The Chairman (22 page)

Cohen hesitated, struggling for an answer. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“ ‘I don’t know’ doesn’t cut it, Ben.”

“Well, I—”

“Let me throw you another curve. The state’s attorney general’s office decides the company has been negligent in the whole thing. They decide to press criminal charges against the senior executives. Which, by the way, is very possible. Guess what? You’re the most senior executive of all. They show up at Everest and take you away. The news cameras are set up and rolling when you come out of the building and your girls see you in shackles, trying to hide your face.”

Cohen shook his head. “All right, what would you do in that situation?”

Gillette smoothed his tie. “You wouldn’t want to know, Ben,” he finally answered, his tone guarded.

Cohen glanced at Gillette uncertainly, wanting to press but afraid, too. “How would Stockman be able to find out about these problems?” he asked.

“Simple. Troy Mason.”

“Oh, shit. That’s right.”

“Troy knows all the stuff I just told you about,” Gillette continued. “See, there was this other weekly meeting you didn’t know about, Ben. An off-site meeting, usually at a condo Bill rented on the Upper East Side. Bill, Troy, and I discussed all the major problems at all the portfolio companies at it so Troy was in on everything. He could give Strazzi a lot of information. Strazzi would then pass it on to Stockman. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Troy made copies of a few files in the days after Donovan died as an insurance policy. So he’d be sure to remember it all and be able to back up what he was saying with proof. In case he didn’t get the nod to be chairman of Everest.”

“Strazzi would have the money to buy the widow’s stake in Everest,” Cohen pointed out.

“One of the few people who would,” Gillette agreed. “And, knowing Strazzi, he’d probably get it at a discounted value.”

“We could make her an offer, too,” Cohen suggested.

Gillette shook his head. “Nah. The only way we’d be able to come up with that kind of cash would be to use her stake as collateral. Bankers wouldn’t lend us any money against it if they thought there were problems with our portfolio. And, believe me, Strazzi would make certain every banker in New York thought there was.”

Cohen’s face went pale. “You know what this means? It means Strazzi’s the one trying to kill you.”

Gillette stared at Cohen for a few moments. “I thought of that, too, but it doesn’t make much sense. I can see why Strazzi would want Donovan gone, but not me.”

“Why not?”

“He’d need Donovan dead so he could put the blame for Dominion on him. But he can get me out of the way by getting the widow’s stake. Why risk being linked to another murder if there’s another, less risky way to get what you want? Strazzi’s ruthless but not stupid.”

“I don’t know,” Cohen said, pulling a piece of paper from his pad and placing it on Gillette’s desk. “If he’s willing to commit one murder, why not another? I think we should go to the cops.”

“With what?”

“With what we just talked about.”

“We’ve got no proof.”

Cohen bit down on his lower lip. “We should at least give the cops a heads-up.”

“What’s this?” Gillette asked, glancing at the paper Cohen had put down on his desk.

“Your consent to my becoming Everest’s chief operating officer. You need to sign it.”

Gillette leaned back. “This seems kind of formal.”

Cohen shrugged but said nothing.

“Is it really necessary?”

“I told you,” Cohen said, his tone turning serious, “I want people to know I have complete authority from you to do what I need to do. When you send out the e-mail, I want you to tell everyone about this,” he said, nodding at the paper.

“All right,” Gillette agreed, picking up a pen. He scribbled his signature at the bottom. “Here you go.” His expression brightened as he handed the consent document to Cohen. “You know what just occurred to me, Ben?”

“What?”

“You haven’t used Latin the entire time you’ve been in here.”

Cohen nodded. “Hey, I’m trying to listen to the boss.”

17

Conspiracy.
Two or more individuals working together in the shadows to carry out evil—assassination, overthrow, fraud.

The strength of a conspiracy is measured by the commitment, planning, and ability of the conspirators to maintain secrecy.

But the success of a conspiracy is ultimately determined by the ability of the conspirators to make all traces of their bond evaporate after the crime is committed. Like specters fading into the mist, their relationships vanish, trails grow cold, and there is nothing and no one to connect.

Then no person of authority will question what has been achieved. Or, if they do, nothing can be proven or altered. And those who have been targeted—dead or alive after the crime—never get the justice they deserve.

TOM MCGUIRE CROSSED WILLOW STREET, striding deliberately, and moved down the sidewalk toward the Brooklyn Heights promenade—a wide walkway overlooking New York Harbor. From here, he had a panoramic view of Lower Manhattan.

McGuire ambled up to the black, wrought-iron fence at the edge of the promenade. Below him, cars and trucks roared up and down the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He leaned both arms on the top of the fence and checked his watch. Three minutes in front of noon. Three minutes early. He was always on time and despised people who were routinely late. People like Christian Gillette. Of course, he despised Gillette for more important reasons now.

“Hi, Tom.”

McGuire turned toward the voice. His brother, Vince, moved up to the fence beside him. Three years younger, Vince was short and dark. A fireplug who wore his black hair slicked back and sported a gold bracelet and a pinkie ring. It was hard for Tom to believe they’d come from the same parents. About the only things they had in common were being at the FBI before founding McGuire & Company, punctuality, and poker faces.

“So?” Vince began in his gravelly voice. He’d smoked a pack of cigarettes a day until five years ago, when a doctor thought he’d detected a spot on Vince’s lung. It had turned out to be a false alarm, but it had been enough to scare Vince away from tobacco for good. His voice still bore the scars of the habit. “What’s the deal?”

“I met with Gillette this morning and he wouldn’t budge. He’s not interested in $300 million.”

“Our guy won’t go any higher?”

Tom shook his head. “No. Says if he pays more than three hundred his people will question him too hard, and he
definitely
doesn’t want that. Neither do we. So we stick to the original plan.”

Vince spat over the fence at a truck whizzing past beneath them. “What the hell happened on Park Avenue this morning?”

“Stiles’s men were too quick. They’ve turned out to be very good, and our guy fucked up.”

“Gillette’s a tough target.”

Tom ground his teeth. “Yeah, but remember we’re using people we don’t know well because we don’t want any connection to us when this is over. Unfortunately, the people we’ve hired have turned out to be idiots. Look, we’re gonna have to go to somebody we trust.”

“But if they’re caught—”

“I know, I know,” Tom cut in, scratching his head.

Vince spat again. “Fuck Gillette. If he knew what was really going on, he’d sell us the thing for $300 million in a heartbeat. Then we don’t get in any deeper.”

“But then our guy doesn’t get what he
really
wants.”

“Fuck him, too,” Vince shot back over his shoulder. “You know what? I think we just keep delaying our side of the deal until we buy the company. What’s he going to do at that point? Go to the authorities? No way. He’s in as deep as we are.”

“Not quite.”

“Deep enough,” Vince said loudly.

“Look, he’s smarter than that. He’d figure out what we were up to when thirty days from now Gillette’s still alive. He’d make the closing, and his money, contingent on us doing what we promised to do—kill Gillette.” Tom saw that his brother was getting uncomfortable. “Vince, we’ve got to stick with the original plan,” he urged. “And, the next time we go, we’ve got to
make sure
we get Gillette.”

Vince gazed out over the harbor, a pained expression on his face. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “This thing’s getting too close. I mean, Donovan was easy. No way to link us to that.” He took a deep breath. “But Gillette’s becoming a problem.”

“There’s another problem.” Tom hadn’t told Vince everything. Hadn’t wanted to upset him. “And it’s a big one.”

Vince glanced up. “What is it?”

“Gillette’s close to signing an IPO deal with a Wall Street firm.”

“To IPO
McGuire & Company
?” Vince asked incredulously.

“Yeah.”

“You gotta be kidding. That prick. When did he tell you?”

“He didn’t,” Tom answered. “Our guy found out through a contact of his.”

“What a shit Gillette is. He was gonna sell our company right out from under us.”

“That’s why I had to go to him last week and put the $300 million offer on the table. Our guy told me Gillette was going to sign with the investment bank in the next day or two. If he did that, we’d have no chance of buying the company. So I figured I could buy us some time with the offer. I figured Gillette would think twice about signing up to sell the company if we were pissed off. Then he went and hired Quentin Stiles.”

“So we’ve got no choice,” Vince said in a resigned voice. “We have to get Gillette.”

“Yep. And fast.”

Vince let out a long, exasperated breath. “All right,” he said quietly.

“It’s just a damn good thing that bomb in the limo went off thirty seconds early,” Tom spoke up. The bomb had been set to detonate at a certain time. It wasn’t controlled by a remote device, as McGuire had told Gillette. “It would have been a fiasco if it had gone off on time and Gillette had been killed then.”

“Hey,” Vince piped up angrily, “I thought I had a green light. The guy says he wants Gillette dead. I’m just trying to do my job. I didn’t know it was premature.”

“Easy, brother,” Tom said gently. Vince’s fuse was short. “I told you before it was my fault. I didn’t know there was another agenda, that things had to happen in a certain order, that they had to get Mason out of the way before we could go after Gillette. I thought we had a green light, too.”

“Was he pissed?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, everything turned out okay. So he shouldn’t be—”

“Look, he’s still backing us isn’t he? He’s over it.”

Vince grunted. “Shit, the way things are going, that might have been our best shot to get Gillette.”

“He’s like a damn cat,” Tom agreed. “It’s like he’s got nine lives or something.”

“Yeah, and we’ve only taken a few shots at him so he’s got a lot more left.” Vince turned to look at his brother. “The guy Stiles’s people killed today on Park Avenue—any way at all he can be linked to us?”

“No,” Tom said firmly. “It was all in cash between us, and there were no relationships between him and anyone at our firm. I checked before I hired him.” He chuckled. “Besides, the cops aren’t buying Stiles’s explanation that it was a hit gone bad. They think it was a case of road rage. Some woman at the scene told the cops she saw the whole thing. That the guy driving Gillette’s car cut our guy off. That the guy jumped out of the car screaming and yelling with a gun right after he got cut off.” Tom laughed harder. “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. I can guarantee you our guy wasn’t screaming and yelling.”

“Why would the woman lie like that?”

“Who the hell knows? Maybe she liked the attention she was getting from the cops.”

“What about cell phone calls?” Vince asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Did he ever call you on his cell?”

“Never. Always used a pay phone and a prepaid calling card.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I’m sure, Vince. When he called, the area codes that came up on my caller ID were always from the cities he was in. And, even if on the off chance he did call me on a cell phone once or twice, so what? What does that prove?”

“Did he talk to you right before he tried to kill Gillette?”

“No. It was the day before.”

Vince took a deep breath. “Good.”

Tom scanned the area. There was a woman with a baby carriage sitting on a bench fifty feet away. She was definitely out of earshot as long as he kept his voice down. “Look, we’ve got to get Gillette, and we’ve to do it fast. You agree?”

Vince nodded.

“And at this point I’d feel better if I called in someone I had complete faith in. I know it’s risky. I know it could link us, but we don’t have any choice.”

“Who are you thinking about?” Vince asked.

“Dominick,” Tom answered immediately. “He’s the best.”

Vince looked out over the harbor for a few moments, then finally nodded. “Yeah, call him.”

Cohen emerged from the Clark Street subway station into bright sunlight and glanced at his watch. One fifteen. He was early, but he wasn’t familiar with Brooklyn Heights so being early was good. He had no idea how far the walk was.

“Excuse me,” he called to a woman passing by.

“What?” she snapped.

“Which way is the promenade?”

She pointed. “That way. Just keep walking. You can’t miss it.”

Mason sat down in front of Strazzi’s desk. As usual, Strazzi was smoking a big fat cigar. Mason hated smoke, especially cigar smoke. “Hello, Paul.”

“Mr. Strazzi.”

Mason’s eyes flashed to Strazzi’s. Yesterday, Strazzi hadn’t wanted that. “Huh?”

“Call me ‘Mr. Strazzi’ today.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like it.”

Strazzi was certifiable. Mason already sensed that others at Apex thought the same thing but weren’t willing to say so because they were afraid they were being listened to. Mason had heard rumors about the office being bugged. But Strazzi was paying him $3 million in salary. Guaranteed for one year, thanks to the employment contract he had signed yesterday. If Strazzi wanted to be called ‘Buddha,’ so be it. “Um, okay,
Mr.
Strazzi.”

Strazzi took a long drag off the cigar. “It’s time for you to earn that big salary I’m paying you, Troy.”

“I thought I already was.”

“Do you enjoy Vicky, boy?”

Mason glanced up, his head suddenly pounding. He and Vicky had gone to the Parker Meridian Hotel three times this week: two lunches and once after work. “What do you mean?” he asked innocently.

“You know exactly what I mean. You and Vicky are screwing like rabbits.” Strazzi was smiling broadly behind his cigar. “I bet your wife would go ballistic if she found out you were banging a secretary.” Strazzi laughed harshly. “After less than a week here, too. Nice, Troy.”

So pissed off she’d leave him immediately, Mason knew. Melissa had already told him if there was one more incident, she was gone. And that she’d pry as much out of him as the flamethrower lawyer she hired could pry. Running up big legal bills in the process. “Mr. Strazzi, I don’t—”

“Don’t waste my time, Troy.” Strazzi tapped the cigar on the round ashtray. An inch-long ash tumbled to the glass. “I know what’s going on, but your secret’s safe with me. I just want information.”

“Information?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind of information?”

“About the Everest portfolio companies.”

Mason tugged at his collar. “What about them?”

“I need to know where the problems are.”

“Problems?”

“The dirty laundry, boy,” Strazzi said, exasperated. “Every private equity firm has problems in the portfolio. I want to know about Everest’s.”

Mason gazed over the desk at Strazzi. He should have guessed. This was the real reason he’d been hired. “Why?”

Strazzi shook his head. “That’s a need-to-know issue, and you don’t
need
to know.”

Strazzi was trying to cripple Gillette’s attempt to raise a new fund. That had to be the objective, Mason thought to himself. He took a deep breath. What the hell. He didn’t have any loyalty to Everest. Donovan was gone, and he hated Gillette. The prick had tried to ruin him. “I might be able to tell you a few things.”

“I need more than that, Troy. I need hard data. I need proof. I need files.”

“I can’t get into Everest.” Mason sensed an opportunity here. He’d made copies of several files the day after the chairman vote had taken place. “I’ve been barred from the place permanently. I can’t get to the files.”

“Use your imagination.”

“Why don’t you use your rat at Everest?” Mason suggested, certain Strazzi had already tried that. But those files were locked up tight. The Everest chairman and the other person on the board were the only ones with access. Which was why they were having this conversation. “Wouldn’t that be easy?”

Strazzi’s eyes narrowed. “You know damn well my
rat
can’t get to all the files.”

All
the files. Strazzi had said
all
the files. Which meant his rat could get to
some
of the files. Which also meant his rat was at least a managing director, not some low-level associate. Only managing directors and above sat on boards.

“I might be able to help you out,” Mason said, thinking about the file copies locked up in the wall safe in his apartment. “But I want a million bucks.”