CHAPTER NINETEEN: Tanner
I couldn’t bring myself to immediately block Candice’s number, nor could I just instantly banish her from my mind. I replied to a few innocent texts, claiming to be too busy to chat.
Then Henry caught me reading a text during a meeting while he was speaking. He simply reached down and plucked the phone from my hands without skipping a beat. He tucked the phone in his jacket pocket and went on with the meeting as if nothing had happened.
I felt like a child who’d had his favorite toy taken away in front of the whole class.
And without Candice in my bed and in my arms, it was a very lonely, sleepless week.
We arrived back in Chicago on Friday morning. The Goldman team – without Candice – was waiting in the conference room for us after lunch.
“Stan, how are you,” Henry said as we entered the room. He shook hands with Stan and the other three stooges. I took a seat and squeezed the red rubber ball between my hands.
“We’re all good, Henry, thanks,” Stan said in his obnoxious, over-eager manner. “And I think you’ll be very pleased with our report.” Christ, this guy needed a fulltime assistant just to keep the brown wiped off his nose.
“We’re eager to see the report,” Henry said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “This is the last box to be checked before we sign the final acquisition papers on Monday. If Anderson gets a clean bill of health from you, we’re all set.”
Stan leaned over the table to pass out the perfectly-bound copies of Goldman’s report. He sat down and opened his copy, and waited for the rest of us to do the same. I didn’t bother looking at it. I didn’t want to touch the fucking thing.
That report, and my own actions, had ruined Candice’s life. And there was no one to blame but me.
If I had just listened to Henry, if I had just kept my dick in my pants, Candice would be sitting across from me now, pretending to ignore me.
“So, let’s begin with our review of the financials,” Stan said, flipping through the report. “That starts on page 5.”
Before he could continue, the conference room door opened and a large black man wearing a dark suit and tie appeared. Behind him were two other men who sported equally-serious looks on their faces. Behind them was a woman with a short-cropped haircut and a pinched face. I immediately took her as someone from the government.
“What the hell is this?” Henry asked.
The first man held up a badge that made Henry’s mouth clap shut. “I’m Agent Richter with the FBI. These are my associates, Agents Brent and Kline. And this is Helen Walters from the Securities & Exchange Commission. We’re looking for Henry Costas and Tanner Wright.”
“I’m Henry Costas,” he said. Henry glanced at me. “This is Mr. Wright. What’s this about?”
The FBI agent pulled a folded sheet of paper from inside his jacket and handed it to Henry. Henry opened the paper and scanned it without his glasses. The color drained from his face.
The G-man said, “Gentleman, we have a warrant to seize all files and documentation from these offices and your personal possession pertaining to the pending acquisition of Anderson Telecommunications by Wright Enterprises.”
“For what purpose?” Henry said. He glanced at me again. I’d never seen him look so nervous. His reaction to this little raid was interesting, to say the least. I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest and kept my mouth closed.
The woman from the SEC moved to stand next to the FBI agent. She said, “It has come to the attention of the SEC that an off-shore company called Creative Investment Partners has been buying an unusually high number of put options pertaining to Wright Enterprises and Anderson Telecommunications stock.”
“People buy puts all the time,” Henry said.
“That’s true,” she said, “But when the person behind the company acquiring all those puts is an officer of one of the companies involved in acquiring the other, that is called stock manipulation and is against the law.”
I tapped the rubber ball to my chin and asked, “And who is this mysterious person behind Creative Investment Partners?”
Agent Smith nodded at Henry. “Henry Costas.”
“Our initial investigation suggests that Mr. Costas was buying up large numbers of puts because he expected the stocks of both companies to crash after the news that the financial reports of Anderson had been altered by management consultants from Goldman & Stern.”
“What?” Stan looked like he was about to shit in his pants. “We didn’t alter any financial data.”
“Are you with Goldman & Stern?”
Stan slowly nodded.
“Our suspicion is that Mr. Costas was going to claim that you altered the data in exchange for a large contract to do due diligence on the deal,” she said, handing him her card. “We’ll need to interview everyone who worked on the project.”
Now I understood the reason Henry insisted on hiring Goldman & Stern in the first place. He would need a scapegoat when the shit hit the fan.
Poor Stan looked like he was going to have a coronary. The rest of the Goldman team sat wide-eyed with their mouths hanging open as their eyes darted between one another.
I must admit, I would have enjoyed the show if it hadn’t meant that my mentor and best friend was trying to screw me. I swiveled my chair to face him.
“Henry?” I said, the rubber ball flexing in my hand. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“You have the right to an attorney, Mr. Costas,” the FBI man said.
“And I have the right to know why he would betray me,” I said. “Why Henry?”
Henry looked down and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to get you to grow up for years, Tanner,” he said, rubbing a knuckle under his nose. “I’ve watched you get rich while the rest of us worked our asses off to build this company. You’ve made billions of dollars while the rest of us fed off your scraps.”
“You’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars, Henry,” I said. “Was it not enough?”
“I’m tired of playing nursemaid to you,” Henry said, looking away. “It’s time I got what was coming to me.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure you’re going to get that,” I said. I looked at the lady from the SEC. “Can I ask how all this came to light?”
“Our office was contacted on Monday by a Ruth Bennett,” she said, reading the name off a notepad in her hand. “She’s a money manager with Smith-Barney here in Chicago. She was alerted to potential improprieties in the Anderson books by a client of hers. A Miss… Candice Carlson. Miss Bennett contacted our office and we fast-tracked the investigation given the pending acquisition of Anderson Telecom by your company.”
“I assume that acquisition is now on hold?” I asked with a smile, already knowing the answer. Fine by me. I didn’t want to buy Anderson anyway. This was Henry’s baby all the way, and now I understood the reason why.
She said, “Yes, we have an order from a federal judge halting the acquisition. The SEC and the state attorney general’s office will be conducting a full investigation.”
“Fine by me,” I said. I set the rubber ball on the table in front of Henry. “Here, you might need that.” I held out a hand to the feds. “Officers, take him away.”
“We’ll need you to come down and speak with us as well, Mr. Wright,” the SEC woman said, handing me her card. “We have no reason to suspect that you were involved in anything inappropriate, but you’ll probably want to bring an attorney along just in case.”
“I’ll have my attorney set an appointment for Monday,” I said, slipping the card into the back pocket of my ratty jeans. “I have something extremely important to take care of first.”