“How’d you find out?”
“The scuttlebutt — twenty-twenty hindsight, while the rest of us licked our wounds.”
“How was he able to predict the crash?”
“Prescience. The best players have it. It’s a combination of a great data base and a kind of ESP you get from being in the game a long time. I used to think I had it, but I got chastened — no big deal. Life was getting boring, and rebuilding’s more fun than just treading water. But Chuck Jones does have it. I’m not saying he never loses. Everyone does. But he wins a lot more than he loses.”
“What’s he into now?”
“I don’t know — like I said, close-to-the-cuff’s his style. Invests only for himself, so he’s got no shareholders to deal with. I doubt, though, that he’s high on real estate.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because real estate’s a turkey. I don’t mean for someone like you who bought in years ago and is just looking for some stable income. But for traders out for a quick profit, the party’s over, at least for now. I divested myself a while ago, moved back into stocks. Jones is smarter than me, so odds to evens he got there before I did.”
“His son owns a big block of land out in the Valley.”
“Who said wisdom is genetic?”
“His son’s a college professor. I don’t think he was able to buy fifty parcels for himself.”
“Probably his trust fund — I don’t know. You’ll still have to convince me Chuck’s getting into r.e. in a big way. The land the hospital’s on is Hollywood, right?”
“Several acres,” I said. “Purchased a long time ago — the hospital’s seventy years old — so it’s probably all paid for. Even in a slump, a sale would be pure profit.”
“Sure it would, Alex. But to the hospital itself. What’s Jones’s incentive?”
“Commission on the deal.”
“How many acres are we talking about and where exactly are they?”
“Five or so.” I told him Western Peds’s address.
“Okay, so that’s ten, fifteen million — let’s even say twenty because of contiguous lots. Which is liberal, because that big of a chunk would be hard to unload, so you might have to subdivide into smaller parcels. That could take time — there’d be zoning hassles, hearings, permits, environmental shenanigans. The biggest cut Chuck could take for himself without attracting a commotion would be twenty-five percent — ten’s more likely. Meaning two to five mil in his pocket... No, I can’t see Chuck messing around for that kind of money.”
“What if there’s more to it?” I said. “What if he not only plans to close down one hospital but is also figuring to open up a new one on his son’s land?”
“All of a sudden he’s in the hospital business? I doubt it, Alex. No offense, but health care’s a turkey too. Hospitals have been going belly-up almost as fast as savings and loans.”
“I know, but maybe Jones figures he can do a good job anyway, bucking the trend. You just said he doesn’t pay attention to what everyone else is doing.”
“Anything’s possible, Alex, but once again you’d have to prove it to me. Where’d you come up with all this theorizing, anyway?”
I told him about Plumb’s comments in the paper.
“Ah, the other name on your list. Him, I’d never heard of him, so I looked him up in every directory I’ve got. What emerges is your basic corporate drone: M.B.A., doctorate, a series of management jobs, climbing the ladder. His first job was at a national accounting firm named Smothers and Crimp. Then he moved into the head office at another place.”
“Where?”
“Hold on — I wrote it down somewhere... Here we go. Plumb, George Haversford. Born, ’34; married Mary Ann Champlin, ’58; two kids, blah blah blah... out of grad school in ’60 with a D.B.A.; Smothers and Crimp, 1960 through ’63, left as a partner. Controller, Hardfast Steel in Pittsburgh, ’63 till ’65; Controller and chief operating officer, Readilite Manufacturing, Reading, Pennsylvania, ’65 through ’68; a step up to CEO at an outfit called Baxter Consulting, stayed there till ’71; ’71 through ’74 at Advent Management Specialists; went out on his own with the Plumb Group, ’74 till ’77; then back into the corporate world in ’78 at a place called Vantage Health Planning, CEO till ’81—”
“The guy hops around a lot.”
“Not really, Alex. Moving around every couple of years in order to up your ante is your basic corporate drone pattern. It’s one of the main reasons I dropped out of it early. Hell on the family — lots of booze-hound wives who smile a lot and kids who turn delinquency into an art form... Where was I? Vantage Health till ’81; then it looks as if he began specializing in medical stuff. Arthur-McClennan Diagnostics for three years, Neo-Dyne Biologicals for another three, then MGS Healthcare Consultants — the Pittsburgh place you asked me to look up.”
“What’d you find out about it?”
“Small-to-medium hospital outfit specializing in acute-care facilities in small-to-medium cities in the northern states. Established in ’82 by a group of doctors, went public in ’85, OTC issue, poor stock performance, got reprivatized the next year — bought out by a syndicate and shut down.”
“Why would a syndicate buy it, then shut it down?”
“Could be any number of reasons. Maybe they discovered buying it was a mistake and tried to cut their losses fast. Or they wanted the company’s resources, rather than the company itself.”
“What kinds of resources?”
“Hardware, investments, the pension fund. The other group you asked about — BIO-DAT — was originally a subsidiary of MGS. The data analysis arm. Before the buy-out it got sold to another concern — Northern Holdings, in Missoula, Montana — and was maintained.”
“Is it a public company?”
“Private.”
“What about the other companies Plumb worked for? Are you familiar with any of them?”
“Not a one.”
“Are any of them public?”
“One second and I’ll tell you... Got the old PC cooking. Let me make a scan list. You want to go all the way back to the accountants — Smothers and whatever?”
“If you’ve got the time.”
“Got more time than I’m used to. Hold on just one second.”
I waited, listening to keyboard clicks.
“All right,” he said, “now let’s scroll up the exchanges and run a search... here we go.”
Beep. “Nothing on the New York.”
Beep. “No Amex listings on any of them, either. Let’s see about the Nasdaq...”
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“No listings, Alex. Let me check the list of private holdings.”
Beep.
“Doesn’t look like it, Alex.” A slight edge in his voice.
“Meaning none of them are in business?”
“Looks like it.”
“Do you find that unusual?”
“Well,” he said, “businesses do fail or close down at a pretty high rate, but this Plumb guy does seem to be the kiss of death.”
“Chuck Jones hired him to run the hospital, Lou. Care to revise your thinking about his intentions?”
“Think he’s a spoiler, huh?”
“What happened to the other companies Plumb was associated with?”
“That would be hard to find out — they were all small, and if they were privately held, there’d be no stock ramifications, little or no coverage in the business press.”
“What about the local press?”
“If it was a company town with lots of people being thrown out of work, maybe. But good luck tracking that down.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Is this really important, Alex?”
“I don’t know.”