The Patriots' Club

15

I need a list of all companies my core has bought and sold in the last twenty years,” said Bolden, once Althea had taken a seat.

“You want what?”

“A list of companies my clients have bought and sold. The information’s in the offering memos. It’s just a question of going through them and writing it all down.”

“Why are you asking me? Don’t you have an associate you can call, one of those boys who likes to work even harder than you?”

“I’d like you to do it.”

“Sorry, Tom, my morning’s all booked. I’ve got about three of your expense reports to get through first, then-”

“Althea!” The burst escaped from Bolden before he could stop it. He blew out through his teeth. “Just get it done. Please.”

Althea nodded, but he could see that she was angry.

Like half the assistants in the office, Althea Jackson was a single mom working ten-hour days to give her son a better life. A native of St. Martin, she spoke fluent French and just enough Spanish to swear at the cleaning crews when they didn’t leave Bolden’s desk just so. She stood five feet one inch in her stockings and made it a point not to wear heels. Even so, she walked the halls like a queen. She was imperious, haughty, and temperamental as hell. She was also whip smart, efficient, and loyal. In a perfect world, she should have gone to university and graduate school herself.

“Start with Halloran, then go on to Atlantic Oriental and Jefferson Partners. Find the offering memorandum for every fund the companies have raised. At the back, there’s a listing of all prior transactions. Name of company, what they paid for it, what they sold it for, and the rate of return to investors. All I’m interested in are the names of the companies and their principal business activities.”

“What exactly are you looking for?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“If you’d tell me, it might make my work a little easier.”

Bolden leaned forward. “Just do what I asked. I’ll explain it to you later.”

Althea rolled her eyes and exhaled. One more indignation visited upon her. She stood and opened the door. “Your meeting with Jefferson Partners has been moved to the forty-second-floor conference room. Eight o’clock.”

“Who’s confirmed?”

“From Jefferson, Franklin Stubbs, and ‘la Comtesse,’ Nicole Simonet.”

“Your favorite,” said Bolden.

“Too bad she doesn’t look as pretty as her name. That child was just born ugly.”

“Be nice, Althea,” said Bolden.

“Now I have to be nice, too? You know where she’s from? Bayonne, New Jersey. And her thinking she can speak French better than me.”

“You have a very capable network of spies. I’d hate to think what you’ve dredged up about me.” Bolden began gathering together the papers he’d need. “What else is going on?”

“Meeting with the finance committee at ten. Interview with that boy from Harvard at eleven. Conference call with Whitestone at eleven-thirty. Lunch with Mr. Sprecher at twelve. Then-”

“Call him and reschedule. I’ve got other plans.”

Althea raised her eyes from her notepad. “You’re not missing lunch with Mr. Sprecher,” she said in a no-nonsense voice. “No one stands up the head of the compensation committee two weeks before bonuses are handed out.”

“I’ve got a lunch date with Jenny.”

“Not anymore you don’t. This has been on your calendar for a month. He’s reserved a table at Le Cirque and told Martha to clear his schedule until four, and then book a massage at his club at six. He’s planning on having a real good time.”

Bolden tapped his desk. There was no way out of it. Althea’s bonus came straight off the top of Bolden’s. If he didn’t go, she’d never let him forget it.

“Okay,” he said, checking his watch. Jenny would just be starting class right now. He’d catch her in an hour, when she had a break. “Remind me to call Jenny when I get out of the Jefferson meeting.”

Althea was still shaking her head as she left his office. “Oh, and Tommy, “ she called, pausing at the door. “You got something on your cheek. Newsprint or something. I’ll get you a wet tissue to wipe it off. Must have been a real late night.”

Taking a breath, Bolden pulled the piece of paper with the drawing of the tattoo out of his pocket and put it on the desk. He wrote the words “Crown” and “Bobby Stillman” below it, then refolded the paper and put it in his pocket.

It was officially time to stop thinking about what had happened last night and get his head into the job.

“Althea,” he called. “I’m due to fly down to D.C. tonight for that Jefferson dinner. Can you double-check my flight details? What time am I set to leave?”

As Bolden gathered his materials for the meeting, he looked around his office. It wasn’t too big, maybe fifteen by ten, one of five lining this side of the forty-second floor. A window looked out over Stone Street and directly into another office building. If he pushed his cheek to the glass, he could make out the East River. Pictures of Jenny, and some of his success stories at the Boys Club, lined the shelves. There was Jeremiah McCorley, currently a senior at MIT, who, Bolden had learned the night before, had just been offered a fellowship at Caltech in Pasadena. Toby Matthews, who was playing baseball on a full scholarship at the University of Texas at Austin, and an academic all-American. Mark Roosevelt, who was finishing his first year at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, the finest diplomatic school in the world. Not bad for a bunch of foster kids from Harlem. Bolden kept in touch with them all, writing e-mails, sending care packages, making sure they had plane tickets to get home for the holidays.

And then there was a picture of Bolden with one who hadn’t made it out. Darius Fell. Chess champion. Punt, Pass, and Kick finalist for the state of New York, big-time crack dealer, hardened criminal, and major-league gangbanger. Darius was the one that got away. He was still out there braving it in the wild. Bolden gave him another year before he was dead or in prison.

To the business at hand… Jefferson Partners… Trendrite Corporation… a five-billion-dollar deal. Concentrate, Bolden.

He picked up a copy of the bound memorandum. It was two inches thick. A code name was written on the cover, which was standard practice for deals involving publicly traded companies. The target company, Trendrite, was the nation’s second-largest processor of consumer data, handling requests for more than a billion records a day. Whenever someone bought a car, Trendrite learned about it. Whenever someone sold a house, Trendrite got the details. Miss a mortgage payment, delinquent with credit-card debt, increase your life insurance, Trendrite made it its business to know that and more; specifically, your name, age, social security number, annual income, place of employment, salary history, driving record, and legal history, plus seventy other points of personal data. Every person in the company’s database-and that meant ninety-eight percent of all Americans-was classified into one of seventy “lifestyle clusters,” among them “Single in the City,” “Two Kids and Nowhere to Go,” and “Excitable Oldies.”

It sold this information to its customers, which included nine of the country’s top ten credit-card users, nearly every major bank, insurance company, and automaker, and lately, the federal government, which used Trendrite’s personal-profiling systems to check out airline passengers. And for all this, it earned three billion dollars a year in revenues, and four hundred fifty million in profit.

The deal was Bolden’s baby. He’d come up with the idea. He’d contacted the company. He’d pitched it to Jefferson. Supervised the road show. Overseen financing. Everything was all set to go. HW’s fees were estimated to top a hundred million dollars. It would be his first big payday.

RM. Real money.

Just then, he spotted Sol Weiss’s leonine gray head loping along at the far end of the hall. He was dressed in a double-breasted blue suit, a silk hankie overflowing his breast pocket, the unlit cigar leading the way. With him was Michael Schiff, the firm’s CEO.

“Althea,” he called again. “What about those flight times?”

He peeked his head out the door and saw her sitting at her desk, crying. “What is it?” he asked, rushing to her side. “What happened? Is it Bobby? Is he okay?”

But she refused to look at him. “Oh, Thomas,” she sobbed.

Bolden laid a hand on her shoulder and was shocked when she knocked it away. He looked up. Weiss and Schiff, and two uniformed security officers, were powering down the hallway. Stone faces all around. It was impossible to mistake their intention. These guys were out for blood. He wondered what poor sucker had got his ass caught in the ringer this time.

“Tommy!” It was Sol Weiss, and he had his arm outstretched and his finger pointed directly toward him. “We need to talk. “