The Great Wide Open, page 56
‘I appreciate you saying all that.’
‘Adam, of course, can’t really connect to any of this. He brought me to one of his big-deal restaurants recently, a mother–son night out. When I tried to bring this up he dodged the subject completely, saying it was a long time ago and all that. Adam still sidesteps all emotion. Whereas your older brother … he’s got me worried.’
‘Me too.’
This was true. Peter was becoming increasingly solipsistic and depressed. Though he was getting his columns done for the Voice and teaching his classes, a recent romantic disaster with a fellow faculty member at Hunter had knocked him sideways, making him even more preoccupied by his perceived failures.
What I didn’t tell Mom was that, just yesterday afternoon at work, Howie had called me, his voice a little more edgy than usual.
‘Want to meet for a drink later?’
‘I can always tell when something’s up with you. You okay?’
‘Still not sick or dying since we spoke three days ago.’
‘That’s good to hear. But you’re still troubled by something.’
‘Let’s do this over a drink later.’
‘Howie … what is eating you?’
‘I have a friend at Esquire. An editor with whom I’ve been trying to land a profile on one of my writers. We had lunch. The guy – Matt Nathan – likes to booze. And talks a little too much after the second gimlet. Know what he told me? “Next month we’re running this big piece by Peter Burns … you’ve heard of the guy, haven’t you?” I didn’t mention that his sister and I were rather close. I just acknowledged that, yes, I knew of Peter Burns and his two books. “Well, this piece he’s written for us is going to be quite the sensation. Because though you start reading it thinking that it’s an exposé of high-yield interest bonds and all that big-money stuff, within a couple of paragraphs it changes gear – as he starts to talk about his brother Adam and his boss Tad Strickland, who have essentially become the junk bond kings of Wall Street. And what follows is this complete takedown of his brother and the financial world he operates in.”’
I shut my eyes, not believing what I was hearing. I reached for my cigarettes. I lit one up.
‘Yeah, I’d light up something too,’ Howie said, clearly hearing the snap and crack of my Zippo. ‘Because what this Esquire editor also told me was: “The revelations that Burns makes in this article are probably going to land his brother in jail.”’
30
HOWIE KNEW HOW to twist arms, call in favors, find ways to draw information from walled-in sources. But try as he did he still could not get a copy of Peter’s article from Esquire.
‘It’s completely embargoed – at the author’s request,’ he reported. ‘But one thing I have learned from my editor friend there is: the other reason it’s embargoed is because their lawyers are all over the piece, and there is talk that it might be leaked before publication to the Securities and Exchange Commission.’
‘Fuck,’ I said. The financial police meant trouble for Adam. Big trouble.
‘Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news,’ Howie said. ‘From what I can gather the article, besides shopping Adam as a Wall Street crook, also deals with a family and its secrets, and the rivalry between two brothers with a strong undercurrent of dislike for each other, tracing it back to your hard-assed dad.’
‘Fuck fuck fuck.’
‘The good news is that Matt confirmed you don’t feature much in the article – which, by the way, runs an impressive ten thousand words. But he did say one very telling thing: “I sense this is going to get huge play. Because Peter is essentially setting up his brother for a big fall. And he plays, in the article, with the whole moral/ethical issue about whether he should be exposing Adam’s criminality or not.”’
‘But what exactly does he accuse him of?’
‘That’s what they’re refusing to disclose. It’s all very hush-hush. My publicist’s take on it is: if it’s leaked to the SEC in advance – which I sense it will be – the Feds will probably arrest your brother on or around the publication date. Which Esquire’s people can turn into a big coup for the magazine. It could get huge press coverage – and the public debate about whether Peter was right or wrong to do this will mean he is going to come out as a man of either immense moral principle or terrible opportunism, depending on what he reveals about Adam.’
I stubbed out my cigarette, lighting another one immediately.
‘I have to talk to Peter.’
‘If you do – and I don’t know if that’s a good idea – you simply cannot tell him how you heard about this.’
‘I’d never do that. But should I also tell Adam or my parents?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Howie said. ‘This whole story is also sub judice. You could be legally crucified if you warned Adam in advance of what was about to descend on him. He’d then have to tell his shifty boss and then say he flees the country? You’d be implicated. Say your brother starts shredding files, documents, to hide his guilt? You could find yourself up on a charge of aiding and abetting. And it definitely would not look good for me if anyone ever knew … ’
‘Oh, Howie, I can’t thank you enough for giving me the heads-up.’
‘I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d said nothing to you. But you now have to be very careful. Telling Peter you know about its imminent publication – it’s not going to change anything. But maybe you’ll prick his conscience a bit. He will definitely be interviewed by the SEC. Perhaps he can do some advance plea-bargaining for his brother. I’m just riffing here. Try to get the article from Peter. Then sneak it to me – and we’ll plot and plan from there.’
As soon as I put down the phone I had to run into an editorial meeting. I somehow forced myself to appear focused and involved throughout, even though my mind was racing. The meeting overran to 6 p.m. After an obligatory drink with an agent, which I kept to the least amount of time possible, I dialed Peter’s number from the lobby of the bar. He answered on the eighth ring.
‘Hey there,’ I said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘You up to anything tonight?’
‘Kind of buried in stuff here.’
‘Can I get you out for a couple hours? I don’t feel like being on my own tonight.’
‘Anything up?’
‘Just loneliness.’
‘Tell me about it. But I really don’t want to go to Manhattan.’
‘Then I’ll come to you. Give me an hour tops.’
A summer storm had blown into Manhattan. It was one of those New York summer nights when the air was so glutinous that it almost felt like walking through a vat of fried rice. Tropical rain had just hit. Fifth Avenue was suddenly deluged, making the finding of a taxi beyond impossible. I had no umbrella. After waiting ten minutes under the awning of the Plaza, I had no choice but to dash diagonally to the subway station on the northeastern corner of 60th Street. I raced out into the torrent, jogging through rivulets of rainwater. By the time I reached the subway stairs and jumped a train heading south I was beyond drenched. I fell into a seat. Sitting down was a bit like discovering that I was a sponge being squeezed. Water oozed onto the seat beneath me. Forty minutes and two changes of train later, I walked out into a now-clear night, the heat and humidity diminished by the storm.
Peter’s brownstone apartment was on the top floor. When he opened the door, he looked at my doused state with bemusement.
‘You take a shower and forget to undress?’ he asked.
‘Very funny,’ I said. ‘You mean you didn’t notice the downpour?’
‘Had the stereo cranked up and was working on my notes.’
He ushered me in. The place looked as if it needed a serious dusting. There were boxes of documents everywhere and many filled legal pads.
‘This is just a bit obsessive,’ I said.
‘That it is,’ he said.
I kicked off my shoes, the leather soaked through.
Fifteen minutes later, having been availed of a bathrobe and Peter’s shower, I was seated on his sofa, sipping a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and smoking a Viceroy.
‘So what is all this?’ I asked.
‘An article that will have everybody talking. It’s about the way we live now, and how we are allowing the big-money boys to dictate the agenda.’
‘Nice theme,’ I said. ‘Can you be more specific?’
‘I’m going to write a major exposé of Wall Street and its new cupidity. Why it is such a corrupt environment. And how, if allowed, they could morally bankrupt us all.’
‘Any specific part of Wall Street you plan to focus on? High-yield bonds?’
Peter drained his glass of wine, putting it down loudly on the coffee table.
‘You’re a terrible poker player, Alice.’
‘I don’t play poker.’
‘But you do have what’s known in poker as “a tell”. You show your hand without intending to.’
‘And what do I have in my hand?’
‘I know that you know.’
‘Know what?’
‘Don’t bullshit me.’
‘Okay, I won’t,’ I said. ‘So here it is: I know about the Esquire article.’
Even though he knew this was coming he still flinched.
‘Who leaked this to you?’
‘Like you, I’m protecting my sources.’
‘It was Howie, wasn’t it?’
‘Who gave you all the inside dope on Adam?’ I asked.
‘I can’t disclose that.’
‘Then I’m not disclosing my source. But the article really isn’t about Wall Street. What exactly has our brother done?’
‘Toss me a cigarette, will you?’
I threw over the pack of Viceroys. He lit one up.
‘Do we agree that everything I tell you stays in this room?’ he asked.
‘Fine by me.’
He took two long drags on his cigarette. Not to steady himself, but to build suspense.
‘My research and investigative snooping has shown that what Adam is doing with junk bonds is not just morally suspect, it’s also criminal.’
He then went into a detailed explanation on why the junk-bond gamesmanship of Capital Futures, when exposed, was going to be the biggest financial scandal of our time. As Peter talked – in a voice both rapid-fire and a little too vehement for my tastes – I could also begin to discern that what Howie hinted was true: my brother Adam was about to walk into a lot of trouble.
‘Do you understand how “insider trading” works?’ Peter asked.
‘Hardly – being someone who can just about balance her checkbook.’
‘Ever heard of Michael Milken? The guy is the dubious financial wizard who came up with the name “junk bonds” – to describe the high-yield bonds with which he’s raised a huge amount of capital, and has been able to guarantee his investors 100 percent return on any investments in his company. He relocated a few years ago from New York to Beverly Hills. Everybody’s calling Milken a genius, but I smell shit … ’
‘Then why not go after him?’
‘Because his tracks are still well covered. Tad the Crook and his stooge, Brother Adam … ’
‘Don’t call him that.’
‘Why not? He thinks he’s one of the junk bond kings, but he’s at the beck and call of his master. These guys have bought struggling companies, dumped thousands of employees out into the street, financed restructurings through these bond issues, while turning around vast profits for themselves. Do you know that Tad the Crook paid himself $210 million last year and Brother Adam came out with $18 million gross?’
‘Big deal. Why even care about what he makes? Shit, we’ve both profited from his success, his largesse.’
‘We’ve both profited from his cupidity, his dishonesty. My exposé will right that wrong.’
‘The wrong being: he’s made so much money?’
‘The wrong being: with Tad’s encouragement Brother Adam did this big junk-bond refinancing on a giant electronic manufacturing firm based near San Diego, but with subsidiary factories in assorted blue-collar, last-hope towns: Akron, Ohio; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Lewiston, Maine. Brother Adam raised a cool 680 million in a bond issue on a company that was privately owned, but which he helped go public and make a nice little splash on the stock market when the IPO was launched in May. The thing was, Adam got insider information from two senior Wall Street fellows to manipulate the initial price of the stock … and to ensure that it trebled in value for around ten days, during which time he and Tad each put down three million on the stock at the time of the IPO. A clever move, as they sold the stock for nine million apiece ten days later before it fell back to a more realistic pricing level. Add to this the sixty-one million that Capital Futures made from the junk-bond issue, and you have to think: what a pair of super-shrewd guys Tad and Brother Adam are. Except for the fact that getting insider info to manipulate the IPO stock price is the very wrong side of illegal. They’ve also used a whole web of aliases to disguise stock purchases – which is also against the law. But the most morally reprehensible thing about all this is the fact that Adam did the junk-bond issue knowing full well that he was demanding, from the board of the electronics company, a complete corporate restructuring, which meant closing down all the factories in the States and moving the entire operation to the union-free, one-dollar-an-hour, screw-the-workers paradise that is Mexico. Brother Adam not only engaged in serious financial chicanery, but also cost three hard-up blue-collar towns around six thousand jobs.’
I stared into my glass of wine, not only shocked by what Peter had just told me, but also by the fact that he had somehow dug up all this unsettling information. That was my next question.
‘I’m asking you again: how did you find all this out?’ I asked.
‘It’s amazing what you discover when you start to burrow into other people’s business. I’ve been working on this story for about three months.’
‘In other words the last time that we had dinner with Adam – seven or eight weeks ago – you were already amassing information to destroy his career.’
‘I’m not destroying his career. When the article is published you will see that the center of the piece will be a writer discovering that his brother is a high-level crook.’
‘In other words: you’ve fictionalized it?’
‘Stop acting like some naive rube, rather than the hard-nosed New York publisher you’ve become. You know this is going to be a work of non-fiction, part investigative reporting, part memoir, and it is going to talk volumes about families and all the clandestine stuff that goes on within them.’
‘So you are going to not just put Adam in severe legal jeopardy, you are also going to reveal all about us as well?’
‘I wrote about Dad before in my first book, I wrote about Mom and Dad and their reaction to my radical politics in the last one –’
‘But here you are going to be writing something that could land your brother in jail.’
‘If that happens because of my article don’t blame me. Adam did something illegal, and continues to do so.’
‘If that’s the case then why haven’t the SEC busted him by now?’
‘Because they don’t have the inside dope that I’ve found.’
‘Again I ask: how did you find it, besides research and investigative reporting legwork?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘It’s now my business too. Because he’s also my brother. And because I don’t really know why you’re doing this.’
‘You mean, you are going to sit there and tell me you condone his avarice?’
Peter’s tone had veered into that self-righteous zone of his: a tone that I found grating and just a little smug because he came across as a scold, and one who knew better than me.
I chose my next words with care.
‘I don’t know all the facts of the case. Can I read the article?’
‘It’s embargoed until the end of next month, when Esquire publishes it. But I can show you the page proofs a few days before the magazine goes to press.’
‘I am your sister – and you’re telling me I can’t see the article that will probably destroy our brother?’
‘Before this conversation I’d have shown it to you. But now …’
‘Now what?’
‘Now you are clearly not giving me the response I’d hoped for.’
‘And what response is that? “Oh, fantastic, Peter – you get to tell the world about how you discovered that your brother was a Wall Street crook, and how you decided to raise your literary capital by doing the dirty on your brother”?’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Not fair? You dare talk about fair? Adam played fast and loose with the regulatory rules. But he didn’t kill anyone, nor was he an accomplice in a murder.’
My brother stared at the floor, saying nothing.
‘Adam insisted on the restructuring of a company,’ I said. ‘That might not win him prizes for social responsibility. But it is, in the end, just business.’
‘Since when did you become a cheerleader for the fat cats?’
‘I bet your editors at Esquire are beside themselves. What a splash this is going to make.’
‘Are you going to tell Adam?’
‘If I could read the article … ’
‘I can’t allow that.’
‘Then I am telling Adam.’
‘Go right ahead.’
That threat didn’t throw him.
‘If I promise not to tell anyone about the article … ’
‘When you read it you will feel obliged to tell everyone about it. From the moment you “just dropped by” tonight, in the pouring rain, talking about feeling all alone in the world, I knew you’d been tipped off and were on the hunt to find out more.’
‘I know why you’re really doing this: because it will get you all the media attention and press coverage and invites to all the cool parties and maybe even some Hollywood money again – all the glittering prizes that you have so craved ever since Samantha dumped you and your career never matched that one brief shining moment when –’
