The Knowland Retribution

New York

Tom Maloney and Nathan Stein were still squirreled away atop the Waldorf Astoria, each keenly aware they were the only ones left. It preyed on their minds. It was the evil, ugly monster hiding in the closet, and they were ten-year-olds all over again, afraid to turn the lights out. Nathan couldn’t sleep or eat or sit in one place or calm down long enough to simply move his bowels. Maloney could do little more than lay on the couch. They bickered.

“Safe as… what the fuck did you say it was? ‘Cows in Calcutta’ or some other Godfuckingforsaken place. You’re full of shit, Tom. You’re fucking full of shit! And it’s going to get me killed.” Maloney still just sat there, saying nothing. Stein paced. “Goddamn, MacNeal and Hopman and you-yes, you Tom-you’re all getting me fucking killed!” Maloney was past the point of trying to soothe Nathan’s spirits. He no longer possessed the energy to play that stupid, fucking game. Pretense had flown out the window and off the penthouse patio, carried by the winds to the four quarters of New York City.

“Fuck you,” Tom mumbled.

All he could think about was Leonard Martin. Where was he? What was his next step? When would the executioner appear? Could Walter Sherman catch him in time? He considered sending more money to Walter, but what good would that accomplish? It would be of no use to him unless he found a way to get out of this mess. Besides, some things cannot be bought, not because they lack a price, but because they just can’t be. No amount of money can change the past. How outrageous, he protested silently. Maloney had been a good Catholic boy and now he found himself thinking he was a rich man afraid Leonard Martin was pushing a camel through the eye of a needle. He would go to heaven, wouldn’t he? In spite of everything? Jesus Christ had always been his Lord and Savior. Honest, he was. Did Jesus know he was here, in the Waldorf Astoria, in need of help? “Christ, I’m in trouble!” He trembled. He would have given the nun another million if he’d had to. A million? What’s another million? His wife was in Switzerland. His colleagues dead. His friend, mentor, boss was half mad. Tom Maloney felt helpless, absolutely fucking helpless. Christ, he’d give anything to be rid of Leonard Martin. He poured himself another bourbon and made for the toilet. Diarrhea plagued him.

Isobel arrived in Atlanta the day after she and Walter met Leonard Martin. Nick Stevenson and Harvey Daniels expected her. She took a suite at the Hotel Nikko and asked that they meet her there. The three talked for more than two hours. The Center for Consumer Concerns was hers for the taking.

“Chase anyone,” Nick said. “Anyone at all. Investigate at your pleasure. You’ll be in charge. No limits, no interference.”

“We’re the trustees,” said Harvey. “That’s for legal purposes. We’ll never tell you what to do or how to do it.”

Nick added, “Just be true to Leonard Martin, Carter Lawrence, and all the others like them. Do your best to see there are no more of them.”

Isobel took the job, and it was agreed she would give the Times notice through the end of the month. The Center for Consumer Concerns would lease a condo for her, giving her six months to find a place of her own. No problem, they assured her, especially with their real estate contacts. She could hit the ground running. The two trustees, both former partners of Leonard Martin, assured her they had no personal knowledge of the source of the funds with which the foundation would be endowed. All they could say was that they were confident large contributors would appear, and soon. Since she had not been present when Leonard explained the details to Walter, Isobel too had no actual personal knowledge. From a legal point of view the only three people associated with the formation of the foundation came to it with clean hands. Isobel remembered a sociology professor at St. John’s who challenged her class to list the things they knew to be true, yet didn’t believe were absolute. Love, honor, justice, truth itself. Where are the absolute moral precepts? She could be comfortable knowing how the foundation-her foundation-got its money without actually knowing. She called Mel Gold when she returned to New York. They met for a sandwich at Artie’s Deli on Broadway. She told him the foundation, The Center for Consumer Concerns, had offered her the job as Executive Director and she had taken it. Her resignation from the New York Times would be effective January 31st.

“The Center for Consumer Concerns?” said the Moose. “Never heard of it.” It was new, she told him. Headquartered in Atlanta. Just getting started. He asked no more questions and she offered no more details.

“Put it in writing, kiddo,” he said, meaning, of course, her resignation. “They got great pickles here, you know that?” Somehow, she figured, some way, she had to tell him. She wanted to tell him. Perhaps he saw it in her eyes-perhaps not-but he reached across the table, laying both of his huge hands on hers, and said, “If he walked in here right now you’d know him and I wouldn’t, right? And that’s been so all along, hasn’t it? Unrecognizable.” He shook his head and smiled. “That was bullshit wasn’t it?”

“Mel-”

“Don’t tell me, Isobel. I’ll have to print it.” She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek. Mel Gold tried to remember the last time a reporter kissed him. He couldn’t.

Walter sat alone on his empty deck. The lights of St. Thomas flickered in the distant darkness. There was a slight chill in the air, for St. John, that is. Clara brought him a cup of bouillon and a light sweater.

“Put this on before you freeze to death,” she said. Hardly a chance of that. “The woman has a great sense of humor,” he thought. In the morning he’d call Tom Maloney and make another trip to New York. The specifics of Leonard Martin’s plan were dense and complicated, and a good deal of the data and supporting materials were pretty much incomprehensible to Walter. However, it was his job to bring all this-this most amazing and unexpected turn of events-to his clients. After that, he hadn’t the slightest idea what he would do.

Leonard Martin was gone.

New York

“I have no doubt that can be arranged,” Walter was saying. He was reviewing the materials Leonard had given him with Nathan Stein and Tom Maloney. Stein was subdued, perhaps resigned, to the futility of his patented outbursts. He’d just mumbled something like, “I’d rather be dead.”

It was getting late in the afternoon. The sixty-seven degree temperature had been a record for New York on this day in January. Now it was cooling fast. It had been such a lovely day the doors to the rooftop patio had been open most of the time. The illusion of spring was disappearing now, together with the warmth of the setting sun on the Waldorf’s Jersey side. Walter arrived with three copies of everything Leonard gave him. One was for him and one each for Stein and Maloney. He made no introductory remarks. He told them only that he’d met with Leonard Martin, who had given him instructions for them. With that he handed each a file. They took their pile of papers and read quietly to themselves for more than an hour. Tom didn’t make a sound, and Stein only mumbled something from time to time. Walter could hardly make it out. He waited.

Dinner arrived unordered and unannounced. Walter was not at all surprised, figuring they had to know what he liked by now. Two room service waiters laid out a simple yet elegant tray before him. On it was a bowl of tomato-based soup of some kind and a Caesar salad topped with both blackened shrimp and grilled chicken. Rolls and butter, coffee for later, and a chilled bottle of Chardonnay completed the spread. Nathan Stein had a steak, which sat alone on the plate with no side dishes. He would eat less than half of it. For Maloney, just a club sandwich. “Whoever ordered this stuff,” thought Walter, “has a pretty good take on whose life is in jeopardy and whose isn’t.” He had no idea it was Elizabeth Reid, patiently working out of sight elsewhere in the suite every day since Nathan Stein joined Maloney in this seven-thousand-dollar-a-day-tower prison.

“You’ve read this?” Tom asked Walter.

“I have.”

“Why didn’t you kill him?” Stein inquired, with only a small edge to his voice.

“He came to my house.”

“On St. John?” asked Stein.

“On St. John.”

“Gutsy sonofabitch,” said Maloney.

“That. And dangerous,” Walter said.

“Here’s what I want you to tell him…” Tom started.

Walter laid his soupspoon down, shook his head, and said, “I’m positive, certain as I can be, that I’ll never see or hear from Leonard Martin again.”

“Then what the fuck do we need you for?” Stein said, more frustrated than angry. “Why are you here?”

“I’ll be happy to leave-soon as I finish my salad, if you don’t mind.”

Tom said, “No, no. Don’t go. Nathan’s… upset. We’re all upset.” Walter continued eating as if nothing had happened. There were no secrets among them. Not anymore. Not Dr. Roy. Not Knowland. Not even Na Trang. Walter considered his surroundings. Three killers having an early supper, two of them trying desperately to stay alive.

According to Leonard, Alliance Industries Inc. had to come up with $3.8 billion. A lot of money, but not too much, said Stein, for a corporation that did not cook its books and was legitimately valued at somewhere between forty-five and sixty billion, and they had three to four years of lead-time. SHI Inc., Billy MacNeal’s old Second Houston Holding, was a different story. Leonard’s demands called for them to pony up $1.3 billion to The Center for Consumer Concerns. That was about three-quarters of the company’s net asset value, according to Tom Maloney. That amount pretty much put them out of business. But, Maloney said, since Alliance owned a controlling interest in SHI, they could effectively buy that company with a stock exchange-Alliance shares for SHI Inc.-roll it into the parent organization, and even after eating the $1.3 billion, still add about five hundred million to Alliance. SHI Inc. couldn’t survive on its own, but it didn’t have to. Walter mostly listened as Stein and Maloney discussed this part of the arrangement with each other. “This is what they do with their pathetic lives,” he thought. He realized they were actually enjoying themselves. After weeks jailed up here, they were finally working again.

When they were finished, when they had determined to their mutual satisfaction that the incredible amount of $5.1 billion could be successfully secured from the two corporations, they turned their attention to their own firm. To Walter, it seemed both men would do anything to avoid talking about their own individual situations.

Walter, as was his habit, had done his homework. He knew quite a bit about the company his clients directed and worked for. Stein, Gelb, Hector amp; Wills Securities Inc. traced its roots to a small investment banking company started in 1923. The partnership of two young men, Andrew Hiken and Michael Sears, known derisively on Wall Street as “the children,” had only sporadic success, and always seemed as if it were on the verge of dissolution. In 1929, the youngsters were bought out by a more substantial investment banking house, Brown, Roote amp; Higgins. While Hiken and Sears ran with the cash, Brown, Roote amp; Higgins ran headlong into disaster with the Great Crash. After the flames of their destruction subsided, the smoldering embers of that esteemed partnership were rescued by Benjamin Stein and Henry Witherspoon. In time, Witherspoon gave way to Larry Gelb, who many thought was Jewish but was not, and after World War II Randolph Hector joined the crew. They maintained a subtle yet influential presence in the financial world with a list of topnotch clients that read like a roll call of the capitalist nobility of the twentieth century. Then, in the full bloom of the Reagan deregulation frenzy in the eighties, Stein, Gelb amp; Hector merged with Lumpkin, Hewitt amp; Wills, a full service brokerage firm. While Messrs. Lumpkin and Hewitt found themselves unemployed-rich, but out of work-Mark Wills prospered in league with his new partners.

Nathan Stein, grandson of Ben, joined the firm right out of school. His rise to Vice Chairman was not without merit, though a little too meteoric for some. When his grandfather retired, Nathan became the ringmaster and Stein, Gelb, Hector amp; Wills his circus. He knew where every dollar was hidden and was, frankly, astonished at how accurate Leonard Martin’s analysis was. Nathan calculated his firm’s income from the Second Houston-Alliance Industries deal at $716 million. Leonard showed him where he’d missed seven million more. Rather than argue with it, Nathan was impressed, and not a little disturbed, that the people who worked for him had failed to see it. He wanted credit for every penny. As for Leonard, he wondered who helped him with all this. One way or another, almost all the data was public, but very little of it was easily accessible. What’s more, some of it required a sophisticated understanding of modern finance and an advanced computer capability to connect the dots. Leonard Martin had help, for sure. Good help.

Maloney and Stein agreed. Stein, Gelb, Hector amp; Wills could meet the payment schedule. True, this kind of money was certainly not chicken feed or chump change, but the discomfort of paying it could be managed in-house. Obstacles could be overcome. Besides, it was a matter of life or death. Theirs.

It was then they finally came to themselves. Both men had been astonished at the amount Leonard demanded: $123 million from Stein and $36 million from Maloney. Stein, in addition to the shock of his own amount, had been just as surprised and displeased with what he considered a low number for Tom Maloney. A careful review of the supporting data made Nathan more angry. He became both bitter and nasty. Walter sat there while the two went at each other, wondering why they would talk this way in front of him. True, he was familiar with the details of their contention, but still he was puzzled at their willingness to forego privacy. He had no way of knowing, of course, that Dr. Ganga Roy had encountered the same feeling in circumstances that were only slightly different.

“That’s bullshit,” Nathan said. “Thirty-six is a bullshit number.”

“Are you serious?” Tom Maloney was shaken at the obvious inability of Nathan Stein to grasp what was happening. “We’re being wiped out, Nathan. There’s nothing left. You know-your money or your life-and you’re more concerned with my number than your own? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“I see what he did,” ranted Stein. “He’s left out everything in your wife’s name. But not with mine!”

“Nathan, you don’t have anything in your wife’s name. You have assets jointly owned-you and her-but there’s nothing of any value in her name only, is there?”

Nathan knew the score. He was just pissed. “Nothing worth anything,” he said.

Leonard Martin had been very picky. He’d examined the voluminous data Carter Lawrence gave him and pegged each man’s net worth, leaving out noncash assets held jointly. For stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other financial instruments easily converted to cash, he’d figured the share for each man separate and apart from their wives, children, grandchildren, or any other partners. For real estate and other hard assets Stein and Maloney owned with others, Leonard assessed the value of their share. He required that the partner or partners in each deal buy out Stein or Maloney, and that the proceeds from such a buyout were included in the final figure for each man. Three to four years allowed more than enough time to make all these arrangements without damage to the equity position that would remain for Stein and Maloney’s surviving cohorts. Leonard did not hold wives, relatives, or even business partners liable for the sins of Nathan Stein and Tom Maloney.

Nathan had always treated his wife with total disregard for her financial independence. She had come to their marriage with some money, her family was not poor. Over the years, he figured, she’d probably made some small investments he was unaware of, but he’d never given her anything except some jewelry. How much could that be? A half a million? A million at most. He really had no idea. He was the same with his children. Christ, he thought, they all had unlimited expense accounts. He never inhibited their spending, but they were always spending his money. He had never been one to share anything. Now, Leonard Martin meant to break him, leave him without any safety net of family assets. Nathan was furious, yet even while considering the very real possibility that he would be wiped out, he could not bring himself to regret not having given his wife or children anything of value. It was his money, goddamnit! And now this motherfucking sonofabitch was going to take it away. He wanted to scream. He wanted to yell it: “No! No! No! I won’t do it, you fucking prick!”

Tom Maloney didn’t have Nathan Stein’s kind of money to begin with, nor did he share his temperament and general outlook on life. He’d also spent his a little differently. The departure of the first Mrs. Maloney had cost him a small fortune, his attitude at the time worsened by the knowledge that she meant to marry a man worth zillions immediately after the divorce. The second Mrs. Maloney paid a heavy price for that mistake. She signed an ironclad prenup. However, over the years, she cajoled, convinced, and insisted that he put some things in her name. He did, time and time again, thus she skirted not only the letter, but the spirit of her limitation. As he mulled over the demands Leonard Martin was making on him, Tom was relieved to think his wife had, on her own, something in the neighborhood of five to ten million. No matter what his tormenter took, that was a substantial fallback position. He gave only passing notice to the fact that his wife was in Switzerland. He dismissed all thoughts she might not return. Besides, unlike Nathan, who had unwavering faith in the invulnerability of the ruling class, Tom Maloney always felt, somewhere in the back of his mind, that a day like this might come. Tom realized the thirty-six million was everything he had-everything except a certain thirty million sitting in a bank on Grand Cayman Island. Nothing in the Caymans showed up anywhere on Leonard Martin’s list of assets. Why should it? “Rainy day money,” he thought, “and it was already coming down in buckets.” Sure he would be wiped out. Maybe-oh, what the hell, there was a good chance-his wife might never come back. But he had his own safety net. For a moment he saw himself lying on the beach in Costa Rica, a pina colada next to him. In this fantasy, the beach boy was Nathan Stein. Tom visualized the thirty-six million gone. Everything he had, everything except…

He smiled to himself. Outsmart them. That’s what he’d done again. His parents, the nuns at school, the wives and all the jackoffs and miserable sonsofbitches he’d done business with. Now he’d outsmarted Leonard Martin too. Fuck him!

Walter smelled wood burning and felt obligated to warn his clients. The look in Stein’s and Maloney’s faces said they were thinking how they could get out of this one. Leonard Martin was not a man to fuck with. Couldn’t they see that? “My god,” thought Walter, “have they forgotten?” Christopher Hopman’s body cut in two? Billy MacNeal being fished out of his bloody pool? Pat Grath flat on his back, his eyes still wide open? Floyd Ochs’s head floating down the Hiawassee River? Louise Hollingsworth gutted like a wild animal? Wesley Pitts’s perfect body slumped to the ground with three holes neatly grouped in his chest? He said, “Whatever you’re thinking, it won’t work. You’re limited to the five hundred dollars a week. Spend any more than that, you might as well blow your own brains out.” Nathan looked at him as if he’d forgotten Walter was there, seeing him for the first time. Fear was written all over his face. It seemed to envelop him, seizing control of his entire body. He trembled, which was all that kept him from collapsing on the floor. Could Nathan Stein-not a man like Nathan Stein, but Stein himself-could he survive the fall? Pu Yi came to mind. Walter had seen the movie The Last Emperor. The story of a man whose past haunted his future, whose personal history forced his life in a direction beyond his control, fascinated him. He studied the boy-king, the last emperor of China. Born in 1906, an Emperor at age three, deposed and restored, used and manipulated, Pu Yi lived in unparalleled grandeur, in splendid isolation-literally in the Forbidden City-an absolute monarch, served at his whimsy. After World War II, he spent six years in the Soviet Union living under a rather luxurious house arrest. However, in 1950 he was returned to China and imprisoned for nine years at hard labor. Released in 1959, Pu Yi spent the rest of his days working as a gardener at the Institute of Botany. He married a member of the Chinese Communist Party and died in obscurity in 1967. What sort of man could endure that? Nathan Stein? For a moment Walter felt sorry for the little sack of shit-for a moment. “I’d rather be dead,” Stein was mumbling.

Maloney turned toward Walter. He looked almost happy. It was a look Walter hadn’t seen since Vietnam, a battlefield euphoria that affected some men just before they died. But they were in the penthouse of the Waldorf Astoria, not the jungles of Southeast Asia. Maloney was alive and kicking, not about to die, and Walter knew it. He had something up his sleeve. Walter couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there.