Offerings (24 page)

“What more can I say? Not being good enough means you’re not good enough. I just don’t see a point in spending all that time practicing only to fall short. I need to find something new.”

Kate wanted to sound positive, but was too disappointed in Sarah’s willingness to give up what she’d work at so diligently for so many years and so differentiated her from the other kids at school. “Yes, but you’re talking about throwing away all your talent because you heard one girl who could outplay you. That’s not falling short, Sarah. That’s cowardice. Don’t compare yourself to what your father and I are going through because you’re giving up and we’re not.”

Sarah pulled back. She pressed the small of her back into her pillows, as if chastened by her mother’s candor. Her eyes widened and then misted. They had passed through some invisible portal, entered a new phase in their relationship, where they would deal with each other more as equals.

Kate realized Sarah needed to be buoyed. “Believe in yourself, Sarah. Believe in something bigger than yourself. The joy your music brings to so many people is a gift you can give to the world. Don’t let yourself down because you’re afraid someone can top you.”

Sarah put her arms around her knees. “That’s just talk. You don’t know how it feels to be this scared of failing.”

“My husband is going halfway around the world for over a year. I’ll be a single mother with two kids in the middle of a fight for control of my company and if I lose I’ll have trouble finding another position anywhere close to what I had. And I’m being sued for sandbagging a deal that would have made everyone involved with Dad’s company a lot of money. I think I know a thing or two about being frightened, Sarah. But we’re not talking about being afraid. We’re talking about staring down those fears.”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“I know. It’s tough. And it’s a pity grandma isn’t here anymore. You could have asked her what it took to pick herself up after my father died. She worked two jobs and still had time to take care of me. When I asked her how she did it she simply said we come from a line of tough women.” She leaned over and kissed Sarah. “And so I pass on the same words to you, Sarah. Across another generation, sweetie. Across another generation.”

“I hardly feel tough, Mom. Anything but.”

“Listen, this man I want you to meet in Spain next year—Michael Hirsch—he’ll be able to tell you what it’s like to overcome obstacles. Maybe we’ll hook up with him on Skype and you can meet him. You could use a wise old grandparent at the moment. We both could.”

There was nothing more either of them could say. It wasn’t as though Kate could offer her daughter a blood transfusion. She could offer only time to find her own path. And a shoulder to lean on if she’d take it.

Kate stood at the side of Sarah’s bed. “I’ll be here for you, Sarah, but you’ve got to meet me more than halfway on this. Don’t give up your music. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life. And like I said, I’m going to need all the help you can give me with Mack. The next few weeks will be very tough on all of us.”

Kate put the three books into Sarah’s backpack. “Don’t think of yourself as Biff Loman. He was a washout. You’re Sarah Brewster and I’m damned proud you are.”

Sarah showed a small hint of a smile. “No swearing, Mom.”

Kate pinched Sarah’s big toe. “Hit the books, kiddo. I’ll be downstairs if you want to talk some more.”

Kate left Sarah’s door open just enough to allow her to hear Sarah printing a copy of the picture Kate left on her screen. And then she gave a thumb’s up sign to herself and went off to spend some time with Mack.

FORTY

Kate wasn’t surprised by Mike Conklin’s phone call asking that they meet. The securities litigation team Clive had brought in from Bayer and Brock predicted Mike would try to stare her down before he started spending real money on lawyers, newspaper ads, shareholder mailings, and all the other trappings of the gang war Wall Street calls a tender offer. Drake already had spent two hundred and forty-five thousand dollars and the only thing Mike had done was send one letter.

They met at the clock in the Waldorf lobby and walked into one of the adjacent restaurants. Kate had dressed simply, in a cream pants suit and a white blouse. She didn’t want Mike to think their meeting was a big deal to her. She ordered English Breakfast tea and a raisin scone. She made certain her assistant would call her at nine-thirty, so the meeting would have an outer limit if she needed one.

There was little need for pleasantries and they kept them short. “There’s an easy way and a hard way, Kate. We both know where this is going to end up.” Mike had grown up in Memphis. While he had been away for thirty years, his voice still had the syrupy twang of the middle South. He was a little older than Kate, tan from a summer on the golf course, but slightly overweight. He kept twirling his wedding ring as though it were some sort of a talisman.

“There is no easy way at three dollars, Mike. You know that.” When it was clear Kate was on the track to stardom at Greene, Andrew Butler had gotten her funded to enroll in the intensive negotiation course at Harvard’s summer school. She had struck up a friendship with Jeff Bezos and later got a nice piece of Amazon’s public offering. They role-played against each other, ironically enough, as the bidder and target in a three-dimensional model portrayal of a hostile tender offer.

She picked at her scone. She knew Mike Conklin didn’t stand a chance if that were the best he could do coming out of the gate. Leading with your strength is a mantra on Wall Street.

“Not to be disrespectful, Kate, but who exactly is running the show? I presume Jack is too old to do anything other than to stay out of yours and Clive’s way, but as for between the two of you, did I dial the right number?” Mike speared a piece of cantaloupe and smiled as though he’d just found a pearl in an oyster. He was confident Drake was thin at the top.

“Why would you call Clive? He’s only a lawyer.” Clive had done his best Alexander Haig
I’m in charge here
routine when the situation was particularly fluid right after the news hit about Ed and Steve, but it never had traction even before Kate returned from Barcelona as the conquering hero. Karl and Buddy grumbled about Kate being Drake’s public face and tried to get the other board members to back Clive, but his lack of either history or credibility on the street meant they really had no other pony to ride.

“I have difficulty imagining Jack is going to let you be Drake’s only voice at the shareholder meetings with Carpenter’s allegations hanging over your head.” Mike no doubt had a fact book of everything he could throw at Kate.

“I know you’re not going to ask for my advice, Mike, but that sort of thing will blow up in your face.”

Kate never enjoyed the
pas de deux
of negotiation as much as Andrew Butler did, which is why he’d sent her to Harvard in the first place. Andrew called her the one skeptic in the Wall Street world of snake-oil salesmen, demanding the tactile pleasure of being able to scoop bits of data with her hands, as though she were panning for gold. But there were no objective tests here, no measurables to show Drake’s belief it was worth nine dollars a share was any more credible than the three Mike threw over the transom. But if her time with Michael Hirsch had taught her anything, it was that faith without facts may be the opiate of the masses, but facts without faith is dust.

“You’ve got to do better to get us into the game, Mike. You put us in play but some of the white knights we’re meeting with are prepared to more than double your bid.” If Kate were at nine and Mike at seven, they’d meet at eight, he’d borrow the billion it took and they’d seal the deal.

“If I believed that for a second I might raise my bid, Kate, but you and I both know that’s not the case.”

It would be a long, hard slog. Mike would attack her assumptions and her integrity. He’d label her an opportunistic upstart for what she’d done to Ascalon’s shareholders, a weak leader with no focus beyond her own self-interest. She would be forced to defend both her vision for Drake and to dodge the arrows aimed at her reputation. Conklin would say and do whatever it took to cut her off at the knees. And then, when called on his sleaze, he’d shrug his shoulders and say winning a tender offer is a lot like winning an election. You need to open the voters’ eyes to the truth.

Kate answered her phone. “Mike, I need to take this call from one of my investors. Sorry. If you can get the bid to a more realistic range, I’m happy to continue the dialogue.”

She put the phone into her left hand and extended her right. “If not, the game’s afoot.”

FORTY-ONE

Kate wanted to be anywhere but the offices of Carter and Foster on a bright September morning. But she had begged off on one scheduled date for her deposition on account of her second trip to Barcelona and another for that trip to Orlando she promised Mack. They’d had a ball, but bailing a third time would allow Bill Dickstein to charge into court with a stack full of pleadings in one hand and a press release in the other seeking all manner of sanctions and orders compelling her attendance for no other reason than to get both the judge and the business press thinking Kate had some reason to hide.

Carter and Foster was as tied to Mike Conklin as parasites are to their hosts. The more pegs Kate could be knocked down the bigger the reward for them both. In a way, her deposition was a job interview by Dickstein to get his name on the list of Mike Conklin’s go-to law firms.

When Peter told Karl Maxwell where Kate was heading, Karl described Dickstein as a whiney little fuck who distorted reality in the way Uri Geller bends the ends of spoons. Karl said that on his best days Dickstein was a charlatan and that he had very few best days. But like all the villains in all of Kate’s favorite novels, Dickstein could turn on the charm machine when the moment called for it. He was smooth, unguent really, when he greeted his guests. Kate was ice to his oil.

Caitlin Hennessey assembled her papers to Kate’s right, a great wall of a protector now that, at least for the time being, they had reached a truce of sorts under which the insurance carrier agreed to defend both Greene and Drake. Ascalon was represented by Walter Donovan, a pale-skinned man of perhaps sixty in a mud-colored suit with a neck so long he reminded Kate of an Apatosaurus from one of Mack’s dinosaur books.

Dickstein sat directly across from Kate. A female associate of his whom he didn’t even bother introducing sat to his left. He was a wiry man with spindly fingers in an Armani suit. He made his money primarily from shakedowns like the one he was trying to pull off there. It was good money, eight-thousand square feet of a house in the Hamptons with a Porsche in the garage money, but to Kate it was dirty.

“For the record, Mrs. Brewster, tell us exactly why you rebuffed Jack Carpenter’s signals in November about Amigo’s interest in Ascalon.” Dickstein’s first question was loaded with supposition that littered the complaint like trash blown up against a fence. The graciousness of his greeting was trumped by a rapacious appetite to reach into Kate’s pockets. The reference to
Mrs.
was a calculated link to Peter, as if some marker were necessary to remind everyone why they were there.

“Objection to the form of the question,” Caitlin said, almost laughing. “Let’s ask questions and not make speeches filled with facts that haven’t been and can’t be proven, Bill.”

“For the record, can we agree that Ascalon was sold and that Peter Brewster is leaving the United States to live in China?”

“Objection.”

“It’s temporary, Mr. Dickstein,” Kate said. “For the record, Peter Brewster is a resident of Scarsdale, New York. He will soon be on temporary assignment overseas. Temporary.” Kate nodded in Caitlin’s direction. Her lawyer smiled in affirmation.

The laptop in front of Dickstein was plugged into the stenographer’s transcription machine so he would have a real time transcript. Kate knew the technology well. When she was just starting at Greene, she worked on the deal that raised a hundred million dollars for the software engineers from the University of Illinois who developed it.

“Please answer my first question, Ms. Brewster.”

“Your question suggests Jack Carpenter told me in November that Amigo was interested in acquiring Ascalon, as you alleged in your complaint, but he didn’t. If you tell me what you mean by the word ‘signals,’ Mr. Dickstein, I’ll be happy to answer your question.”

Caitlin visibly exhaled, which Kate took as a sign she had done well. She told Dickstein nothing and everything; the morning would be thrust and parry, but Kate wouldn’t give an inch of ground in the war of words.

“You say Jack Carpenter didn’t use those specific words, but are you suggesting in that answer, Mrs. Brewster, that you lack either the sensitivity or, let me call it ‘the ear,’ to pick up the sense Mr. Carpenter wanted to begin the acquisition process? We all know these corporate dealings start subtly, over golf or at a charity dinner. We all know no one with any real-world experience expects someone on the other side of a deal to leave them a trail of breadcrumbs,” Dickstein said.

It was a Mike Conklin question. If Kate acknowledged she lacked the ear Dickstein talked about, her shareholders would be told she was too naïve to meet the demands of the top job. If she admitted a lack of sensitivity, the next question would be:
Come on, Mrs. Brewster, you made it to the top echelon of the toughest place in the world to do business. Are you really telling me you haven’t developed the skills to pick up the simplest gestures that can lead to a deal?

Dickstein’s job was to squeeze every possible dime he could out of a jumble of facts that was, to be kind, specious. If, in the process, he ruined the good name Kate had spent years building, so be it. That would be collateral damage in the pursuit of his definition of a higher good. Kate took comfort in Karl Maxwell’s characterization of the man, for it enabled her to avoid rising to his bait.

“I know how to sense when someone wants to talk about a deal, Mr. Dickstein, and when someone just wants to talk. That’s the business I’m in. If Jack Carpenter had given the slightest indication a deal could be put together between Amigo and Ascalon at a fair price I would have fostered its growth the way a gardener nurtures a young plant in a greenhouse.”