“Okay,” she says, going with it, “thanks.”
In the cab a while later, she tries to do a little rearranging in her head. Ratt Atkinson she can dispose of today, at a push. It’s not a complicated story, all the details have already been fact-checked, and it’ll tell itself, really.
That’ll give her time tomorrow to read up on Jeff Gale.
And on Northwood Leffingwell.
She looks out the window of the cab, Amsterdam Avenue flickering past, and realizes something.
It’s been a while, but she’s excited.
2
“SO, HOW IS THE OLD MAN?”
Craig Howley watches John Kemp wince a little as he says this, but there’s really no other way for him to put it.
They both know what he’s asking.
Howley looks around, surveys the room. At least they’re not talking about Jeff Gale anymore. “He’s fine, you know. Not as young as he used to be. It’s nothing specific, just a gradual…” He pauses, catching himself here. “He’s fine.”
“Yeah.”
James Vaughan. Chairman of the Oberon Capital Group. Eighty-four years old, born a week before the Crash. Which turned out to be a good omen actually, at least as far as his old man was concerned, because later that very week the same William J. Vaughan shorted a pool of stocks on a downtick and cleared over a hundred million dollars.
All these years later and what’s changed?
“He hasn’t stopped working or anything,” Howley says.
“Oh sure, of course.” Kemp has a knowing look on his face. “Guess he wants to go out with his boots on.”
“No, but really, John, I mean it.” An edge in Howley’s voice now. “He’s still chairman and CEO. He’s still running things.”
Kemp nods along, but doesn’t pursue it. It’s a cocktail party, Saturday evening, East Hampton.
There’s a time and a place.
Which is just as well, Howley thinks. Because it’s bad enough to have a little WSJ prick like John Kemp fishing for gossip about Jimmy Vaughan, but here? With these people?
He moves along, glass in hand, mingling. Never his strong suit. Jessica is working the other side of the room, tireless as ever in promoting her latest gala benefit for the Kurtzmann Foundation. Howley admires the ease with which she carries herself in any setting. Although he’s now the number two at Oberon, and thus one of the top financial dogs in attendance this evening, he still considers himself more of a Pentagon guy than a Wall Street guy. He could effectively buy and sell half of the people here, but he doesn’t feel like he’s one of them.
At the same time, and given the rumors about Vaughan’s health, he knows that the question of who will ultimately take over at Oberon is one of the hot topics of the moment.
And that everyone assumes it’s him. Or at least assumes that he assumes it’s him.
Which he does.
So he has to be careful what he says, and to whom.
Because with Jimmy Vaughan you don’t ever assume anything. You just keep working, making connections, cutting deals, bringing it home.
Naturally enough, Howley does hope it’s him. Being brought in last year as COO is one good indicator, and a very clear public endorsement, but what he believes should be an even more reliable indicator is his actual working relationship with Vaughan. Complex and of many years standing, it’s a relationship that has benefited both of them hugely, a recent example being that thanaxite supply chain they set up out of Afghanistan. It’s been a cordial relationship, too, and generally free of bullshit, which Howley puts down to the fact that he’s not intimidated by Vaughan, and never has been.
“Craig.”
Howley turns.
“Terry.” Hasselbach. Another little prick, hedge fund guy. “How are you?”
“I’m good, yo.”
Howley groans silently, covers it with a smile. He’s twenty-five years older than this guy, just as Jimmy Vaughan is twenty-five years older than him. Which isn’t a problem, not in relation to Vaughan, he doesn’t think about it, but guys like this? Buffed, mouthy Adderall-heads, still in their early or mid-thirties… he doesn’t know, what is it? Anyway, they get talking-stock picks, dream deals-and within minutes two or three others have joined in.
And Howley realizes something.
For all their cockiness and walls of money, these guys are looking to him as some kind of an oracle. It’s clearly the Vaughan factor, a sprinkle of stardust from the old man-who you don’t let down, by the way. He drops you into the number two position at Oberon, you’d better believe you’re some kind of a fucking oracle-believe it and behave accordingly. At the Pentagon, it was a little different. There was always room for ambivalence, room for creative ambiguity. And expectations were different as well, less concrete, less performance-driven. In private equity you either make money or you lose it, and that’s it.
Who has the stones, who doesn’t.
“Where am I looking?” he says, and tilts his head to one side. “Well, I’ll tell you one area, it’s not the only one, but… health care.” This gets a muted response from the hedgies. What, no inside track on the latest DARPA-funded robotics program or new advanced precision-kill weapons system? Apparently not. Howley raises his glass to his lips, taking his time. Then, “Thirty years ago you know how much of our GDP was devoted to health care? Three percent. Now it’s heading for twenty. Think about it. You’ve got a whole generation of baby boomers coming to retirement age, and remember”-he waves his left hand around, to take in the room, the beachfront, the Hamptons-“this is the wealthiest generation of people we’ve ever seen, not just in U.S. history but in the history of the entire fucking world. So you think they’ll spare any expense when it comes to their artificial hips and knees and whatever? When it comes to, I don’t know, stem cell therapies and assisted living technologies? No? Me neither. It’ll be whatever’s required, and that’s going to mean more and more of GDP getting channeled into health care.” Everyone nodding now. “So in my view, over the next ten, fifteen years, investments in the sector will do pretty well.”
This isn’t some big secret or anything, but coming from him, with his signature delivery-conspiratorial, almost whispered-it very much sounds like one. It’s certainly enough to please the assembled pack.
Howley glances over at Jessica. She’s deep in conversation with some chunky, hatchet-faced woman he doesn’t recognize. A member of the board of trustees, no doubt, or the wife of a principal donor. He looks at his watch. He’d like to get out of here soon.
“So, Craig,” Terry Hasselbach says, “what’s this I keep hearing about an IPO?”
Howley turns and glares at him. The IPO story isn’t a big secret either, far from it, there’s been plenty of speculation about Oberon going public in recent days-but it’s not something he’s willing to discuss, not with these guys.
He peers into his glass and swirls what’s left in it around. “Speaking of rumors, Terry,” he says, looking up, “did I read somewhere lately that you were a nosy little cocksucker?”
No one reacts to this for a moment.
Howley keeps looking at him.
Then Terry Hasselbach laughs. It’s a weasely laugh, but it breaks the tension. To move things on, someone brings up Jeff Gale.
Again.
The subject has been unavoidable all day.
“They’re saying he might have been into some mob guys for-”
“Oh, what, gambling debts? Get out of here. That’s ridiculous.”
“No, that it was an escort thing, some agency, and that after Spitzer and all they didn’t want to lose-”