The Prince of Risk

11

The sound of a truck grinding to a halt nearby returned Astor to the present. Fifty yards away, a large van with NYPD markings stopped at the entry to Exchange Place, the pedestrians-only square fronting the Exchange. A dozen men clad in black assault gear-helmets, vests, boots-jumped from the van, machine guns cradled to their chests. He recognized them as members of the NYPD’s elite Hercules detachment. The Stock Exchange building was one of the city’s prime “hard targets.” Nothing better represented all that was good and bad about America’s brand of capitalism. Living in Manhattan made everyone at least a little bit of an expert in counterterrorism.

Astor presented himself to the uniformed guard at the 2 Broad checkpoint. A blond, ruddy-cheeked man dressed in a blue suit stood a few steps away. Hearing Astor’s name, he came forward. “Sloan Thomasson,” he said, extending a hand. “My condolences. I handled security for your father. Come with me.”

Thomasson led the way into the building. Astor cleared the metal detector, and the two continued to a bank of elevators. “Have you visited before?” asked Thomasson.

“Only the floor.”

“Your father’s office is in 11 Wall. The Exchange complex comprises eight buildings that take up the entire block. It’s a real labyrinth.”

The elevator arrived and Thomasson pressed the button for the seventeenth floor.

Astor waited for the doors to close, then asked, “Did you know my father was planning on going to D.C. this weekend?”

“No, sir, I did not. I’m only required to provide security here at the Exchange and for official trips. I spoke with your father Friday morning as he was leaving the office. He told me he was spending the weekend at his home in Oyster Bay.”

“Taking off on a Friday morning? That doesn’t sound like him. Did he seem preoccupied with anything? In any way out of sorts?”

“It’s not my place to say, but as far as I could see, no. We had a trip planned to Atlanta early in the week. Your father didn’t much like dealing with the new owners. Nothing special about that. But preoccupied? No.”

In December 2012, the New York Stock Exchange had been purchased by Interconti

nentalExchange, or ICE, a giant multinational concern active in the trading of futures and derivatives. Astor didn’t think the new owners were the problem. It was his father’s arrogance. Edward Astor didn’t like reporting to anyone but himself.

The elevator slowed. The doors opened. Thomasson zigged and zagged down a series of corridors. Astor stayed at his shoulder. It was his first time in the executive quarters of the Exchange and he was feeling like a rat navigating a maze. Thomasson was right to refer to it as a labyrinth. The corridor emptied into a large, high-ceilinged anteroom with blue carpeting and photographs depicting the Exchange’s history.

“Here we are,” said Thomasson. “Your father’s office is inside. Mrs. Kennedy, his secretary, is expecting you.”

“Thank you.” Astor shook hands. “Tell me something, what did you do before taking this job?”

“Twenty-five years in the Secret Service. My last post was heading up the PPD-the presidential protective detail.”

“Still have friends in the service?”

“Lots.”

“You know what went down last night. What happened?”

“Word is that the driver lost control of the vehicle.”

“The car was making a run across the South Lawn. That’s a little more than jumping a curb and running into a tree.”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

Astor thought Thomasson knew more than he was letting on. “Well?”

Thomasson leaned in closer, as if vouchsafing a secret. “When I said ‘lost control,’ I didn’t mean that he was driving too fast or that it was in any way his mistake. I meant that the driver was no longer able to control the vehicle in any way, shape, or fashion.”

“Then who was?”

Astor waited for an explanation, but Thomasson said nothing more. Before Astor was able to press him, a petite, birdlike woman emerged from her office, walked directly to him, and hugged him. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said.

Astor returned the hug gently. He could feel her sobbing and he held her until she stopped.

“Please, excuse me,” she said, stepping back and wiping her eyes. “I’m Dolores Kennedy. I worked with your father for the past five years.”

Kennedy was a kindly-looking brunette with short hair and a schoolmarm’s inquisitive gaze.

“I’m afraid we weren’t close,” said Astor.

“Oh, I know,” she said, as if the estrangement pained her. “But he talked about you.”

Astor didn’t comment. He didn’t think he’d like to learn what his father had had to say. He thanked Thomasson, then followed Dolores Kennedy into a large suite of offices. “May I look around?”

“The FBI phoned first thing. They requested that none of his belongings be disturbed until their team arrives.”

“I won’t touch anything.”

The secretary shot a glance over his shoulder. Thomasson nodded. “Very well,” she said. “Right in here.”

The office was palatial, with high molded ceilings, dark carpeting, and a desk that would have done a robber baron proud. Photographs of his father ringing the opening bell with various businessmen, entertainers, athletes, and political figures crowded the credenza, vying for space with Lucite blocks announcing the latest companies to list their shares.

The New York Stock Exchange was a business like any other, and its first priority was to turn a profit. It made money in several ways. First, and most important, it charged a fee on every share of stock bought and sold. The amount had plummeted over the years, from dimes to nickels and then lower. These days the Exchange charged fractions of a penny per share traded. It wasn’t a high-margin business. On the other hand, the volume of shares traded had skyrocketed. A normal day saw well over a billion shares change hands.

The Exchange charged a far larger amount to companies that wanted their shares listed, or available for trading. The four thousand listed companies paid annual fees as high as $250,000, earning the Exchange more than $800 million a year. IBM, Caterpillar, Alcoa: they all had to pony up. The NYSE was a very large enterprise indeed.

“If I might be so bold,” said Mrs. Kennedy, “I’m a little surprised to see you.”

Astor responded earnestly but not altogether honestly. “I’m surprised to be here. My father sent me a note last night shortly before the accident occurred. It was the first time in years he tried to contact me. I think he had an idea something bad was going to happen. I wanted to ask you some questions to see if you could shed a little light on what he’d been doing lately.”

“He was a busy man. When he wasn’t traveling, he was hosting guests here at the Exchange or going to meetings.”

“No doubt he was,” agreed Astor. “Can you tell me if he ever mentioned something called Palantir?”

Mrs. Kennedy pursed her lips. Behind her rimless glasses, her eyes were alert and perceptive. “Never heard that word.”

“Never?”

The woman shook her head emphatically.

Astor walked behind his father’s desk. The surface was neat and uncluttered. In and out trays set side by side were empty. He wondered if his father had straightened up, knowing that he might not be back.

“Was he working on anything out of the ordinary?” asked Astor.

“He was seeing Miss Evans quite a bit,” replied Mrs. Kennedy. “She’s his executive assistant. She handles many of his day-to-day assignments-correspondence with our partners, issues with the listed companies and those wishing to list, just about everything.”

“Sharp gal,” added Thomasson, still standing in the doorway. “English. She worked for one of the big banks for a few years. She’s been with us fourteen months.”

“May I speak with her?”

“She’s not in yet,” said Dolores Kennedy.

Astor checked his wristwatch and saw that it was nearly eleven o’clock. “Is she sick?”

Kennedy shot the security agent, Thomasson, a worried glance before returning her attention to him. “She isn’t answering her phone.”

“Do you mind if I try to contact her?”

“I’m not permitted to give you that information.”

“Please, Dolores. It would mean the world.”

She looked back at Thomasson, who nodded. “All right, then,” she said. “Stay right here. I’ll print up her phone and address.”

Kennedy left the room and Thomasson stepped away to answer a call. Suddenly alone, Astor spotted his chance. Moving quickly, he made a reconnaissance of his father’s desk. He opened the top drawer. A leather-bound agenda with the current year stenciled in gold print lay inside. He reached for it, his fingers brushing the cover. The agenda would be considered evidence. Taking it would constitute obstruction of justice, an offense that he knew from his ex-wife counted as a felony. The doorway remained clear. This was hardly the time to worry about the law. Astor snatched the agenda and tucked it into the rear of his trousers, taking care to arrange his jacket over it.

Hardly a second later, Dolores Kennedy returned. “She lives at 1133 Elm Street, Greenwich,” she said, waving a flap of paper. “I’ll give you both her numbers, too.”

Astor stepped away from the desk. The drawer remained open an inch. There was nothing he could do about it now. He crossed the room to the doorway and took the paper with Penelope Evans’s information. “Thank you, Dolores.”

“No, thank you,” the secretary replied. “It would make your father happy to know that you cared.”

“How did you-” Astor cut himself off. “Thanks again.”

“How did you know?”

November 1987. One month after Black Monday, the crash that had seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average lose more than 20 percent of its value in a single day, Bobby Astor sat at a table in the Grill Room of the Four Seasons at 52nd and Park. He had not left school surreptitiously this time. He had come by invitation. A lunch in the city between father and son. The head of school was happy to sign his day pass.

“So you read my paper?” asked Bobby.

“Of course I read it. So did all of my partners. We’re impressed. In fact, we’re more than that. Half of them want you to quit school and come to work for us right now.”

Bobby smiled, his cheeks flushing with pride.

Edward Astor leaned closer. “The other half want to know who you copied your work from.”

The waiter arrived. Edward Astor ordered an old-fashioned. “And give the boy a beer. He thinks he’s an adult anyway.”

The waiter nodded and left the table. The Four Seasons existed in a parallel universe where mortals’ laws held no sway.

“I wrote it,” said Bobby.

“Then tell me. How’d you know?”

“Like I said in the paper. Prices were too high, given earnings. Not just that, they’d risen too fast. Not just in the States but everywhere. It was all in the numbers. Something had to give.”

“Everyone reads the same numbers. Everyone knew P/Es were too high. Your timing was specific. ‘Sell everything now.’”

“The market felt frothy. It just seemed like it was about to give.”

“You’re fifteen,” Edward Astor said. “How do you know what frothy means?”

“Things were out of kilter, that’s all.”

“And this is how you spend your spare time? Studying the market?”

“Pretty much. And playing poker.”

“You’re still not answering my question. How did you know the crash was imminent?”

Bobby looked into his lap, then lifted his chin and met his father’s gaze. “It’s like this, Dad. When I study the numbers and the charts, I get lost in all that data. It’s like I’m swimming in it. All that information becomes part of me. Like in Star Wars. The numbers create some kind of force and I can feel it.”

“You can feel the force?”

“Yeah, I can.” Bobby shrugged. “So how did I know the crash was going to happen soon? I just knew.”

Anger flashed behind Edward Astor’s eyes. His mouth tightened and he rose in his seat. Bobby knew that intuition went against everything his father stood for as an investor. As quickly, his father sat down again. A look of understanding brightened his features. Before he could reply, a diminutive, curly-haired man slid into the booth next to him. The two men spoke quietly for a few minutes. As the man stood to leave, Edward Astor motioned toward Bobby. “Henry,” he said. “This is my son, Robert. Robert, meet Henry Kravis.”

Bobby shook hands and smiled uncertainly.

Edward Astor looked into his son’s eyes. “You’ll want to remember him, Henry. The boy’s a genius. One day he’s either going to be richer than any of us or broke and in the poorhouse.”

Sloan Thomasson was waiting in the antechamber. “Leaving already?”

“I’ve got what I needed,” said Astor. “Can you help me find my way out of here? I’ll never get back to the elevator. You’re right. It’s like a maze.”

“No need to go back. There’s an express elevator that goes down to the ground floor. Normally it’s just for the CEO and his guests. If you don’t mind exiting on Broadway, we can take that.”

“That would be fine,” said Astor. The agenda cut a crease into his lower back. It was difficult to walk without wincing.

Thomasson showed him to the elevator. “Exit at one,” he said.

Astor shook hands and thanked him. The ride to the ground floor required less than ten seconds. He rushed out the door and onto the pavement beyond.

The felon was happy to escape the building.