The Adored (31 page)

The second phone call was one he made to the former, future Mrs. Edward Wheelwright, Valerie Samson. He pulled up his rolodex and found Val Samson’s cell phone.

“Val, I need a favor,” Wheelwright said as she answered. And after five minutes of awkward small talk about friends and health and work, he got to the point. “I’ve heard some things about one of your solar companies, about large contracts about to be announced.”

Distraught, after the spark of hearing his voice lit her up, she said, “I’m working on research now, Eddie, let me snoop around. I’ll give you a call back.”

And she did call back, the same afternoon, “I think I’ve got an oops here, Eddie.”

“What do you mean, Val?” he asked.

“Well, the first person I talked with knew exactly what I was looking for,” Samson said, and added. “One of the traders here I know pretty well, Alice Kraft, trades a number of the solar stocks, so I went to her. Turns out she was shoveling this story about Rocket Solar over to one of your guys, Lenny Crane, also one of our former guys,” Samson stopped. “How’m I doin so far?”

“Pretty good, Val,” he said and asked, “but what the hell is this Kraft girl up to?”

“Trying to make a buck,” Samson said. “Look, you need to absolutely kill this thing dead. She’s a good girl, smart, and has got a future, but somehow she got plotting with this guy Crane and came up with a get rich quick scheme.”

“I can fix it on my end, but what about her. Are you going to get her out of Blackthorn? This isn’t good, Val.”

“I know. Look let me handle this here. Nothing has happened on this end, and I presume by your call you haven’t done anything either. Right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well, I’m going to swear her to a blood oath to never, ever try some shit like this again. Not only will it cost her her career, she’ll end up in jail. She’s just the kind of perp the SEC likes. Put the little people in jail, get the partners to pay big fines and everything goes forward.”

“Got it, thanks, Val, I’ll handle things here.”

“How you and you girlfriend doing?” she had to ask.

“We’re doing pretty well. And how about your marriage?”

“It’s good, Eddie. David is wonderful, but he’s no Edward Wheelwright,” Valerie Simpson said sadly.

Wheelwright was shocked. Shocked that the girl he was going to marry, the girl he deserted after nine years of dating and engagement, felt that way. He was mortified that she was carrying that pain. “I’m sorry, Val.”

“I know, Eddie.” And then almost offhandedly, “Before I forget the two brothers who own Rocket, they’re not buying, they’re selling. After talking with Alice, I dug a little deeper. Seems Alice’s boss is working with Rockets owners. They may be kicking back to him. I understand the industry a bit, and Rocket’s technology is out of date. They won’t be able to catch up with the new thin film and higher efficiency reactors and furnaces that are now being made. They got a few Chinese solar wafer manufacturers to place big orders. These Chinese companies couldn’t get financing in China, and when Rocket said they would carry them for up to a year for new equipment, they signed up. Looks like Blackthorn’s plan is goose it up while the brothers sell, announce the orders, buy some more, put out a buy recommendation, and then sell everything. Apparently they think there is enough that the transactions won’t appear out of line. Then sometime, six months down the road the orders fall through.”

“What,” exclaimed Wheelwright? “How is that possible, Val?”

“Volume, Eddie, everything is volume. There is enough for everyone if you have volume, and with these orders it’ll explode. At least for a while.”

“Madness. Thanks, Val. I love you.”

“I’ll always love you, Eddie.”

Not one half hour after Wheelwright hung up the phone, his secretary came in. “I have an Alice Kraft on the line; she says it’s urgent she talk with you.”

“Thanks, I’ll take it. Please close the door,” and he picked up the phone, “Wheelwright.”

“Mr. Wheelwright, my name is Alice Kraft,” she began meekly. After apologizing profusely for trying to give the information to Crane, she swore it would never happen again. She said she had talked with a senior person at Blackthorn and now realizes the consequences of her actions. She made sure he knew the name of the firm was Rocket Solar, just in case Crane was able to talk him into investing. At least this would dissuade them, knowing that she knew it was insider information.

Wheelwright thought, Valerie was right. This girl was smart. Killed two birds at once. Prevented Brunswick from going forward and laid down on her sword at the same time. Clever.

“Thanks for calling, Miss Kraft. I can assure you Brunswick would not have acted on the information that you mentioned. As for what you attempted to do, I’ll leave that to your conscience for the future. There’s plenty of money to be made here. You sound like a smart person. Just work hard and it’ll happen,” and he hung up before any further words were exchanged.

So the short happy life of Leonard Crane at Brunswick Fund came to an abrupt end and Wheelwright let out a deep sigh, “Man that guy was trouble. Thank you, Val.”

After the phone calls, after the conversation and exit of Crane, Wheelwright found himself thinking about Rocket Solar. Would he have done it? What if the calls to Trout and Samson came back positive? What if Alice Kraft did not call? Would he have gone after Rocket Solar? He was worried that he might have; he was thankful that he didn’t.

The thought nagged at him. But what about the next time? What about picking up the pace, the temptation to catch up quickly? He did not have the answer.

Chapter 42

It came to her in a flash when Sidney Rogers, the managing director of trading, said he needed a buy recommendation on Rocket Solar. Rogers said it would help their firm, Blackthorn Investments, get Rocket Solar’s investment banking business, namely an expanded stock offering that Rocket was tossing feelers out about. Samson, earlier in the week, had talked with Alice Kraft and knew Rogers was buying hundreds of thousands of shares of Rocket Solar for himself and Blackthorn.

“You want me to give you a buy recommendation on Rocket?” Valerie Samson asked, incredulously.

“Yes,” he said. “They’re going to issue a new offering for expansion. That business is important to us.”

“Why now? You know their technology is second rate.”

“Look, we did their IPO. We’ll look foolish if we don’t get the follow-on,” Rogers said, just a bit annoyed at the pushback.

Samson was thinking, this was important to Blackthorn, important for Rogers. This might be the chance. While Rogers was the managing director for Blackthorn’s trading operations, Valerie Samson reported up the line through the investment banking side of Blackthorn; it was not unusual for trading to push research for recommendations.

“I’ll begin working on it. I’ll try to have it tonight.”

“Great, Val, we need this business,” and Rogers turned to leave her office.

“I could use some help with something, Sid,” she said.

“Sure, what is it?” the managing director asked.

“You have a big say at the 92nd St. Y. I mean your kids go there, Carol’s on the board.”

“Yes”

“I would like to have my son Edward go there to the day care and then pre-school.”

“It’s quite a trek from Greenwich to the Y, Val.”

“I’m moving back to the city. I need a great place for him to be cared for.”

Rogers approached her desk, “What’s wrong with Greenwich. Everyone in the city is trying to get there to buy a house, get a good education for their kids.”

“Everyone has it wrong then or maybe it’s just not working for me,” Val Samson said, frustrated with having to defend her request.

“What about David. He hasn’t said anything about moving back into the city,” Rogers said, referring to Samson’s husband, David, who also worked at Backthorn but in the bond department.

“That’s not working for me either.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll talk with Carol tonight.”

“Thanks, Sid, and please keep this conversation between you and me. David is not really in on it yet,” Samson said, not sure she could rely on Rogers to keep it to himself.

“My lips are sealed. But please don’t get your hopes up. You know it is quite difficult to get in those programs.”

“I know. I just appreciate you trying.”

“And the recommendation for Rocket?” he said with a smile on his face.

“I’m on it,” she said as Rogers winked at her and left her office.

Through the afternoon Val Samson worked on a review of all Rocket Solar data. She put her quantitative hat on; using all her analytical skills to write a favorable report on a company that would be out of business in two years.

Rogers stopped in her office at 6 p.m. on his way out the door. “How’s the write-up coming?”

“About another two hours.”

“OK, send it to me at home tonight. I’ll read it, and we’ll do some iterative work to get it complete by Monday.

“Sure thing,” she replied and he left.

And as the offices around her emptied on this Friday evening, dark fell on Manhattan. New York at night was life for Valerie Samson. The restaurants, the shows, the clubs, the conversation, the friends; every week someplace new, every week she and Eddie would turn the city inside out. And now there was no Eddie, he left her.

In the daylight when she had her apartment here, she would run in the Park and on the east side along the river. When she had time, and she always had time when she lived in the city, she would sit in Bryant Park—just sit at one of the wrought iron tables and pull the heavy iron chairs out across the slate. She could hear that sound, feel it on her teeth; she could see the dappled sunlight coming through the tall London Plane trees. On Thursday nights she would sit on Bryant’s big rectangular lawn and watch movies with her girl-friends. They would bring a blanket, popcorn, and bottles of wine or soda.

Valerie Samson shook her head bringing her back from this vision. Damn Eddie, she thought.

When the report on Rocket Solar was complete, the last thing she needed to do was rate it. Blackthorn had three ratings: Buy, Hold and Sell. She read the report one more time; she liked the effort she put into analyzing Rocket’s share of the Chinese market for their solar reactors that make the polysilicon and the furnaces that convert the polysilicon into ingots, which the Chinese solar manufacturers then slice into wafers, put wafers together to form panels, adding wires that make the module complete. Rocket was clearly the world’s market leader with almost 70 percent market share. Add to this that the Chinese were the leading solar panel manufacturers in the world and you had Rocket as the foundry of the entire industry. Rocket Solar was easily the most visible name in the small but technologically influential American solar industry. Samson said all that and put her rating at the top of the page and pressed the “send” button. She packed up and headed for Grand Central and the 8:10 train to Greenwich.

“Sell,” the voice of Sidney Rogers screamed as he opened Samson’s report on his home Dell. He read the report again and dialed Samson’s cell phone.

On the train she heard her Apple iPhone. It was Rogers. She connected him.

“Sell,” he screamed again, this time into Val’s ear. It was so loud the man next to her on the train looked at her. “Are you fucking crazy? Is this some fucking joke, Val?”

Valerie wondered what question he wanted her to answer first. Samson was aware that Rogers had been buying Rocket Solar heavily for weeks, so it sounded to her like he was taking this personal.

“Sid, it is what it is,” she said, playing back one of his favorite copouts.

“No, Val, it isn’t what it is.”

Trying to talk quietly, Val turned away from the man next to her and faced the window as the train passed through Harlem.

“Sid, they won’t be around in two years. They haven’t kept up. They’ve been milking old technology too long,” she told him, quoting from the critical part of her report that earned Rocket the “Sell” rating.

“That’s exactly why they want to put a new stock offering into the market. I told them this a year ago. I have them at the point where they know they need to do it,” Rogers said in a pleading tone.

“Sid, they might have had enough time had they done something a year ago. Now Trout Solar has all the key technology for the next generation. Rocket took too much money out of the company. Those two brothers are rascals,” and as she said it she looked around nervously, had she been overheard. She did not notice any cocked ears, and the passenger next to her was now napping.

“Sid, I’m on the train, can we talk about this Monday?”

“We can, but you need to change the last part of the write-up about them “keeping up.” Just take it out and it reads OK. You know what the overall recommendation needs to be. Don’t be going soft on me, Val.”

“Sid, have you talked to Carol yet?”

There was a pause. “So that’s what this is about. Fuck you, Val. Fix the goddamn report.”