Fear the Night

39

2001

After Verna’s departure, Dante applied himself all the harder. He focused on himself, on what he could and would do, and thought of the past as what it was-something that no longer existed. It was a delicate and protective attitude, but one he could maintain. If only he didn’t have bad dreams.

He graduated magna cum laude from ASU in three years, then promptly earned his MBA from the Wharton School. Corporate recruiters saw him as prime cut. A month before his graduation from Wharton, he had a position secured as a bond analyst in the Chicago financial firm of Koch and Banks.

Dante liked Chicago and was soon making a six-figure salary. Koch and Banks profited from his talents, and was generous in its bonuses and stock options. Investing was a game he found incredibly simple, and his own holdings grew exponentially. He wasn’t yet as rich as he wanted to be, but only because he hadn’t had time. For Dante, money wasn’t going to be a problem.

At least once a month he returned to the Strong Ranch and saw Adam. His mentor and surrogate father couldn’t have been more proud of Dante, and was still providing a kind of permanent home both physically and spiritually. Though he lived in a luxurious Lakeside Drive penthouse apartment, the ranch remained Dante’s still point in the universe, where he could always retreat to and regenerate himself when life became difficult.

On one of these visits, when Dante was temporarily escaping a bitter Chicago winter for the warmth of the Arizona sun, Strong seemed markedly older and unlike his usual self. During their stint at the target range, he’d missed almost a quarter of his shots.

Their rifles propped in the crooks of their arms, the two men were walking side by side toward Strong’s dusty, three-year-old Ford pickup. It was a walk they’d taken together many times, and usually it soothed Dante’s soul. This was how he always saw Adam in his mind, striding tall and powerful alongside him, rifle or shotgun broken down and slung over his shoulder or, as today, cradled in the crook of an elbow. The Arizona heat, the sun, the dust he could feel when he licked his teeth, the vast expanse of sky stretching to distant mountain ranges, it was all part of why he came here. It was reassuring to Dante. It fed the soul.

“You’re quiet, Adam,” Dante said, “even for you.”

One, two, three paces before Strong spoke: “I suppose I should tell you things aren’t going well, Dante.”

Feeling a cold dread, Dante glanced over at him but didn’t break stride. “Your health?”

“No.”

“Good. Then whatever it is, it’s not serious.”

“Oh, it’s serious, all right. Most of my money-the ranch’s money-was invested in Global Venue.”

Dante stopped and stood still. Global Venue was a publicly traded capital management firm that controlled the resources of major clients, including some of the country’s largest pension funds. Global had hedged its clients’ billions of dollars in investments with complex money rate plays, and in an ironic, and illegal, round-robin sequence, with some of Global’s own stock. The company was under federal investigation. Most of its major clients had left, and Global stock had plunged almost 90 percent and would soon be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

“You mean Global Venue was investing some of your money for you?” Dante asked.

“Not exactly. I figured I wasn’t smart enough to place my eggs in different baskets myself, so I thought it’d be simplest to buy GV stock. When the trouble started with the government, the accusations and indictments, I kept thinking the stock would stop falling, that I could recoup at least some of my losses. This was one of the biggest companies in the world, Dante. It was about to become one of the Dow Thirty.”

Dante rested a hand on his rifle’s warm walnut stock and shook his head sadly. “I don’t need to tell you, you can’t sell was about to.”

Adam looked off to the left where a turkey vulture circled in the blue void beyond the ranch house. “They’re right when they say the hardest thing about investing’s knowing when to sell.”

“I. . we never talked about it, Adam. I knew about your wealth and assumed you were a sophisticated investor, or that what you had was in a trust.”

“I took it out of the trust some years ago, when I saw so many people I knew getting rich overnight on tech stocks. Thought I could build up some wealth and put it in the ranch. Even managed to do that some. You notice the new dam and culvert to divert water when the arroyo floods?”

Dante had noticed. He figured the object was to eventually create a lake. “You had tech stocks when the bubble burst?”

“Quite a few of the biggest losers. Peanuts compared to Global Venue stock, though. I’m ashamed to tell you what percentage of my holdings were in that single stock, in a company I thought was internally diversified enough to protect me.”

“You’re not the only one who made that miscalculation about Global. Lots of smart people rode it up and rode it all the way down. Do you still own the stock?”

“Yeah. Most of it. For what it’s worth.”

Dante knew it was worth about five dollars per share and falling. A little over a year ago, Global Venue’s stock price had been over eighty dollars per share.

“I’ve been selling my shares off a little at a time to keep the ranch going. We’ve got eleven kids here now, and three more on the way.” Strong quit staring at the distant vulture and looked at Dante. “You think there’s any chance the stock’ll come back?”

Dante shifted his weight in the hot sun, not wanting to answer. “It won’t come back. Global’s going down for corporate malfeasance. When the regulators and lawyers are finished with it, some board members will be sent to prison and the government’s gonna dismantle the company. If you hang on to the stock, you might receive par value.”

“Next to nothing.”

“About a dime a share. That’s if there’s anything left after bondholders and preferred stockholders take their meager cuts. My guess is none of you is going to get even the dime.”

“So I should get out?”

Dante smiled sadly. “You should.” He felt a dark remorse move through him, and an ugly guilt. He’d been paying so much attention to his own affairs, he’d never discussed Adam’s with him. It had seemed like two different worlds, Chicago and the ranch. Dante had always assumed Adam was well invested, that he’d brought the same common sense and prudence to managing his wealth as he exhibited in every other facet of his life. Dante should have known better. He’d learned that when it came to money, people weren’t always in character. He could have prevented this.

“Even after I sell,” Strong said, “I’ll be down to my last hundred thousand.”

“That’s something.”

“Not much. The ranch is an investment that eats hay, as they say in this part of the country. And the bank’s pressuring me on some loan payments. I’m afraid I’m not good for more than a few more months.”

“Months?”

Strong could only swallow. He looked back toward where the buzzard had been circling. There was only empty sky.

“We can’t let that happen, Adam!”

“I wish to God I knew how to prevent it.”

“You’ve taken the first step, Adam. You confided in me.”

Strong smiled. “I always loved your grit, but not everything’s possible. And the last thing I’d do on earth is borrow money from you, Dante. Not that anything other than a financial transfusion from a small country would help.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know what will help. You’re right, I’m doing well, but much of it’s in options that are locked up for the next few years. I don’t have the kind of money that would bail out the ranch. But I want to see your books, Adam. A financial statement. Everything.”

“Dante-”

“This is what I do, Adam. And nobody’s better at it. I want to help. I owe it to you, and we both know that’s a fact.”

Strong stared hard at the ground, chewing the inside of his cheek. Then he reached out and clutched Dante’s shoulder and squeezed. “All right, Dante. Thank you. I won’t be proud.”

“Bullshit!” Dante snapped. “You can be proud.”

Dante had been prophetic. After months of negative publicity, then indictments and a long series of trials, Global Venue was dismantled. Shareholders of the common stock received nothing.

Dante had reallocated the foundation’s investments, and was beginning to pump financial lifeblood back into the ranch, but no one could have planned for the events of September 11. The terrorist attacks, and the resultant reaction in the markets, devastated the rest of Adam Strong’s holdings.

There was enough remaining to keep the ranch solvent awhile longer, but while most of the market gradually rebounded, Wall Street seemed to have turned against Adam. Even the skills of Dante Vanya couldn’t prevent foreclosure.

Adam Strong was ruined. Dante could only watch, and bear some of the responsibility.