milner wondered if he’d ever been in the kind of hand-to-hand combat he was about to walk into. Milner had a lot riding on this meeting, and an inexperienced slip-up by the kid could cost him big time. Still, no sense second-guessing his decision to bring him. And in a few hours it would be all over one way or the other. He stood up; he’d see if he could walk it off before Richard got out of the bathroom.
London, England. Milner thought it was kind of funny, the private dining room at Schoenfeld & Co. set up for them as if for a client dinner. Mahogany walls, polished inlaid table, crystal and bone china. A choice between white or red wine. The waitress was laying out their appetizers, celery root remoulade. He could see Richard sitting next to him, looking down at his plate like he was wondering what it was. Now he glanced across the table at old man Schoenfeld. Big bags under his eyes, shoulders hunched over. Worn down. Then he took in Delecroix, who seemed tense. He was glad to be on his side of the table. Richard looked pumped up, ready. The spreadsheets he’d prepared on the plane sat in stapled piles in front of him.