She nods. “What about the stuff that’s going on at the moment? These shootings. The kids down on Orchard Street. The protest movements, the marches, Occupy. Bain. Isn’t there a renewed interest in the whole private equity thing arising out of all that?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” he says, “but there’s a hell of a lot more to James Vaughan than just private equity. He’s managed to fly under the radar for years, but the fact is he’s involved in virtually everything-finance, domestic and foreign policy, intelligence, the military. My basic problem is I’ve written a biography of someone fascinating who no one has really heard of. Don’t get me wrong, they should have heard of him, but they haven’t, and there isn’t much I can do about that. No one’s interested. It’s too long for Parallax or any other magazine, and publishers just shrug and say who’s James Vaughan?” He pauses. “I suppose I could self-publish, do it as an e-book, but I can’t make the leap. Psychologically. I want someone to make me an offer for it. I want to bloody well get paid for my work.”
“I know,” Ellen says, “I know.” But she’s surprised. “You’ve actually finished it?”
“Pretty much. A full draft, give or take. It’s not Robert Caro or anything, it’s fairly succinct. But I knew if I didn’t nail it, and soon, the damn thing would kill me.”
“House of Vaughan?”
“Yeah.” He smiles, sheepish. “You want to read it?”
“Nah.” She shakes her head. “Of course I do, you moron.”
He reaches into his pocket and takes out a flash drive. He puts it on the bar and slides it across to her.
“I’m paranoid about sending this kind of thing by e-mail. My account has been hacked too many times.”
“Tell me about it.”
She takes the drive and slips it into her pocket. “Thanks. I look forward to reading it.”
And she genuinely does. Because she hopes it amounts to a lot more than what she’s done in the last year and a half, which is a dead-end series of articles about failed presidential candidates, followed by this recent, seemingly never-ending attempt to break into a story that has just persisted in eluding her.
She doesn’t relish the prospect of talking about it, though, of telling him about her various interactions with Frank Bishop over the last week or so-but she will, because there’s actually a small part of her that suspects this story can’t go on eluding her forever.
“So,” Jimmy says, shifting on his stool. “Ellen Dorsey. What have you been up to?”
14
AFTER CHAIRING HIS THIRD CONSECUTIVE MONDAY MORNING SIT-DOWN OF THE SENIOR INVESTMENT DIRECTORS, Craig Howley is beginning to feel that he has some sort of a grip on things. The Bloomberg interview was a triumph, and he’s been getting texts and messages of congratulation ever since-even more, weirdly enough, than when the actual takeover announcement was made. It’s the power of media exposure, he supposes, something that Vaughan himself would have done well to learn about and try to harness years ago. Howley plans on doing more interviews and has scheduled a meeting for later with Beth Overmyer, Oberon’s VP of communications, to sketch out a new media strategy. As a direct result of tonight’s Kurtzmann benefit at the Waldorf-Astoria, photos of him and Jess will be appearing in multiple platforms across the mediasphere, and it seems sort of crazy not to already have a strategy in place to take advantage of that.
It’s funny, but even a couple of weeks ago-at that cocktail party in the Hamptons, say-he couldn’t have foreseen how quickly, and how far, things would progress.
As he gazes out over the office now, mentally stripping away the mahogany panels and ripping up the pile carpets, Howley gets an alert from Angela that he has a call, and that it’s from Vaughan.
He reaches for the phone. What the fuck is this about? Vaughan is the last person he wants to talk to today.
“Jimmy?”
“Yeah. I was thinking.” Good morning to you, too. “A bidding war? Is that really what we want to get into with Tiberius? Because the numbers don’t make a lot of sense to me, Craig. We’re at $23.45 a share, they go $24.15, we counter with $25 something or $26 something, then it’s a war of attrition, no one’s happy, and six months down the road we’re not talking to each other, when we need to be, and all over some crappy retail chain that’s overpriced to begin with?”
Howley can’t believe this. And they were only discussing it earlier, at the meeting. As it happens, Vaughan’s analysis is probably correct, but what does he think he’s doing?
“Jesus, Jimmy, I… I don’t understand, what happened to I’m going to play some golf? I thought you were supposed to be taking it easy.”
“I am taking it easy. But the old batteries are recharged, you know, and I… I can’t help it. I see stuff like this in the papers, what do you want me to do, sit around and watch?”
Yes.
Howley leans far back in his chair and glares up at the ceiling. His batteries are recharged? Holy shit, two weeks ago, less, the man was practically an invalid.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Jimmy.”
“Tell me you agree. Then I’ll set up a lunch with Chris and get him to back off.”
Oh Jesus.
Chris Beaumont, chairman of Tiberius Capital Partners.
“That’s not a good idea, Jimmy. I mean, really.”
“Why not?”
He has to explain it?
“You know what, Jimmy,” he says, “let me think about it and I’ll get back to you, okay?” Then he blusters his way off the phone, saying he’s heading into a meeting.
Unbelievable.
It’s clearly this trial drug Vaughan is on, and something has to be done about it. So less than a minute later Howley is through to Paul Blanford and using some fairly explicit language. The CEO of Eiben-Chemcorp practically has a nervous breakdown on the other end of the line. Howley can hear him hyperventilating.
“I’m doing what I can, Craig, Jesus. What is this? Tell me what you know.”
Howley swivels in his chair. He’s not far from hyperventilating himself. “Whatever this new drug is,” he says, squeezing the receiver, “there’s someone very high profile who has access to it, okay? And they’re fairly, let’s say… volatile. So when this person eventually loses it, which they will, and it gets out that they were hopped up on your untested product, ten years ago will seem like a stroll in the fucking park, do you hear me?”
Blanford goes silent, and Howley can almost hear the cogs turning in his brain.
Who? Who?
It’s the obvious question, but Blanford won’t ask it, not here, not on the phone. It’s only a matter of time in any case. They’re talking about a drug for geriatrics, that much was established in their last conversation, so surely all it will take for Vaughan’s name to come up is one whisper from the rumor mill-one hint of erratic behavior on the old man’s part.
Howley breaks the silence. “You and Cassie are coming this evening, right? To the benefit?”
“Yeah,” Blanford says, though it’s more of a grunt.
“Okay. We’ll talk then.”
Howley hangs up. He gets out from behind his desk and walks over to the window.
He doesn’t feel like laughing exactly, but the idea that Vaughan could go to lunch with someone like Chris Beaumont and just get him to back off, and probably with nothing more than a few coded remarks-it’s really quite impressive. Like many of his contemporaries, Howley himself wields a certain degree of power and influence, but it is prosaic, featureless, a function of structure and hierarchy. This is something else entirely. This is something based on the force of personality that is almost occult and mystical. Okay, turning Chris Beaumont so easily would be a very minor manifestation of this power, but at the same time it would serve as an unwelcome reminder that it still existed.