by Stephen Frey
“Do you think he was murdered?” Stockman asked again.
“I told you,” Strazzi said quietly, “I have no idea.”
“What about Gillette?”
“What about him?” Strazzi asked curtly. It irritated him to think that Stockman was getting the better end of this deal. He took it personally when anyone got the better of him in any situation.
“What about his limousine blowing up outside the church at Donovan’s funeral? What do you think of that?”
“I think Gillette has enemies. I think he’d better watch his step if he wants to kiss his girl at midnight on New Year’s Eve.”
Jimmy Holt hurried along the corridor, head down, hands jammed in his pockets, the report clutched tightly under one arm. He was a senior energy analyst at the engineering firm of Pullen, Marks of Houston—and his heart was in his throat. The tapes had just finished telling him an amazing tale.
“Hey, Jimmy.”
Holt spun around, toward the voice. Sam Abernathy, another analyst at the firm, was leaning through his office doorway into the corridor. “What?” Holt snapped. “What do you want?”
“Jesus.” Abernathy ambled up to Holt. “You all right, Jimmy?”
“Of course.” Holt took a deep breath, aware that he needed to relax, that Abernathy might somehow make a connection between his anxiety and the report if he wasn’t careful. “Why?” he asked as casually as he could.
Abernathy shook his head. “You seem nervous.”
Holt turned around quickly and hurried away. In the same direction he’d been headed before the interruption. It was the best thing to do. Otherwise, Abernathy would see how nervous he was.
“Hey, you wanna have lunch today?” Abernathy called.
“Yeah, sure. Buzz me in an hour.”
Moments later, Holt knocked on his boss’s door.
“Jimmy?”
“Yeah.”
“Come in, come in.” Bill Perkins ushered Holt inside, then quickly shut the door after him. “Well?”
Holt held the report out. “It’s incredible. It’s one of the largest untapped oil and gas fields in the world.”
Perkins snatched the manila folder from Holt’s hand and quickly reviewed the summary page Holt had prepared.
“The thing is worth megabillions,” Holt continued. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You didn’t tell anybody, right?” Perkins’s voice was shaking.
“Right. Just like you told me. I came straight to you.”
Perkins nodded. “Good.” He hesitated. “Now forget you know anything about it. You understand me?”
Holt shook his head. “What’s this about, Bill?”
“Don’t ask. Don’t ask and don’t tell. That’s the best advice I can give you.” Perkins nodded toward the door. “Now, get out of here.”
13
Subordinates. Only slightly less difficult to deal with than partners.
NICKNAMED “POISON” BY THE YOUNGER men at Everest, Marcie Reed had emerged from the womb destined for private equity. A master manipulator, Marcie was as aggressive as they came, easily intimidating CEOs with her cold, steel blue eyes, a knack for numbers, and her comfort with confrontation. She demanded results—and got them.
Marcie was five eight and slim, with shoulder-length blond hair, a thin face, and long, tapered legs. She rarely wore panty hose under her short skirts and dresses, and she always sported high, high heels. She knew what she had and didn’t hesitate to use it.
When she tasked the younger men at Everest, they quickly put aside other assignments—even projects Donovan had given them—hoping that the bedroom smile and light touch to the back of their hand meant something more than just thank you. That maybe, just maybe, after a few drinks at the bar downstairs, she’d take them home to her sprawling loft in SoHo. Then they might be able to confirm that rumor about a sexy tattoo on the small of her back.
Thirty-two and single, Marcie had been around money all her life—and it showed. Nothing impressed her. Her father, the CEO of a multinational drug company, had taught her the value of thinking from forty thousand feet, of always seeing the bigger picture. And her mother had given her style and grace. So she had that deadly combination of beauty, brains, and sophistication—and she knew it.
Which Gillette intended to capitalize on.
He’d suggested to Donovan that Marcie be promoted to managing partner six months ago, but the old man had balked, telling him to pound salt and keep his mouth shut. Still psychologically mired in a bygone era, Donovan didn’t want a female partner. But Gillette saw opportunity and now he could do what he wanted.
“Hello, Marcie.” Gillette checked Dominion’s stock price—off another thirty cents this afternoon. Donovan had been the chairman while Everest controlled Dominion, and Marcie his second. A board member and the Everest person most active at Dominion on a day-to-day basis, Marcie had been in charge of the initial public offering on which Everest had made one of its biggest killings. “Busy today?”
“Of course.” She sat on the other side of his desk, twirling her blond hair impatiently. Marcie understood efficiency. Donovan’s obsession with it had rubbed off on her, too. “I’m always busy. You know that.”
“Right. Well, look, obviously there’ve been a lot of changes in the last few days. Unfortunately, Bill’s gone, and—”
“Not unfortunately for you,” she cut in.
“And, as I’m sure you know by now,” he continued, unfazed by her comment, “I fired Troy.”
“And Paul Strazzi hired Troy over at Apex,” she said. “Rumor going around is that Strazzi’s paying him three million a year.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Gillette warned, rifling through his e-mails while they talked, slowing up when he saw that an old friend was blasting out to everyone that he had a new cell phone number—a sure sign the guy was ending an affair because these days you could keep your number even if you lost your phone or switched providers. “Understand?”
“I can’t help having ideas,” Marcie retorted. “It’s what I do.”
“Strazzi did hire Troy,” Gillette confirmed. “I don’t know what they’re paying him, but I doubt it’s three million.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry Troy had to go, but I had no choice.”
Marcie laughed harshly. “Troy’s an asshole. He was always asking me to dinner, trying to get me in bed. I’m glad he’s gone.” She glanced around the office impatiently, then refocused on Gillette. “By the way, congratulations . . . Mr. Chairman.”
“Thanks.”
“You deserved it.”
She was good, Gillette thought to himself. She was completely insincere, but the remark sounded pure and honest coming from her mouth. He almost smiled as he thought about how that ability was going to make his stake in Everest worth much more. How easily she could wrap men around her little finger—even experienced executives. He’d seen it firsthand.
“What do you make in salary as chairman?” Marcie asked.
Gillette glanced up. She always asked pointed questions out of the blue. “Five million,” he answered directly. He was about to make her a managing partner. With the promotion she’d have access to all of Everest’s internal numbers, so there was no reason to be coy.
“Jesus. What does that come out to an hour?”
“Around seven hundred bucks.”
Her expression turned serious for a moment, then relaxed as she quickly finished the calculation. “Oh, I get it. Twenty-four—seven—three-sixty-five less about four or five hours of sleep a night. Seven hundred an hour.”
“Exactly.” Gillette nodded approvingly. “Which isn’t outrageous. Plenty of lawyers in Manhattan charge more than that.”
“But that doesn’t include your bonus.”
“So?”
“What’s that going to be this year?”
“Probably another five.”
Marcie whistled. “That certainly helps the hourly—”
“Let’s get to
why I called you in here,” Gillette interrupted. “I’m promoting you to managing partner and giving you 5 percent of the ups in the next fund, which, by the way, I’ve already started raising.”
“Oh?”
“And the target for Eight is fifteen billion.” Gillette made certain to look away as Marcie crossed her legs at the knees. She was wearing a skirt that was even shorter than usual, and she’d lifted one leg very high as she’d crossed it over the other. “Miles Whitman at North America Guaranty has already committed a billion five.”
“Good,” she said, her voice emotionless.
“I know you’re busy with your portfolio companies, but I want you to get involved in the money raise this time around, too.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “See, Christian, that’s why the limited partners elected you chairman. You just want to get your hands on fifteen billion as fast as possible. You aren’t caught up in the whole male domination thing like Bill was.” She leaned forward. “You know the gatekeepers at the insurance companies and the pension funds will love to see me walk through their doors.” Her eyes were flashing. “You know they’ll be more likely to commit big bucks if they think they get to take me to dinner once a quarter to give them an update.” She smiled slyly. “You have no problem using me. I like it.”
“Good. I think you’ll like this, too. I’m taking your salary from five hundred thousand to a million starting January first. And, like I said, you’ll get 5 percent of the ups of Everest VIII.
She nodded again.
But not enthusiastically, he noticed. It was as if she expected it, as if she was even a little disappointed at the number. The same way he’d reacted to Miles Whitman’s commitment to Everest VIII. Like they were talking about the weather and the forecast wasn’t great. Which was exactly why he was promoting her, he reminded himself. She was so good. Of course she was excited; she just wasn’t showing it. “You’re going to chair six of our companies,” he continued. “I’ll send you an e-mail on that by close of business tomorrow. I haven’t made all the decisions on which companies you’ll have yet.”
“Are you keeping the other twenty-one? You can’t possibly—”
“No, I’m going to chair fifteen.”
“Who’s getting the other six?”
“Kyle.”
Marcie stopped twirling her hair. “You’re promoting Kyle to managing partner, too?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t happy, that was obvious. Clearly she’d wanted this to be a solo deal. She didn’t want to share the spotlight with Kyle Lefors when Everest published the announcement of her promotion in The Wall Street Journal.
“What about Cohen and Faraday?” she asked.
“Ben will be focused internally. I’ve promoted him to chief operating officer.”
“I bet he was real happy about that,” Marcie said sarcastically.
“Why do you say it like that?”
“He’s dying to be chairman of at least one of our companies. Faraday, too. They’ve been pissed off for a while that Donovan kept those positions for just you and Mason.”
“Too bad. We all need to focus on what we do best. That’s the bottom line. Ben needs to run the shop, and Nigel needs to raise the next fund. Both of those jobs are critically important if we’re going to become the most dominant private equity firm in the world.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“You should. You’ll be very rich if we’re successful.”
Marcie shrugged. “Just serve me up as an appetizer on the fund-raising side, Mr. Chairman. I’ll make Nigel’s job a lot easier.”
Gillette checked Dominion’s ticker one more time. The price had dropped another ten cents. “I need to ask you a question,” he said, still gazing at the screen.
“Okay.”
His eyes moved to hers. “When you were running the IPO diligence for Dominion, did you ever get a sense that there was anything wrong?”
“Like what?”
“Like the loan portfolio might not be as clean as we and the investment bankers claimed it was in the offering documents, like the Dominion senior executives might have been playing shell games with the files to hide that.”
Marcie tugged at her skirt, pulling it toward her knees. “No. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Oh, no. You don’t just ask questions like that, Christian. Come on, what did you mean?”
Gillette stood up. “The stock’s been off the last few days, but the overall market’s been strong,” he explained, moving out from behind the desk. “Seems like something’s going on.”
“I’m supposed to believe that the trading pattern over the last few days would make you think the Dominion senior executives were playing shell games with the loan portfolio when the IPO went off months ago?” she asked, standing up to block his path to the door. “Come on.”
“Okay. Somebody told me there might be a problem.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say.”
“Tell me, Christian.”
“No.”
They stared at each other for a few moments, their faces close.
Finally, Marcie walked to the door, hesitating there a moment. “Watch out for Kyle, Christian.”
“Why?”
“There’s something about him I don’t trust.”
“Good job today.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve heard nothing about anyone at the scene seeing anything unusual. The Dallas cops are calling it an accident.”
“Couldn’t have gone any smoother.”
Tom McGuire lit a cigarette and tossed the match into an ashtray. Gillette thought he didn’t know about the investment bankers who wanted to take McGuire & Company public at a much higher price than his backer was willing to pay. McGuire took a puff. Gillette had proven to be a tough adversary, but he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.
“Where are you?” McGuire asked.
“Still at LaGuardia Airport. I landed a few minutes ago.”
“You’re calling me on a pay phone, right?”
“Of course. Like I’m supposed to.”
“So you’ll be trying again soon?”
“Yeah.”
McGuire hesitated. “There’s one thing you should know.”
“What?”
“Gillette’s hired another bodyguard. A man named Quentin Stiles. I’ve checked him out. He’s good.
Kyle Lefors’s nickname at Everest was G-2. Short for Gillette-2. Thirty-one, he resembled Gillette in many ways: physically, with his dark hair and gray eyes, and in the way he approached problems—analytically and from all angles. Gillette could still remember Donovan laughing the day he’d hired Lefors out of Harvard Business School five years ago. How the old man had called it the second coming of Jesus.
In those days Gillette was Jesus, the favorite son, the one who got the best assignments, the one who served as Donovan’s deputy at the high-profile portfolio companies. In those days, Mason had run a distant second.
But all that changed a few years ago when Donovan proposed purchasing a Michigan-based manufacturer of bath and shower products. A company that, in Gillette’s opinion, Everest should have stayed far away from. It owned tired brands in the twilight of their life cycles, and the purchase price was outrageous—thirty times earnings. Earnings that were spiraling further down every month.
The deeper Gillette dug into the company’s operations, the more he objected to the transaction. And the more irritated Donovan became, finally sticking a finger in Gillette’s face one night and telling him to back off or find another job.
Gillette didn’t understand. Donovan never irrationally fell in love with companies the way some gunslingers did—convincing themselves they could work miracles with rusty assets that were at the scrap heap gate. Donovan stayed stone cold sober when it came to investing, never thinking with his heart.
Gillette didn’t understand until he found out that the company’s largest shareholder was o
ne of Donovan’s oldest friends, a man Donovan had known for thirty years who’d recently lost everything in an ugly divorce. Everything except his ownership in the company because the wife’s attorney had convinced her it wasn’t worth anything. That it made sense to trade it for everything else in the estate because no one in their right mind would buy the company.
Enter Donovan. Paying a hundred million for his friend’s share of the company alone. He’d known the company was teetering on the brink of insolvency, but hadn’t cared. He was saving an old friend—who’d ultimately taken twenty million of the hundred and bought Donovan a twelve-thousand-square-foot beachfront mansion in the Caymans with fifteen acres of land along with it. It had been a slick way for Donovan to slip eighty million dollars out of Everest to an old friend—and twenty million to himself.
After figuring out the real deal, Gillette had stopped objecting. Dutifully processing the due diligence information and drafting a memo to Everest’s limited partners describing the acquisition and the “solid” opportunity it represented. In his heart believing the company wouldn’t survive more than two years. He’d been wrong. It had gone bankrupt in less than one. Ten months after acquiring the company, Everest had been forced to write off its entire three-hundred-million-dollar investment. In twenty years, it was one of only a handful of companies Everest had bought that crashed and burned.
But, in the end, it hadn’t mattered at all. Not one iota. Because the rest of the companies in the fund had been huge winners and the limited partners barely noticed the three-hundred-million-dollar write-off. It was just a footnote and a ha-ha during the annual partners’ meeting at the Plaza. No one even questioned Donovan’s motives. Instead, they’d thanked him profusely for being their most successful gunslinger.
After that, Gillette’s relationship with Donovan was never the same. They hadn’t spoken for weeks after closing the deal, and for months after that it had been difficult for Gillette to even be around the old man. He hadn’t said a word when the bankruptcy hit, and Donovan never acknowledged the mistake. Instead, he subtly blamed the bomb on Gillette at the partners’ meeting. Over time, they’d reestablished a working relationship, but it had never been like the old days.