Then he drives back to his loft, whistling a merry tune.
He wakes Wednesday morning, mouth tasting like a wet wool sock and stomach ready to do a Krakatoa. He resolves never again to drink Italian brandy with kosher hot dogs, baked beans, and sauerkraut. Even Cleo, who shared the same meal, looks a mite peaked.
He trudges down to the office. It’s an unexpectedly sharp day, with a keen, whistling wind. Breathing that etheric air is like having a decongestant inhaler plugged up each nostril. But by the time he hits John Street, he’s feeling a lot better and figures he’ll live to play the violin again.
“Thanks for stopping by,” Samantha Whatley says bitterly. “So glad you could make it. And it isn’t even payday.”
“Hey,” he says, “you know I’ve been busy with Pistol and Burns. Practically living with G. Fergus Twiggs.”
“Practically living with him, huh? That’s why you’ve got three messages on your desk to phone him as soon as possible.”
“Oh,” Cone says. “Well, something must have come up. I’ll give him a call.”
“That’s more than you do for me,” she says in a low voice. “You bastard!”
“I’ve really been busy,” he says lamely, and flees to his own cubbyhole office before she starts bitching about his missing progress reports.
There are the three messages from Twiggs, and one from Joseph D’Amato. Cone calls the sergeant first.
“Christ, you’re a hard man to get hold of,” the NYPD detective says. “I called you at home a couple of times, then figured I’d try your office. Listen, you and I have got to have a talk.”
“Sure. How about noon here in the office? We can have a sandwich and schmooze as long as you like.”
“Suits me,” D’Amato says. “I’ll be there.”
“You got something for me?” Cone asks hopefully.
“See you at noon,” the sergeant says and hangs up.
Cone then calls G. Fergus Twiggs. Getting through to the senior partner of Pistol amp; Burns is akin to requesting an audience with the Q. of E., but the Wall Street dick waits patiently, and eventually Twiggs comes on the line. His normally cheery voice sounds dejected.
“I’m afraid we have another one,” he reports.
“An insider leak?”
“Yes. On a deal that’s barely gotten under way. I just don’t understand it. Very depressing.”
“I can be in your office in half an hour. I won’t take much of your time, but I think it’ll make you happier.”
“Then by all means come ahead.”
Timothy is in the office of P amp;B in twenty minutes, and moments later is closeted with the Chief of Internal Security. The plump little man is sagging. All he can manage is a tinselly smile.
“It’s a merger,” he tells Cone. “Two food processing companies. I prefer not to mention the names.”
“Sure. That’s okay.”
“Anyway, it’s still in the early stages. Surely no more than fifty people know about it. But there’s already increased trading in the stock of the smaller company. The share price is up two dollars since Monday.”
“Uh-huh,” Cone says. “I suppose documents have been prepared.”
“Of course. Preliminary proposals. Suggestions for stock swaps between the two companies. Analyses of the problems of merging the two management groups.”
“And the documents have been printed up and distributed to those fifty people?”
“Naturally. They’re all involved and have to be kept informed of what’s going on.”
“Who’s your printer?”
“Bechtold Printing on Tenth Avenue. We’ve been using them for years. Absolutely trustworthy. Every Christmas Frederick Bechtold sends me a smoked ham.”
“Do you know anyone at Snellig Firsten Holbrook?” Cone asks suddenly.
Twiggs looks at him, puzzled. “Yes, I know Greg Vandiver, a risk arbitrage attorney. He crews for me in the Saturday yacht races at our club.”
“Will you call him right now, please, and ask him the name of the printer used by Snellig Firsten Holbrook. They got caught, too.”
Twiggs makes the call and asks the question. Then he hangs up and stares grimly at Cone.
“Bechtold Printing on Tenth Avenue,” he reports.
“Sure,” Cone says. “And I’ll bet a dozen other investment bankers and brokerage houses print at Bechtold.”
“You mean Frederick Bechtold, that fine, upstanding man who sends me smoked hams, is leaking all his customers’ secrets?”
“Nah, he’s clean. But he’s throwing out some valuable garbage.”
Then Cone explains what’s going on: How first press proofs are invariably discarded and more proofs are pulled until the density of the ink is correct, colors are in register, copy is properly centered on the page.
“All those fouled-up proofs are wadded up and thrown out. And along comes a private carter who picks up the barrels of trash and empties them into a truck. In this case, it’s a garbage collector called Steiner Waste Control, on Eleventh Avenue. The boss is Sally Steiner, and she’s a stock market maven. She knows what kind of work Bechtold is doing, and whenever a pickup is made at the printer, she has the barrels taken to her home in Smithtown. Then she paws through all those discarded press proofs looking for goodies. And finds them.”
Twiggs’ face reddens, he seems to swell, and for a moment Cone fears the senior partner is going to have cardiac arrest, or at least bust his braces. But suddenly Twiggs starts laughing, his face all squinched up, tears starting from his eyes. He pounds the desk with his fist.
“The garbage collector!” he says, spluttering. “Oh, God, that’s good! That’s beautiful! I’ll dine off that story for years to come! And I believe every word of it.”
“You can,” Cone says, nodding. “A few years ago a financial printer was reading the stuff delivered to him by his Wall Street customers and buying and selling stocks on the basis of the documents he was given to print. He did great, and the SEC charged him with inside trading. I think it was the first insider case to end up in the Supreme Court. They found the guy Not Guilty, but they never did define exactly what constitutes inside trading. The garbage angle is just a new variation on an old scam.”
“And what do we do now?”
“Nothing you can do about the merger that’s in the works. The cat is out of the bag on that one. But for the future, you’ve got some choices. You can get yourself a new printer, with no guarantee that the same thing won’t happen again. Or stick with Bechtold, but every time you give him something to print, send over a couple of guys who can make sure all preliminary proofs are destroyed. Or-and I like this one best-equip your Mergers and Acquisitions Department with the new desktop printers. You won’t get six-color work or jazzy bindings, but you’ll be able to reproduce most of the documents you need right here in your own shop, including graphs, charts, and tables. It’s all done by computers, and the finished documents can be counted and coded so none of them go astray. The machines aren’t cheap, but they’ll save you a mint on commercial printing costs. And your security will be umpteen times better than if you send your secrets to an outside printer.”
“I’ll look into it immediately,” Twiggs says. “It makes sense. You’re going to report this garbage collector to the SEC?”
“As soon as possible.”
“And what’s going to happen to-what’s her name?”
“Sally Steiner. Well, I figure her for a smart, nervy lady. She probably thinks that if she’s caught, she’ll walk away from all this with a smile on her lips and a song in her heart. If she’s the stand-up gonnif I think she is, she’ll fight any attempt by the SEC to charge her or make her cough up her profits. What, actually, did she do? Dig through some barrels of rubbish, that’s all. She’s home free. That’s what she thinks, and I hate to admit it, but she may be right.”
“I wonder,” says G. Fergus Twiggs thoughtfully, “if she’d consider employment with an investment banker.”