know. He was surmising and hoping but he didn't have a fact. Another wave of nausea hit him and he leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes.
'Mr. Hardy?'
'I'd better be going,' he said. 'Thank you. You've been very helpful.'
Taking Hardy's arm, Stone walked with him across the room, through the door to the hallway. 'You know,' Hardy said, 'I've got one more question if you don't mind… What happened to the shares no one bought?'
This was just another administrative detail, and Stone was forthcoming about it. 'Some of them are in an escrow account, part of the Group's assets. Others we gave as bonuses. Some we traded for services.'
'Such as legal fees?'
Stone smiled. 'As a matter of fact, yes. Mr. Bachman pulled quite a coup on that. And we thought we were getting a very good deal, an incredible deal, in fact.'
They had come to the door. Stone was still enjoying Bachman's cleverness. 'Crane normally hits us for two- fifty and hour, and Bachman suggested he handle the paperwork on the turnaround for fifty thousand shares. We figured it would be a hundred hours of legal work and the shares were worth twenty-five hundred dollars – at the time. It was a steal. So the Board took it. And actually it turned out to be more like three hundred hours, so we thought we'd done very well indeed.'
'Fifty thousand shares?'
'At a nickel a share, remember. It was peanuts. Of course, now…'
Hardy waited.
'Well, we all made out well, I shouldn't begrudge Mr. Bachman. He put in a lot of work and he's made us all much wealthier. Is that a sin?'
'How much did he wind up getting?'
Stone pursed his lips, smiled. 'I suppose that's in the public record. I can tell you – a little over seven million dollars.'
Hardy repeated the number. Slowly. Out loud.
Stone agreed it was a great deal. 'Now you'd better get home and get in bed. Take aspirin every four hours.'
'Drink lots of liquids,' Hardy said.
The doctor smiled. 'Right. Then send me fifty dollars.' The smile broke into a wide grin. 'Sorry, forget the fifty dollars. Force of habit.'
But he didn't go home.
David Freeman was up and about, conducting a classical concert – Hardy wasn't familiar with the piece – in his living room. Hardy threw his briefcase on the floor and sank heavily onto Freeman's couch, pulled a couple of stuffed pillows over him for warmth, and watched Freeman – baton in hand – direct his symphony.
He dozed.
When he woke up the fog still clung to the windows. Freeman had thrown a blanket over him. It was quiet and the older man was working over his kitchen table, reading a file, taking notes.
'What time is it?' Hardy's bones were too heavy to lift his wrist.
Freeman looked up. 'After two. I usually get sick after a trial, too.'
'I can't be sick.' Hardy tried to straighten up. He wasn't entirely successful. 'Why did I come here?' he asked, half to himself.
'Why are you here? What is life? The great questions. That's why I like you. You feel like lunch? I'm starving.'
'I don't think I can eat.'
'Okay.' Freeman, however, went to the refrigerator and started rummaging around.
'I remember.' This time Hardy got himself pulled up. He wrapped the blanket around him. 'Jody Bachman made seven million dollars.'
The sound of rummaging stopped.
'Fifty thousand shares,' Hardy said.
Freeman's head appeared above the refrigerator door. 'Which was it?' he asked.
'It was both.'
'You mean he got seven million dollars plus fifty thousand shares of stock?' He shook his head. 'We're in the wrong business.'
'No, he got fifty thousand shares of stock, which turned out to be worth seven million dollars.'
Abandoning his foraging efforts, Freeman crossed the small living room and sat at the end of the couch. His face was suddenly troubled. He scratched at his stubble. 'He took stock as payment? Is he the managing partner down there?'
'Yes, he took stock. No, he's not the managing partner. Why?'
Freeman sat back. 'What were the shares worth?'
'A nickel each,' Hardy said. 'What are you thinking?'
'I'm thinking maybe you found something.'
'I thought that, too.' Hardy knew exactly what he thought but he wanted corroboration. He'd flown off too many times without getting his facts nailed down. It wasn't going to happen again. 'I'm not sure I know what it is, though,' he waited.
The thought, the argument, seemed to be blossoming in Freeman's head. He stood up and went to the window, studied the fog. Hardy rode out another bout of the shakes, then realized he'd broken a sweat. He threw off the blanket but then the chills started again.
Turning around, Freeman's face showed distaste. 'You look like hell.' That said, he moved right on, coming back to the couch, sitting close to Hardy, and explained his reasoning.
Large corporate firms like Crane amp; Crane did not usually allow associates and junior partners to trade essentially worthless stocks for eminently liquid billable hours. Jody Bachman, young and ambitious, had somehow put together a deal with PacRim, or knew PacRim might be a viable marriage with YBMG. Freeman said he wasn't sure of the details – who could be? – but Bachman then sold his contingency stock idea to the Group.
All of which might have been fine except for Simpson Crane, the managing partner of Crane amp; Crane. Bachman was putting in hundreds of hours of billable time and not bringing in a dime for his efforts. His utilization stunk. Simpson might have called him on it, or Bachman might have gone to Simpson and asked permission for the contingency. But if Simpson made a habit of accepting stock with a maximum face value of twenty-five hundred dollars in lieu of a guaranteed fee of seventy-five thousand dollars in cash, he wouldn't have a law firm for long.
He would have said no. And that would have ruined Jody's plans – both for his advancement in the firm and for his own fortune. It might have even jeopardized his engagement to his millionaire socialite girlfriend Margaret Morency.
If Simpson Crane were the only thing standing in the way between Bachman and everything he'd worked for and wanted in his professional and personal life, and if Simpson had threatened to pull the rug, might that be worth killing for? Simpson might even have threatened to fire him outright. Freeman certainly would have.
'So. There it is,' Freeman concluded. 'How do you like it?'
Hardy's eyes were burning now and his mouth was parched, but he had been paying attention throughout the recital. It was close enough to the scenario he had imagined. Now all he had to do was prove it.
'I give it a nine,' he said. 'My girlfriend can dance to it.'
Freeman looked at him as though he were a Martian. Hardy was getting delirious and Freeman told him he'd call a cab to take him home. He left him sitting on the couch and went to the kitchen to make the call.
In spite of everyone's well-meaning advice, there were no odds in going home. He didn't have time to go home. He was seeing Villars on Tuesday morning and if this didn't work out, he had to spend Monday getting his
