Banksters 42: Pregnant Pauses

I went back to work. There was still so much left to do to prepare. Until Julee rapped on my door. She let herself in. “Morning,” I said.

“Afternoon,” she corrected me.

I checked my watch, and she was right. “Son of a bitch. Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“I hear Petra is making an honest baby daddy out of you. She doesn’t honestly think you’ll marry her, does she?”

“I think she does- or it would make her enthusiasm awfully cynical.”

“Do you?”

“No. Ultimately, our relationship is predicated on my trying to minimize the danger she represents to my interests. Keeping her around indefinitely creates more exposure, not less. It would be impractical.”

“So now you’re all pragmatic?” she asked facetiously, trying not to show any hurt at all.

“When was I not?” I asked, not expecting the answer to satisfy either of us. “If you’re question’s just about Petra, than the answer is never. More generally? I’d say nobody wants to be alone. Some of us need to. Some of us should be. Some of us believe that we hunt better when not in packs. But no one wants to be alone; occasional solitude, sure. But being alone is just so lonesome.”

She wanted to want to be alone. But she couldn’t. And that made her feel weak. But really, it was only feeling weak that made her weak. She wanted to push other people away so she didn’t have to feel bad about not wanting to push them away. And I don’t know if it got more lonesome than that. 

“I assume you didn’t just want to wax poetic about loneliness,” she said bitterly.

“Actually, that’s an apt segue, because I’d like to get two people back together.”

“So now you want me playing cupid?”

“Actually, I want the woman playing cupid, or, at least, I want the man to think she’s playing cupid. Later on, I’ll want the police to think he was playing cupid. Electronically.”

“So you want me to clone his IP address?”

“In a nutshell.”

“That’s all?”

“Unless you want to seduce and then drug a woman.” A skeptical eyebrow went up. “See, I thought that’s how you’d react, that’s why I didn’t lead with that. I figured a little light computer work was more your speed.”

“Light?”

“As far as I know.”

“I don’t think you appreciate me,” she pouted, leaning against my desk towards the window, not wanting to look me in the eye.

“I know how much I need you on this,” I said, setting my chin on her shoulder, pressing myself against her and wrapping my arms around her waist. 

“And that amount better be fucking shitloads,” she said, and rubbed her face against my cheek. 

“At least,” I said. “I’ll type up the messages I want sent. There’ll be one a day, at least, for the next few days.”

“As soon as I’ve got them, I’ll get them posted,” she said, turned towards me and pressing herself in close enough to kiss. “But you’re going to owe me.”

“You make it sound like such a chore,” I said, “when it all sounds awfully win-win for me.”  

At close of business, Richard called me into his office. But he didn’t relay the message through his secretary and then mine. He dialed me directly. I didn’t know what to make of that. I gathered up my coat, because I wanted to look like he’d barely caught me on my way out the door, then walked to his office. He was staring down at the city outside his window, a drink in hand I didn’t think he’d touched. 

“Allistair Neville’s had a nervous breakdown. He may never practice again- and almost certainly not for us. I want to name Henry York his successor tomorrow. I know you and Henry have had volatile dealings in the past, and rather than let this develop into another Daria situation, I wanted to nip this in the bud. You’ve proven invaluable to me, but I want to make sure you don’t start biting the hand that feeds you.”

“Promoting York would be a mistake. Daria never got a chance to follow up on it because of her leave, but I reported to her some time ago that York isn’t who he claims to be. In fact, he blames you, personally, for his parents’ death. The ‘mistakes’ he’s made, those were deliberate sabotage. He wanted the company caught up in illegal dealings, and shamed, and if he could manage to put you in jail- that was just gravy.”

“Then why am I only now hearing about this?”

“Because you’re about to promote him, and that would be a mistake. Until now, I’ve been able to quietly neutralize him. If I’d told you earlier, you’d have fired him, and the US Attorney he’s been trying to feed information to, she would have come down on us like an entire skyscraper built from bricks. And instead, I’ve convinced her to work for us.”

“What?”

“I knew it was only a matter of time before Neville caved in to the pressure. York had something on him.”

“That stupid little black girl,” Richard said through grit teeth.

“He used that to force his way onto the legal staff. But he’s been caught between a rock and a hard place ever since the hire. Meanwhile, I’ve been buttering up Simmes.”

“So we can fire York?”

“Better: we can bury him. We transfer him to the part of legal that proofs merger and acquisition contracts. He can keep his title and pay, but eventually he’ll quit, since he won’t be anywhere he can muckrake. And in the interim he’ll be neutered. But I think I’ve come up with a strategy, to survive whatever it is that Warwick has planned.”

“First, we need to sell more shares to dilute the stock. It’ll drives up the cost of the investment they have to make to get more votes on the board. And it shrinks the value of any investments they’ve already made. We sell any assets we can afford to lose- and if we have to take a loss even better, because the point is trying to make the company more costly to buy, while making it worth less.”

“Second, we make sure the press gets wind of Warwick’s financial troubles. That’ll send their stock prices into the toilet. And then, we use the money we’ve made to buy up shares of Warwick Financial; Arnie tells me they’re overleveraged enough that we could actually take them over. It’s called a Pac-man defense.”

“And as a bargaining chip, we buy up credit default swaps for Warwick as a hedge against our investment. That way, no matter what happens to their company, we make money. Since they’re so damnable intent on playing chicken, we make sure their trunk is full of something very flammable.”

“That’s beautiful. So fucking beautiful I’d hug you, but I have an erection, and I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong kind of idea.”

“The idea that I’m being hugged by a man with an erection?”

“Exactly.”

“Handshake?”

He put out his hand and said, “So long as you’re not thinking about my erection while you shake it.”

I started to reach for his hand, then stopped. “Now I can’t.” I patted him on the shoulder.

“Fine work,” he said.

I spent the next couple of hours on a dating website. When everything was said and done, I called Grey. “Alice Mott has a dating profile up on Plenty of Fish. I set you up one, and sent her a message. She responded in an hour, so she must be awfully interested. I texted you the password, so you can read what ‘you’ wrote. But she’s suggested dinner this weekend.”

“Anything I need to know about her? Does she like a woman who’s tough, or does she prefer the softer side.” 

“It’s a thin line. Alice wants to feel protected- but she doesn’t want to feel like she’s with someone who could easily overpower her. So most of the time she just carries a stun gun.”

“Oh, I so do not want to get tazed.”

“Nope, no tazing, only teasing. A little foreplay, some drinks doctored with ketamine, and we drop her off at home. We’re on a deadline, though; Rob’s meeting her at home at 9 for their rape-date.”

“Is that what it sounds like?”

“If it sounds like people on Craigslist organizing fake rapes to get their jollies, then yes. Although technically this one was arranged through Facebook.”

“You’re a sick man.”

“Nothing’s going to come of it. Julee, from corporate security, will have intercepted some threatening messages from Rob while working late. She’ll call the police, and they’ll put a stop to it.”   

“And you’ll be there to see that things go smoothly?”

“Every step of the way.” I noticed my tone was soothing, despite the fact that she didn’t need it, and I hadn’t intended it. That was disturbing.

But it was about time to go. In fact, it was past time, and starting to get dark outside. I packed up my things, and left the office. I was surprised to find Petra still at her desk, waiting for me. “I was hoping I could come over,” she said. “I’d like to cook you dinner.”

“I don’t really have anything in my fridge.”

“We can stop at a store.”

“I usually have my assistant do that sort of thing.”

“I don’t do your shopping.”

“Really? Cause it sounded like you just volunteered to start.”

“Fine. But I’m telling you right now, if you make me shop alone, you’re getting an unmerinated block of tofu, peanut butter stew, a macrobiotic burrito and vegan chocolate mousse- which if you’ve never seen it, looks like baby diarrhea, and as an expectant father, might be something you should get used to.”

“I had no idea you were such a passive aggressive shopper.”

“And actually, peanut butter stew is really good, it only looks like someone did something horrible to your food.”

“Something worse than baby diarrhea?”

“That depends on your feelings about baby diarrhea.”

“So we’re shopping, then.”

“Smart man.”