“You alright?” he asked. Nathan just nodded. Having successfully stifled his nervous laughter, Tom continued. The carcass gets skinned and split in half, he explained. Then it’s subjected to Steam Pasteurization, during which the meat is blasted with steam at 180 degrees while passing through a stainless steel chamber thirty-two feet long. When the beef emerges from “SP,” as Grath called it, another operator does a Steam Vacuum. The “SV” process is just like a carpet cleaner, he told them. It uses hot water and steam in a vacuum to pick off any remaining hair or fecal matter. “That’s cow shit for you fellas in New York City,” Grath said with a chuckle. He knew they knew he had never been close to cow shit.
After this, according to Grath’s running commentary, the meat was cut up and finally tested for contaminants. Tom stopped at this point to eat the last of his salmon and check Nathan’s intestinal stability.
“You okay?” he asked, patting his own stomach.
“Yeah,” said Nathan.
“Here’s the thing,” Tom said, “there’s always some meat that tests positive for E. coli. What they do with that meat is sell it to people who make chili-”
“What!”
“No, no. Don’t laugh. It’s true. They sell the bad meat for chili and dog food because it’s cooked before it’s sold to the public. Remember, if you cook beef to 160 degrees the E. coli is killed off. It’s only a serious problem when you eat those burgers rare. Grath said he himself adds prune puree to ground beef before making a burger; it’s supposed to suppress the E. coli, and, he says, makes the burger taste better if its cooked well done. So anyway, it’s the chili folks and others who make precooked beef products who get all the contaminated meat.”
“Holy shit,” Nathan said. “Do you eat chili?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Me neither. Not anymore. Is that legal? Selling it for chili?”
“It’s either legal or nobody much cares. Pat says that’s SOP. But what happened here is they needed so much meat to make their own quota that, first, they didn’t test as much of the meat as they’re supposed to. A lot of it went straight to the grinders. Second, some of the inspectors were tired, hungover, whatever-not up to their usual standards. Those guys work for the government, but they’re local people too. They were driving the line. Production was beyond plant capacity and they cut some corners. When they grind this stuff, according to Grath, it all gets mixed together, sort of like putting dressing on a salad and tossing it. The E. coli present in one batch spreads to others, and the whole thing with ground beef is that it’s so thoroughly combined the bacteria shows up everywhere.”
“Just the ground beef?” Nathan asked.
“No, not just the ground beef, but it’s a much bigger problem than with steaks or other cuts of beef. Once you clean those they’re apparently okay. Keep in mind, Nathan, I’m telling you what Pat told me. He said there are more than a hundred million cattle in this country, and we eat thirty-five million of them every year. I’ve got no reason to doubt him on these technical issues, but we can’t be a hundred percent sure.”
“Dr. Roy didn’t tell us any of this,” said Nathan.
“Meat packing and animal slaughter is not exactly her area of expertise.”
“Yeah, I know… all that doctor-doctor shit.” Nathan got up from the chair next to his couch, went to his private bathroom, and emerged a few minutes later. Tom was still sitting there.
“So, there’s no way there’s nothing to this?” the wiry little man asked Tom. Tom could see Nathan was physically trying to squeeze out of this-weasel out if he could. He’d seen Nathan Stein like this before. Just tell him there’s a way out and he’ll take it, and when it blows up in your face, he’ll blame you. On the other hand, Tom knew, tell Nathan Stein he’s in a bind, that the monsters have surrounded his house, and he becomes a single-minded fighting maniac. Tom decided that’s what was needed now.
“No,” Tom said. “Billy Mac is fucked. That means we’re fucked.”
“I want to know what our options are.”
They decided to meet again later that afternoon and have Wes and Louise join them. Tom’s responsibility was to coordinate with the others and present a battle plan for Nathan’s approval. The meeting would be in Maloney’s office, where he knew Nathan felt comfortable.
They gathered at three o’clock. Wesley Pitts spoke first. He nodded several times. “Let me give my conclusion first, and then explain my logic.” He’d been working on this all day, calling around, putting out feelers, checking with players who mattered. He’d spent the last hour and a half thinking about his alternatives, trying to come up with new ones. At the end he hadn’t budged from the first idea that came to him on the phone during Pat’s initial call, but he’d steadily built up a weight of anxious concern. Now he was more than ready to pass it around.
“If we tell Billy MacNeal to recall his meat and take his plant off line, we are fucked. There is no way around it. First we are fucked with the mutual funds. I went all out with them. I put my credibility on the line, the credibility of this firm. You know it hasn’t been easy. Some of these people have doubts. They don’t like that much cash going into Billy’s pockets. They think we’re generously structured. It’s taken a lot to keep them in line. If we pull back for a minute, postpone, show any weakness, they will walk. And then there will be a stampede. After that we won’t have a second chance. Not only will they not commit a cent, they will laugh at me for trying. And that’s just the beginning. Some of these guys do guest shots on cable and Wall Street Week, and the rest. We drop the ball on this and they will be talking about it. They will make it, and us, a joke.”
Wesley wiped his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief. To Louise, the shining cotton looked like a bandage raised to a flowing wound. She’d never seen him quite this way, caught between fear and fury. Usually that part was under wraps. Nor had she seen him this eloquent. His normal act was a powerful mix of intellectual force and locker-room vigor. She considered him unique, morally righteous. How many ex-professional football players actually married a woman-a girl, really-he got pregnant? Pitts did. And while Pitts lived in Manhattan while his wife and daughter lived in Detroit, Louise thought she understood. She admired him.
He led with his meticulous grasp of facts based on research; delivered his pitch with celebrity panache, a winner’s edge of certainty. And he closed with the knack of knowing the answer before his opposite number thought of the question. He typically spoke slowly, weighting his words with belief. He wasn’t speaking slowly now. Louise was fascinated. She was also thrilled.
“People will want to know what went wrong. And it won’t take them long to find out Billy shut his Lucas plant because it was putting out poisoned meat. And it won’t only be Lucas. All of his plants will have to go down. Pat and Billy swear the other plants are clean, but who knows, and the government doesn’t care. If Billy shuts down Lucas, the public will demand he shut them all. And he might even have to shoot his whole captive herd. The minute he recalls one pound of meat, they won’t have any choice. It’ll make a helluva story. Stein, Gelb, the Texas tycoon, and the horse’s ass.” Nathan seemed about to say something, but Pitts refused to surrender momentum. “I’m just getting started.”
Louise flicked her eyes to Nathan. He looked like a dreadful statue, mouth frozen half-open, stone eyes locked on Wesley, Adam’s apple painfully sharp. With this kind of news, Nathan would be looking to her. She’d be his real hope now. Tom would try to soften the edges, but she could turn it around. And Wesley was setting the stage. She felt the excitement build inside her as Wesley thundered on.
“Now, let’s move to the mutual funds that currently hold Alliance stock. They’ve been expanding positions based on what Hopman’s putting out on the Second Houston deal. We postpone and they start asking questions. The deal looks weak and Alliance drops three or four points. Now those guys are in Hopman’s face. Is he fucking with them, or what? Here’s what they start to believe: We are peddling Billy Mac’s bullshit and Hopman’s peddling ours. Here’s what I think we’re looking at. First, no Second Houston IPO, now or ever. Second, busted credibility with the funds I’ve been working, and the funds holding Alliance stock. Third, a foreseeable parting of the ways vis-a-vis Hopman and everyone he knows.”