Bellweather and Walters listened to the tape with growing horror. By the sound of it, Wiley was rolling in offers, pitting at least four companies against one another and having a ball. A bidding war, and a rather brutal one, plain and simple. And Jack, holding all the cards, was clearly going for the kneecaps.
“Why hasn’t he called us back?” Walters groaned. The past week he had been miserable to live with. His mood alternated between despair and rage, favoring the latter. He banged around the office bullying everyone in range. He’d fired an assistant, screamed at the head of the LBO section, and broken two phones after flinging them against a wall.
None of it made him feel the least bit better.
“Settle down, Mitch. He’ll call,” Bellweather, the older sage, assured him. It wasn’t his tail on the line, after all; he could afford to stay cool and unruffled.
“What’s he waiting for?”
“What would you do in his shoes?”
“I don’t know. I’d want to have the best offer in my pocket, I guess.”
“So there’s your answer.”
Walters loosened his tie and fell back in his chair. “He’s a real smart boy.”
“We already knew that.”
“Yeah, but it’s not nice to see it in action.”
Bellweather moved across the office and leaned casually against his old desk, the same desk shaped like an aircraft carrier, now manned by Walters’s rather ample rear end. “Give him two more days,” the old man said, looking and sounding quite sure of himself.
“And then?”
“Then we’ll make him call. Then we’ll order our friends over at TFAC pull out the stops and turn up the heat. What is it this time?”
“Five pounds of marijuana, planted in his garage.”
“Nice.”
“We debated whether to use the dope scheme or the child porno scam. I opted for the dope. Fits his profile better, I think.”
Bellweather grinned his approval. “So in another two days he gets a nasty little visit by our friends at TFAC. The usual routine.”
Walters bit back a smile and nodded: the “routine” nearly always worked like a charm. Four of five times, the targets had collapsed like bowling pins. The more they had to lose, the faster they dropped-and Jack had a great deal to lose. Oh yes, it was a perfect little trap.
They avoided each other’s eyes a moment, and both dreamed of how it would go down.
As easily with Jack as it had with the others, both men were sure. A few of the TFAC boys would arrive at Jack’s doorstep, late at night, unannounced and unexpected. Out would come the authentic-looking search warrant and genuine DEA identifications. They would show up dressed as undercover cowboys: unmarked cars, shabby clothes, cute ponytails, earrings, tattoos, the whole nine yards. Before Jack could stop them or call his lawyer, they would push their way inside, he would be shoved up against the wall, patted down, and slapped in cuffs. Next a hurried search that would finish up, inevitably, in Jack’s garage. “Hey, looky-looky what I found,” one of the phony agents would declare, gleefully holding up five pounds of high-octane Mary Jane. “My goodness, Jack here’s been a naughty boy.”
Jack would be understandably shocked; he would rail and scream, protest his innocence, the whole act-that he was legitimately innocent would only add to the fun. But he would eventually grow tired of being ignored, shut up, and insist on a lawyer.
Once Jack brought the “lawyer” word into the discussion the TFAC boys would retreat into a quick whispering huddle. Eventually, one would approach him and, with a knowing grin, initiate a hard-edged, intimate conversation. From a “tip” they knew Jack was a big-time peddler, a two-bit pusher in a fancy suit. All that money, and yet, for whatever perverse reason-perhaps thrills, perhaps to act young and hip-he had chosen an unhealthy little sideline.
And five pounds of marijuana shoved him clearly beyond the legally mild user gallery, into the far more dangerous territory of big-time distributor.
Ten years was the max. Five was the usual, especially for first-timers, but who knew how the judge or jury felt that day. Rich boys don’t elicit much sympathy or mercy.
The case was ironclad-two reliable informers had fingered him. Both swore they had bought from him on multiple occasions. They testified to the quality of his “supremo shit”-the Juan Valdez of the dope business, they called him. They identified him by name, knew his address, and described him and his house to a tee.
Plus, DEA now had the goods. Incontrovertible evidence. Five pounds of it, high-grade stuff packed in a nice big sack located in his garage. Oh, you’re going down hard, Jack.
We can and will gladly nail you on a golden cross, he would be warned with a solemn shrug. Big Wall Street guy in a lavish house in a fancy neighborhood in a plush little town filled with celebrities and the hyper-rich. Wow, don’t Springsteen and Bon Jovi live around here? You see, Jack, you have a lot to lose. Go ahead, call the lawyer; then we call the local cops. Won’t the neighbors be happy when your driveway floods with flashing blue lights? How many will peek out their windows and gawk at the spectacle as you are dragged out your front door in cuffs and stuffed in the back of one of those cars?
And how will your Wall Street chums and bosses react the next morning when the DEA crashes into your office, flashing another warrant and poking around for more evidence? Imagine the horrified looks on their rich, stuffy faces. What’s the matter, guys, didn’t you know your partner was a pusher? Wouldn’t that do wonders for business? The clients would love it.
DEA just adores guys like you. A Wall Street hotshot, a big-deal millionaire taking a careless stroll through the gutter. Maybe not page one news. But an honorable mention in the
DEA has you by the balls, Jack would be assured once again with a confident sneer. If you wish to call your lawyer-okay, fine, it’s your constitutional right, go ahead. Be sure, though, to tell him to meet you at the local police station after you’re already booked and charged with possession with intent to distribute, and the reporters are already jockeying in an unruly mob outside the station waiting to get a nice photo of the celebrity pusher.
So what will it be, Jack? Your lawyer or us? A noisy mouthpiece who can’t lift a finger as you’re publicly flayed and disgraced, you’re fired from your job, and have to sneak in and out of your own home-or will you be an upright citizen and work with us, Jack? We want the pusher you bought this from: the big-time guy at the top of the dope chain. And the names of every one of your customers sure would be nice. A big fish or two would really hit the sweet spot.
No rush, Jack, relax, take a day or two, think about it. Then we’ll be back.
They would let Jack suffer and stew for a day or so-let him lock himself into his house, blow off work, imagine the terrifying possibilities, and scream at the walls about the injustice of it all.
Then would come the surprise visit from smiling Bill Feist, world-class fixer, all jokey and amiable as ever. Just dropped in to see how you’re doing, he would inform Jack. Hey, he would add with thinly feigned innocence, an old buddy in the DEA mentioned that you got your tit in a wringer. Sounds serious, Jack. Five pounds, huh? Those fellas don’t mess around, but maybe I can help. Pull a few strings, call one of my many old White House chums, you know, make this whole mess disappear.
At CG we value our friends: of course, it’s a two-way street.
It was crude and brusque, but it would work; Jack had far too much to lose for it not to. The house, the job, the all-American reputation-best of all, as Jack would eventually figure out, this sweet deal he was flashing around would go out the window. As a felon, he would lose his broker’s license and certainly be barred from directorship of a public company.
He would know he was being framed and blackmailed, and be understandably outraged. But so what? What choice did he have?
It had worked like magic four out of five times. It hadn’t exactly failed the fifth time, it had simply worked in a way nobody anticipated. In that case, the CEO of a large rubber company CG was interested in, a proud, stubborn, and resistant man who had just been informed by the ersatz agents of TFAC of the stiff punishment for being
