A woman has come bursting into the room. She is young (about twenty-five), tall (almost six feet), blond (very), with a velvety hide (tawny), and summer-sky eyes. She is wearing a cheongsam of thin, pistachio-colored silk that clings.
Those jugs have got to be silicone, the Wall Street dick decides, because if they were God-made there’d be a slight sag just so He could remind the public of human imperfection.
“Oh, darling,” she carols, “please excuse me. I didn’t know you had a visitor. Sorry to interrupt.”
“Come in, Claire,” Chin Tung Lee says gently. “You’re not interrupting at all. Mr. Cone, I’d like you to meet my wife.”
Cone nods from where he stands across the room. Which is just as well, he figures, because if he went close to shake her hand he might flop to his knees in humble obeisance.
He meanders back to John Street, inspecting the women he passes and comparing them to Mrs. Claire Lee. She’s got them all beat by a country mile.
So stricken was he by her sudden appearance that his impressions are still confused, and he tries to sort them out. He debates if she is the model type, the dancer type, the actress type.
“The goddess type,” he says aloud.
He buys a meatball hero and a couple of cold cans of Bud, and goes up to his office. He reflects mournfully that it’s a fitting lunch; that’s exactly what he is-a meatball hero. Besides, she’s the client’s wife, and he doesn’t dast fantasize depraved dreams about her. A waste of time. Still, a few modest dreams couldn’t hurt anyone. Not even Samantha.
He resolutely vanquishes the scintillant image of Claire Lee, and unwraps his oozing sandwich. While he’s scoffing, he calls Jeremy Bigelow at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Hey, old buddy,” Jerry says happily, “that short-trading scam is really panning out. The bad guys are falling all over themselves to squeal and cop a plea.”
“Yeah, I read about it,” Cone says. “So you owe me one-right?”
“Oh-oh,” Bigelow says, instantly worried. “Now what?”
“Very easy. Your secretary could look it up. There’s this outfit on the OTC exchange. White Lotus. They sell canned chop suey. I just want to know if anyone has filed a 13-D public disclosure form on them.”
“Why would anyone want to buy five percent of canned chop suey?”
“Beats the hell out of me. Look it up, will you?”
“Okay,” the SEC man says. “I’ll get on it and let you know.”
“How soon?”
“As soon as my secretary gets back from lunch.”
Cone finishes his hero and starts on the second beer. He leans back in his squeaky swivel chair, puts his feet up on the desk, and broods about what he knows and what he doesn’t know.
He knows that a sudden run-up in stock price and an increase in trading volume is frequently-not always, but frequently-a tipoff that someone is going to make a tender offer for the company concerned. Usually the first step is to accumulate sufficient shares to prove you’re serious and then make a bid to purchase enough stock from other shareholders-customarily at a premium over the current market price-to give the offeror control.
It can be a friendly takeover in which the company’s management cooperates, or unfriendly, during which the company’s executives and directors fight tooth and nail to defeat the bidder-and keep their jobs. The benefaction of shareholders is not always the highest good on Wall Street. “Corporate democracy” has all the modern relevance of “Fifty-four forty or fight,” and sometimes the poor shareholders have to take their lumps.
One kicker here is that when any entity-individual or corporate-accumulates 5 percent or more of another company’s stock, the entity must file a 13-D public disclosure form with the SEC, stating the purpose of the purchase: tender offer or simply an investment.
Jeremy Bigelow’s secretary calls in about an hour and tells Cone there is no record of a 13-D form having been filed for White Lotus. He thanks her, hangs up, and goes back to his pondering, demonstrating his enormous physical strength by crumpling an empty aluminum beer can.
The absence of a 13-D form doesn’t faze him; it’s still possible a tender offer for White Lotus is in the making. There are several ways of getting around the 13-D law, all of them devious. If you like things in black and white, security regulations are not for you. Wall Street prefers grays.
Cone is certain of one thing: If a tender for White Lotus is in the works, it’s going to be treated as an unfriendly offer by Mr. Chin Tung Lee. Cone will not soon forget the little man’s passion when he spoke of a “family company” and how White Lotus was his entire life. Any hopeful raider is in for a knock-down-and-drag-out fight before Lee surrenders White Lotus-if he ever does.
What Cone can’t answer is the question Jeremy Bigelow asked: Why would anyone
Figure White Lotus stock is selling at forty bucks a share. That means, with two million shares outstanding, anyone taking over the company would have to come up with eighty million dollars. That may not sound like much, Cone acknowledges, in this era of megadeals, but it’s still a nice piece of change.
And Cone doesn’t think White Lotus is worth it. There’s little opportunity for growth there, and even with a more dynamic leadership than Chin Tung Lee offers, the company seems fated to amble along at a tortoise pace, paying a nice dividend but with no potential of becoming a real cash cow. Cone can name a dozen companies at the same price, or lower, that would provide a better chance to make a killing.
All this cerebral activity makes him drowsy. His chin sinks onto his chest, and he dozes at his desk for almost an hour. He doesn’t even dream of Claire Lee, but he twitches awake when the phone rings. He picks it up.
“Mr. Timothy Cone?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Edward Tung Lee. Mr. Cone, I’m still in New Jersey, but I just spoke to my father and he said you’d like to talk to me.”
“That’s right. Whenever you have the time.”
“Well, I’m about to drive back to Manhattan. I have a business appointment at a restaurant on Pell Street at five o’clock. It shouldn’t take long-ten or fifteen minutes. If you could meet me there, perhaps we can have a drink together.”
“Sounds good to me,” Cone says. “What’s the name of the place?”
“Ah Sing’s Bar and Grill. They’re in the book.”
“I’ll find it. I better describe myself so you can spot me.”
“Don’t bother,” Edward Lee says, laughing. “You’ll be the only honkie in the joint.”
He disconnects, and Cone hangs up thoughtfully. The guy sounded high. Maybe he’s snorting monosodium glutamate or mainlining soy sauce. Cone shakes his head to rid his still sleep-befuddled brain of such nonsense, and starts flipping through his tattered telephone directory to find the address of Ah Sing’s Bar amp; Grill on Pell Street.
It turns out to be exactly like a hundred other cheap Chinese restaurants Timothy has frequented from Boston to Saigon: all Formica and wind chimes, fluorescent lights and plastic poppies. The walls are white tile, reasonably clean, decorated with paintings of dragons on black velvet and a calendar showing Miss Hong Kong in a bikini.
A small bar is on the right just inside the entrance. Drinkers have a fine view of the frenetic activity on Pell Street through a big plate glass window, though right now the bar is empty. But the remainder of the long, narrow restaurant has plenty of early diners, all men, all Asian, seated at tables and in booths.
Cone has no sooner swung aboard a barstool when there’s a slender guy at his elbow. He’s dressed like an Oriental yuppie.
“Mr. Cone?” he says in that bouncy voice. “I’m Edward Tung Lee.” They shake hands. “Look, why don’t you have a drink. I’ll be finished in a few minutes and join you here.”
“Take your time,” Cone says. “No rush.”
“Henry,” Lee calls to the bartender, “put this on my tab, please.”
Cone watches him stride back to a booth. He’s tall, about Cone’s height, but with better posture. He moves with quick grace: a young executive on the fast track. His jetty hair is blow-dried, and during the few seconds they
