The Protégé (3 page)

Ultimately, everybody wanted to get paid. Allison had some kind of angle here.

“I don’t want a salary or a bonus,” she continued. “I don’t even want any of the ups.”

Ups were pieces of profitable deals. When Everest made money—when it sold a portfolio company for more than it had paid—Gillette got to keep twenty percent of the gain. In the case of Laurel Energy, they’d paid $300 million. If they sold it for $5 billion, he’d keep twenty percent of the $4.7 billion gain—$940 million. As chairman, it was up to him to spread that around Everest as he saw fit. Under terms of the partnership’s operating agreement, he could actually keep it all for himself if he chose to. He wouldn’t, but he could.

“You want to see how we do it,” Gillette said, thinking about Laurel. If the investment bankers could really get him five billion, it would be the best deal in Everest history. “You want to learn our secrets.”

“Of course I do,” Allison replied. “But in return you get five billion more of equity, fifty million more a year in fees, the ability to leverage that five billion with lots more debt, and a managing partner at no cost.”

Gillette hesitated, going through the downside. As the biggest investor in the fund, Allison would assume she could barge into his office anytime. She’d probably feel she should have a bigger say than anyone else as far as strategy and investment decisions went, too. Still, as she’d pointed out, it was five billion in equity and fifty million a year in fees.

He took a deep breath. Major decisions all the time. “Done.”

Moments later, Allison and Meade were gone and it was just Gillette and Debbie in the conference room.

“Well, that was interesting,” Debbie said with a smug smile as they stood by the door.

“What was?”

“I’ve seen women try a lot of things to hook a man, but I’ve never seen one put up five billion dollars. That’s a big piece of bait.”

In the back of his mind he’d thought the same thing, but he didn’t want to admit it to her. “It’s not unusual for investors to want to have their people at a private equity firm when they make a huge commitment like that.” Actually, it was, but she wouldn’t know that. “And that’s probably the biggest commitment any single investor ever made to a private equity firm.”

Debbie groaned. “Give me a break. Did you see the way she was looking at you? She didn’t take her eyes off you the whole time.”

“Please.”

“Come on, you two would make an incredible couple. Tall, dark, and handsome—slim and blond. Chairman of Everest Capital—heiress to one of the greatest fortunes in this country. The dream couple, A-list for every party. That’s what she was thinking, Chris. I could see it all over her face.”

“You’re just jealous.”

Which they both knew wasn’t true. Debbie was a lesbian. Gillette had been sure of that before he’d hired her—thanks to McGuire & Company. It was a perfect business relationship. No chance of her developing a silly crush on him, no chance of him getting any stupid ideas of his own.

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Call Craig West over at McGuire and tell him to find out everything he can about Allison ASAP.”

“Sure.”

“And tell the guy in Three I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said over his shoulder as he moved toward the doorway. Then he stopped. “Oh.”

Debbie looked up. “Yes?”

“What you said outside before we came in here.”

She thought for a moment, trying to remember. “You mean about you being able to handle so much?”

Christian nodded. “Thanks,” he said, his voice low. “That was nice.”

“Christian!”

“Damn,” Gillette muttered, almost running into David Wright as he turned to go.

Wright was an up-and-coming Everest managing director—thirty-one years old, tall and square-faced, with close-set eyes, short blond hair, and light skin. Aggressive to the point of arrogance, he was by far the most talented MD at the firm. And the only person at Everest who could give Gillette any competition at pool.

“I’ve got to talk to you, Christian. Now.
Right
now.”

“What is it?” Gillette demanded. Seemed like everyone always needed to talk to him right away.

“We’ve got a chance to buy Hush-Hush Intimates,” Wright explained. “You know, the Victoria’s Secret competitor.”

Gillette knew about Hush-Hush. The company was less than ten years old but had already racked up megasuccess by pushing the sex envelope even further than Victoria’s Secret. Hush-Hush’s catalog, published once a season, had become hotter than the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue and the
Victoria’s Secret
catalog combined.

“The company’s privately held,” Wright continued, “and the family just decided to sell.”

“How do you know?”

“I just got off the phone with the guy who’s head of corporate development there. His name’s Frank Hobbs. We were pretty good friends in business school. He says he can get us the inside track to buy the company, but we’ve got to move fast.”

“How big is it?” Gillette asked.

Wright shrugged. “I don’t know. Who cares? It’s growing like a tech firm, and we can get our hands on it.”

Gillette eyed Wright carefully. They’d worked closely together for several years, and Wright had a haggard look about him Gillette had never seen. “You okay?”

Wright’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Yeah, fine.”

Gillette hesitated a beat, waiting for the younger man to look up. But he didn’t. “Uh-huh, well, get more information on it,” he instructed, brushing past.

“Hi, Marvin,” Gillette said loudly, moving into Conference Room Two. Marvin Miller was a partner at White & Cross, a large public accounting firm.

“Hello, Christian,” Miller said enthusiastically, rising from his seat and pumping Gillette’s hand. “This is—”

Miller started to introduce a young associate who’d come with him, but Gillette waved it off. There wasn’t time. “Relax,” he said, recognizing Miller’s anxiety. A lot of money was at stake here. “Sit down.”

A nervous smile played across Miller’s face. “Relax? Why would I need to do that?”

“You know why I wanted to see you.”

“What do you mean?” Miller asked innocently as they both sat down.

“Come on, Marvin, you said there was a problem with the Laurel Energy financial statements. A problem that could get in the way of a sale. I’m about to get five billion for Laurel. Nothing’s going to screw that up.”

“I said it
might
get in the way.”

“You guys have been doing Laurel’s financial statements for the last three years. How could there
possibly
be a problem?”

“We depend on your management team to give us good numbers, Christian. One of my guys has a question about a couple of the admin figures we got last month. They don’t seem right.”

Gillette started to say something, then stopped. This was going to be a quick conversation, no screwing around. “How many of our companies do you audit, Marvin?”

“Um, nineteen.”

“What do you make off us a year?”

“I . . . I . . . I don’t know exactly, I’d have to—”

“Give me an estimate.”

Miller swallowed hard before answering. “Around a hundred million, maybe more.”

“A hundred million. That’s a lot of fees, Marvin. A lot of fees to lose.” Gillette watched Miller swallow even harder. “And we just finished raising another fund this morning. It’s twenty billion, so we’re going to be buying a lot more companies. Big companies with lots of accounting needs. You can have first crack at auditing those companies.” He hesitated. “Or not.”

“Christian, I—”

“Very soon I’m going to start the process to sell Laurel,” Gillette cut in. “I’m going to retain Morgan Stanley, and the financials better be in perfect order,” he warned, rising from his seat. “Got it?”

Miller nodded, resigned to doing whatever was necessary to stay in Gillette’s good graces. “Yes, Christian, there won’t be any problems,” he said quietly. “Take this off your issue list.”

“I will.”

Gillette glanced at his watch as he headed toward Conference Room Three. It was eleven-thirty. He hoped the guy had waited.

He hadn’t.

“Damn it!” As Gillette turned to go back to his office, Debbie was standing in front of him.

“You didn’t miss Mr. Smith,” Debbie explained. “He never showed.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he called reception while you were in with the Wallace people. He’s waiting for you in his hotel room at the Intercontinental.” The Intercontinental Hotel was a couple of blocks from the Everest offices. “Room 1241.” She smirked. “As if you’re really going to drop everything and go running over there.”

Gillette rolled his eyes. “Yeah, as if.”

“
MR. SMITH?
” Gillette asked, moving through the hotel room doorway.

After Gillette had passed, the other man leaned into the hallway and glanced in both directions, then shut and locked the door. “Thank you for coming here, Mr. Gillette.” The man moved into the suite and sat on a small sofa in front of a dark wood coffee table. He pointed at the matching sofa on the other side of the table. “I know you’re busy, but it has to be this way.”

Gillette sat down, not taking his eyes off the other man.

“By the way, my name isn’t Smith, it’s Ganze. Daniel Ganze.”

“Okay.”

“Would you like something to drink, Mr. Gillette? Coffee, Coke?”

“No.”

Ganze was short, no more than five six, with closely cropped black hair that was thinning on top. He had dark, straight eyebrows and a small mouth with thin lips that barely moved when he spoke. His voice was low and precise, each syllable perfectly articulated. He didn’t face you when he talked—his chin was pointed off at an angle, left or right. He didn’t look you straight in the eye, either. Almost, but not quite.

“Why all the secrecy, Mr. Ganze?” It was the second time today Gillette had agreed to a meeting without a specific agenda, and it was killing him. “Senator Clark asked me to meet with you,” he said when Ganze didn’t answer right away. Michael Clark was the senior United States senator from California. Gillette had met Clark this past summer at a White House dinner, and they’d gotten together several times since to discuss ways in which Everest could do more business in California—and California could benefit. “I’m always happy to help the senator, but he didn’t tell me what this was about. In fact, he didn’t even tell me what you do, Mr. Ganze.”

“I’m an attorney by training, but I don’t practice anymore. Now I represent certain interests in Washington, D.C.”

“Interests?”

“Yes, interests.” Ganze leaned forward, over the table. “I appreciate Senator Clark setting this meeting up, and I appreciate your time. I know how busy you are.”

It was the second time Ganze had said that. “How exactly do you know how busy I am?”

“I just do.” Ganze folded his hands tightly. “As I said before, I’m sorry for all the secrecy, but it has to be this way. That’s all I can tell you about me and the interests I represent right now. If we proceed, you’ll learn more.”

Gillette was about to say something when Ganze spoke up again.

“Your father was a senator, Mr. Gillette.”

Gillette’s eyes raced to Ganze’s, and his pulse exploded. He fought to contain himself, but it was impossible. “Yes, he was.” He tried to say the words calmly, but he could tell Ganze had noticed the electric reaction and the rasp in his voice as his throat went dry. He hated being transparent, but he couldn’t help it. This was his father.

“His name was Clayton Gillette,” Ganze continued. “He founded and built a very successful Los Angeles–based investment bank, then sold it to one of the big Wall Street brokerage firms for a hundred million. Stayed on for a while after he sold out, then ran for Congress. One term there, then he won a Senate seat. He was killed in a private plane crash in the middle of that Senate term. The plane went down just after takeoff from Orange County Airport. It was a clear day. The official record says pilot error, but that explanation seems thin to me. To other people as well,” Ganze added, his voice low.

Gillette had wondered about the crash for years but figured grief was making him paranoid. “What
other
people?”

“We have more information you’ll want to hear,” Ganze said, dodging Gillette’s question.

“Like what?”

“Like the identity and location of a woman you’ve been trying to find for years.”

Gillette froze, understanding immediately. His blood mother. “Ganze, I—”

“Mr. Gillette,” Ganze cut in, “I know this is hard, but I can’t tell you anything else at this time. I’m sorry. If you want to hear more, you’ll have to come to Washington to meet with my superior and me. If that’s agreeable, I’ll be in touch.” He hesitated, then motioned at the door. “Good-bye.”

2

CLAYTON WAS
lighting his pipe when Christian got to the den—a hallowed room in the Bel Air mansion. He hesitated at the doorway, waiting for his father to see him.

“Come on in, Chris,” Clayton called from behind the desk, clenching the pipe tightly between his teeth as he held a silver lighter over the bowl and sucked the flame down. “Close the door so we aren’t interrupted, will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Christian loved this room. Dark wood paneling, big furniture, photographs of his father on hunting and fishing expeditions in exotic places with other famous people, dim lighting, the aroma of that pipe, a classic pool table off in one corner. A man’s room. He sat in the leather chair in front of the desk.

Clayton tossed the lighter on the desk and took his first deep breath of the pungent smoke. The lighter landed beside the text of a speech he’d be making to the full Senate when they reconvened after the holidays. “Nice to get away from all the hubbub, huh?”

They’d just finished eating: thirty guests at the mansion for a formal Christmas Eve dinner. “Yeah,” Christian agreed. Even nicer to spend time alone with his father. That rarely happened now that he was away on the East Coast at college.

“Your mother did a heck of a job with dinner. The food was great, wasn’t it?”

Christian wanted to stop himself, but he couldn’t. “My
step
mother, you mean.” He’d had another run-in with Lana that afternoon, over something he couldn’t even remember now, but it had burned out of control quickly. Like a small flame in a bone-dry forest, fanned by so much history.

Clayton looked up. “Chris, there’s no reason—”

“And
you
did a heck of a job with dinner, Dad.
You
paid for the caterer. Lana didn’t lift a finger.” Christian watched for any signs of anger, but his father’s handsome face stayed calm.

“Let’s play some pool,” Clayton suggested, nodding toward the table.

Christian had been hoping his father would say that. They had a long-running score he wanted to settle. “Sure.”

As they got up, there was a knock on the door. “Yes?” Clayton called, clearly irritated at the interruption. “Come in.”

The door burst open and Nikki rushed in. Nikki was Christian’s younger half sister. She was a pretty brunette with a bubbly personality. They’d always been close.

She went to Clayton first and threw her arms around his neck. “Sorry to interrupt, Daddy,” she said breathlessly, “but I wanted to say good-bye. I’m going to Kim’s house, then a bunch of us are going out.”

“On Christmas Eve?”
Clayton asked, winking at Christian over her shoulder, feigning anger.

“Thanks for the bracelet, Daddy,” she said, moving quickly to Christian and hugging him. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

“There’ll be more tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait to spend more time with you while you’re home, Chris,” she said, kissing his cheek.

Christian leaned back and smiled. “Ah, you’ll be out with your friends all the time.”

“No way.” She shook her head hard, then headed for the door. “Bye, you two. Have fun.”

When she was gone and the door was closed, they moved to the table.

“Eight ball?” Clayton suggested, putting his smoldering pipe in a large ashtray, then picking out his favorite cue stick from the wall rack. “Best of three, you break?”

“Okay, but I don’t want any charity. You break.”

Clayton nodded. “Fine, I’ll take all the charity I can get,” he said, leaning down and lining up the cue ball with the top of the triangle at the far end of the table. Then he hesitated, smiling serenely and straightening up. Looking at the ceiling as if he were deep in thought. “You’ve never taken a match from me, have you?”

They both knew Christian hadn’t.
And
they both knew that such a victory was Christian’s white whale. Reminding him of the streak was his father’s way of playing with his mind, but he wasn’t going to let himself be manipulated tonight. “This’ll be interesting, Dad. I played a lot last semester.”

“Is that all you guys at Princeton do?” Clayton wanted to know, breaking up the balls with a loud crack. “Play pool?”

“I’m keeping my grades up,” Christian said quickly, sizing up the way the balls had come to rest. None in for his father on the break. A good way to start. “I’m fine.”

Clayton chuckled. “I know you are. Four A’s and a B plus in advanced calculus last semester. You’re still on track to graduate with honors this May.”

Christian had been about to take his first shot, but he stopped. “How do you know?” The semester had just ended last week. Final grades hadn’t been released yet.

“I called my friend John Gray. He’s one of the—”

“One of the assistant deans,” Christian broke in, setting up for the shot again. “Yeah, I know.” He made it easily. “Checking up, huh?”

“It’s what I do, son.
Which reminds me.
While you’re home I want you to have lunch with my friend Ted Stovall. He’s a Stanford trustee. He’ll be very helpful getting you into business school.”

Stanford University had one of the nation’s elite business schools. “I’ll take care of that on my own, Dad,” Christian said. “I appreciate it, but I don’t need your help. Damn it!” He’d missed a shot he shouldn’t have because he’d been distracted by the conversation.

“You mean you don’t
want
my help,” Clayton corrected, inhaling, then clenching the pipe between his teeth as he prepared to shoot. “Just have lunch with Ted,” he pushed gently. “Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when you graduate from Stanford, we’re going to get you that job at Goldman Sachs. Mergers and acquisitions. That’s the one you want, right?”

It was exactly the job Christian wanted after business school. The
only
job he wanted. “Yes, sir,” he said, spying a large wooden box sitting on a table in front of the window. “Thanks.” He knew this den like the back of his hand, and the box hadn’t been there when he’d left for Princeton last September. “Is that a humidor?” he asked, pointing.

Clayton glanced in the direction Christian was pointing. “Yes.”

“When did you start smoking cigars? I thought you hated them.”

“I do. It’s a gift from a friend in Cuba. I’m not supposed to keep those things, but, well, it was just so pretty.”

Christian watched his father sink seven balls in a row, tapping the butt end of his cue on the floor faster and faster, harder and harder, until the eight disappeared, too. “Damn,” he muttered.

Clayton rose up as the black ball dropped and smiled from behind the pipe. “One down, one to go. This is going to be easy.”

But Christian won the second game, and the third was hard fought. Finally, there were just three balls left on the tan felt—the cue, the eight, and a stripe—Clayton’s. Christian smiled. His father was blocked. The striped ball lay directly on the opposite side of the eight from the cue, and his father couldn’t use the eight in a combination.

Clayton grimaced. “Tough leave, huh? Nowhere for me to go.”

Christian nodded, trying to mask the smile. His father had to do something, and the odds were good that once the cue ball came to rest, he’d have an easy next shot to win. The streak was almost over. He could feel it.

But Clayton did the impossible. He made the cue ball jump the eight and into the stripe, knocking the stripe cleanly into a far pocket. The cue ball caromed off two sides of the table and came to rest near the eight. Clayton dropped it into a side pocket easily for the win.

Christian just shook his head as Clayton replaced his cue stick in the rack on the wall and came around the table. He’d been so close.

“I know how you hate to lose,” Clayton said, placing his hands on Christian’s shoulders. “You’re so much like me,” he murmured, smiling. “So much.”

“Christian.”

Gillette heard the voice but didn’t react. He was still far away, still in his father’s study, wishing he could have an evening like that just once more. After pool, they’d talked until two in the morning. But there’d never be another evening like that. Six months later, Clayton was gone.

“Christian!”

Gillette finally looked up. Faraday was standing in his office doorway. “What is it, Nigel?”

“It’s time for the meeting,” Faraday replied, tapping his wristwatch. He cocked his head to one side. “You okay?”

“
LET’S GO,
” Faraday snapped at the stragglers. “You’re four minutes late.”

The two managing directors hustled to their seats at the far end of the conference room table.

This was the Everest managers meeting: Gillette, four managing partners, eight managing directors, and Debbie; attendance required. The only exception—Gillette. If he needed to be elsewhere, Faraday was in charge.

Gillette ran the meeting from the head of the table, while the other managers sat down the sides in descending order of seniority. Debbie sat at the far end of the table, taking minutes. Donovan had never allowed anyone but the partners into this meeting, but Gillette had a different management style. He believed in open communication—most of the time, anyway.

“Everyone’s here, Christian,” Faraday reported. He sat immediately to Gillette’s right.

Gillette had been reviewing a memo and glanced up into two rows of hungry eyes. They reminded him of a wolf pack. “A couple of updates,” he began. “Nigel finished raising Everest Eight this morning. We now have fifteen billion dollars of signed commitments.”

Everyone rapped the table with their knuckles—the customary show of approval. The news about Everest Eight had spread like wildfire this morning, so the announcement was just a formality.

“Nigel deserves more than that, people,” Gillette urged as the sounds of congratulation faded. “I said
fifteen billion.
”

The room broke into raucous applause and loud whistles. Gillette usually wanted controlled responses to everything at this meeting, even big news, but when he gave permission to celebrate, people responded. And this was tear-the-roof-off stuff.

Historically, Everest had achieved at least a three-to-one return, with the firm keeping twenty percent of the profits. So if the people around the table could turn fifteen billion into forty-five over the next few years, Gillette would have six billion—twenty percent of the thirty-billion-dollar profit—to spread around. It would be the biggest payout ever for a private equity firm. Some of the money would go to the Everest rank and file, but most of it would go to the people in this room.

Gillette nodded approvingly at their reaction, watching the hungry looks turn ravenous. He could see people calculating their potential share of the ups—as they should. Money was their driver, their reward for the intense stress and sacrifice—eighty to ninety hours a week away from family and friends. If they didn’t get to enjoy the reward, they wouldn’t last.

“That’s better,” Gillette said, motioning for quiet as he turned to Faraday, who was beaming. “Nigel, it’s a tremendous achievement. The largest private equity fund ever raised. Thank you.”

“Thank
you,
Mr. Chairman.”

People began to clap and whistle again, but Gillette shut them down with a flash of his piercing gray eyes. “It gets better,” he continued when the room was silent. “This morning, I met with representatives of the Wallace Family. They’re out of Chicago, for any of you who
don’t
know,” he said, effectively telling anyone who didn’t that they better research the Wallaces right after the meeting. “They’re one of the wealthi-est families in the country.” He paused. “They’ve committed an additional five billion to Everest Eight, so it’s now a
twenty
-billion-dollar fund.”

There were gasps.

“And they’ve made their investment on the same terms and conditions as the other limited partners.”

“They don’t want
anything
special?” Maggie Carpenter asked warily. Maggie was one of the managing partners. Six months ago, Gillette had hired her away from Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts, another high-profile private equity firm in Manhattan. Thirty-five, Maggie was thin with dark red hair, a pale, freckled complexion, and stark facial features. Besides Gillette, she was usually the first one to ask tough questions in this meeting. “That’s an awfully big commitment for them not to get some sizzle.”

“They want one of their people on the ground here at Everest,” Gillette replied, catching the uneasy looks appearing on the faces around the table. “Allison Wallace will join us as a managing partner. That’s the only extra they want.”

“The
only
extra?” asked Blair Johnson. Johnson was another of the four managing partners. He was African American and had grown up in an upper-middle-class Atlanta suburb. The son of a physician, he’d gone to the right schools: Harvard undergraduate and Columbia Business School. He’d been with Everest for seven years, and Gillette had promoted him to managing partner nine months ago. “That seems like a lot.”

“Worried about the money?” Gillette asked.

Johnson cased the room quickly, making certain he wasn’t the only one concerned about Allison Wallace. “Not the salary and bonus, really,” he answered hesitantly. “After all, it’s a twenty-billion-dollar fund. At one percent, we’ll make two hundred million a year in fees alone.”

“So it’s the ups you’re worried about.”

“Yeah, the ups.”

“Well, here’s the deal, Blair,” Gillette said sharply. “Allison doesn’t want
any
money. No salary, no bonus, no ups. All she wants is a front row seat at the game so she can see how her money’s being used.”

“What Allison Wallace wants,” Tom O’Brien said in a professorial tone, “is to see how we do it.” O’Brien was the fourth managing partner. He was forty-one but looked older. His hair was snow white, and he had a ruddy complexion. From Boston, he had a prickly New England accent. “She wants to go to school. She wants the keys to the castle.”

“Of course she does,” Gillette agreed. “But so what? Nigel and I planned on adding two more managing partners anyway. We’ll need six of you to put twenty double-large to work in three years. At
least
six. This way we get one free, and we get an extra five billion to invest, plus the annual fee. It’s like she’s paying us fifty million a year to work here,” he reasoned, liking the way it sounded. “It’s a good deal, and it’s not like she’s going to be able to duplicate what we have when she goes back to her family office in Chicago.” Gillette could see that people were apprehensive. “Another update,” he said, switching subjects, not wanting to dwell on something that made people feel insecure. He’d made the decision about Allison Wallace, and it was final. “We got the Las Vegas NFL franchise.”