Wild Card

45

Henry Thomas rose at four AM, as was his wont, put on the coffee and made toast, and opened his front door to collect his daily newspaper. He was anxious to see what the Times had to say about the acquisition of H. Thomas & Son.

Before he could go to the business section, he caught a glimpse of the lower right-hand corner of the newspaper.

What secretary? he thought. It took a sip of his strong Italian coffee to snap his mind in place. Elise, who speaks Sicilian! He read the opening paragraphs of the story, which ascribed the planned murders of several people to himself, his grandson, and his cousin. The girl went to the papers! He checked the byline on the piece: Jamie Cox. The same reporter who had caused them all the trouble in the past! He called Hank and Rance and told them to go to the office immediately, and to read the Times on the way.

Before he got dressed he saw the other headline on the first page of the business section: H. Thomas to be acquired by DigiWorld. He didn’t have time to read the piece; he got dressed and went downstairs to his waiting car.

It was a grim meeting. “This has happened at the worst possible time,” Henry said.

“Perhaps it has happened at the best possible time,” Rance said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Henry demanded.

“At the opening bell on Monday, the stock exchange will suspend trading in our stock because of the acquisition. That gives us two days to fix this.”

Hank spoke up. “Fix it? How the fuck do we do that?”

“The first thing we do is to issue a very strong statement refuting the front-page story, and e-mail it to Harman Wills at DigiWorld. It should be the first thing he sees this morning. Also, one of you has to call him and talk him down.”

“Poppa,” Hank said, “that should be you. This acquisition is your doing, and you know Harman best.”

“All right,” Henry said, looking at his watch. “I’ll wait until seven, then call him at home. Rance, you draft a statement for us.”

Rance went to his office, typed fast for a few minutes, and returned with a sheet of paper.

To our shareholders, customers, and business associates:

An outrageous story has appeared in today’s New York Times, calling into question the character and reputation of H. Thomas & Son. This story and all of its contentions are outright lies. The young woman in question, a previously trusted employee, clearly harbors a grudge against the company, following an injury to another previous employee, of which we were unaware until this morning.

The three H. Thomas executives mentioned, Henry Thomas, Hank Thomas, and Lawrance Damien, have been accused of plotting the murders of a number of people, while speaking in a Sicilian language that none of them speaks or understands. As far as we know, all the putative victims are alive and in good health.

Her story is a preposterous fabrication by a clearly disgruntled employee, who did not appear for work yesterday but later sent an e-mail, resigning her position. We suspect that her actions may be connected to the planned acquisition of H. Thomas & Son by DigiWorld, a fund specializing in bank acquisitions. The two companies have been in discussions for weeks and plan to announce it today. Apparently, she hopes to somehow stop or damage the acquisition, which has already been agreed to with a signing memo between the two parties. This seems to be an attempt to enable short sellers, who could reap large profits, should the story be believed.

H. Thomas & Son stands by its sterling reputation in the financial community, earned by more than fifty years of honest banking. We expect to clear the company’s name in short order.

“It needs to be issued with your signature, Henry.”

Henry grabbed the paper and a pen and signed it with a flourish. “Get it out to Harman Wills, the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press immediately,” he said, checking his watch. “It’s another couple of hours before I can call Harman.”

Rance went to his office and e-mailed the statement to the list of publications they sent all releases to.

Stone was awakened at six-thirty by Dino, who was already at his office.

“Good morning, I think,” Stone said.

“Are your hatches all battened down?” Dino asked, in an unexpectedly nautical mode.

“Aye, aye, sir,” Stone replied sleepily. “I expect the folks at H. Thomas are scrambling to deny everything before the story can harm its acquisition.”

“Hang on,” Dino said, “I’ve got a call coming in from Ken Burrows’s cell phone. I’ll make it a conference call, so you shut up.” He tapped in a code to join the three lines.

“Dino,” Burrows said, “did you have something to do with this story in the Times?”

“What story, Ken? I haven’t seen the Times yet.”

“The story that you told me, which is now all over the paper.”

“Oh, that story. This may come as a surprise to you, Ken, but I don’t write for the Times, nor do I edit the paper.” Dino made noise with the newspaper. “Ah, here it is. Give me a minute to read it.”

“Hurry up,” Burrows said.

Dino waited a moment. “Ah, it does seem to be the story I told you about. Remember, Ken, you had it first. In fact, on the inside page it says that I went to see you with the story, but that you did nothing. I can’t deny that, can I?”

Burrows hung up without another word.

“I believe Ken is pissed off,” Stone said.

“I agree, and I think that’s wonderful,” Dino said.

“The good thing about this,” Stone said, “is that now the Thomases can’t kill any of us.”

“Not for a while, anyway,” Dino agreed.

“Well, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens to their merger, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” Dino said, “and you’d better hope it goes off without a hitch and makes them a ton of money. That ought to buy you a year or two of good health.”

“I feel better already,” Stone said. “My heart has stopped making that funny noise.”

“Now let’s see what Ken Burrows has to say to the media,” Dino said. “Talk to you later.”

Stone turned on the TV to CNBC and watched for a few minutes. It gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.