Silent Partner

by Stephen Frey

  “The guy’s a bastard,” Hill muttered to Dudley, stalking back to his chair. “I’ve heard how aggressive he can be with women. People I know in New York have told me. Jake Lawrence seems to think all that money gives him carte blanche to do whatever he wants. It’s the God complex.”

  Angela glanced at Dudley who was staring straight back, no sympathy in his expression. “Do you really believe Jake Lawrence flew you to Wyoming to make a pass at you under the guise of a big transaction about which he gave you no details? That makes no sense.” Dudley shook his head. “No offense, Ms. Day, but I’m certain Jake Lawrence could find more willing partners, women who would be willing to look at what he wanted simply as a business transaction. If you get my drift.”

  “What are you saying, Bob?” Hill asked after a long pause.

  “I think Jake Lawrence had another agenda,” Dudley answered, not taking his eyes off of Angela.

  “Such as?”

  Dudley’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure you did a little background work on Mr. Lawrence before you went to see him, right, Ms. Day?”

  Angela stared back at Dudley, wondering where he was headed with this question.

  “At least that’s what the network management people reported after studying their server records,” Dudley continued when she didn’t respond. “In the days before you went to Wyoming, you visited several Web sites looking for information on Jake Lawrence. And you accessed Free Edgar and probably discovered in a 13-d filing that he owns 8 percent of Sumter Bank. Isn’t that right, Ms. Day?”

  “Is that a problem?” she asked quietly, shocked by the fact that Bob Dudley had directed the bank’s information technology specialists to spy on her. “Wouldn’t you expect me to do background work before meeting with one of the world’s wealthiest men?”

  “Yes, I would.” Dudley looked out the window over downtown Richmond, then back at her. “Did he bring up the fact that he owned all of that Sumter stock?”

  “No,I brought it up, Mr. Dudley. I told Lawrence I had found out about his large position in Sumter stock. I told him I had calculated that he had spent four hundred and fifty million so far on Sumter stock, and he corrected me and told me that it was actually closer to half a billion. And he was down forty million so far on his purchase.”

  Dudley was gazing at her intently, hanging on her every word. And as she looked closely, she could see a trace of fear hiding in his intensity, a tiny sliver of anxiety, working its way into Dudley’s fiercely proud expression. Jake Lawrence and his army of analysts were at the Sumter gate, and Dudley understood as well as any financial expert that the bottom line in a business war was money. Who had more of it, and who was willing to risk it. If Jake Lawrence offered a significant premium for Sumter shares, the market would sell to him, and all the value Dudley had created for the bank’s shareholders during his ten years at the helm as chairman would be forgotten in the time it took them to endorse their stock certificates. And once Lawrence owned the bank, if that were his ultimate objective, Dudley’s grip on the office of chairman would turn tenuous at best. Because, as the new owner, Lawrence could do whatever he wanted. Including replacing any senior executive he chose to.

  “I asked Mr. Lawrence why he was so interested in Sumter,” Angela continued. “I made the point that he couldn’t view an investment in a bank as a high-return proposition, that we weren’t going to find a cure for cancer or invent the next white-hot wireless device. I made the point that the bank’s stock is trading around two times its book value, which I told him I thought was pretty high.”

  “And?”

  Bob Dudley had a reputation as one of the toughest senior executives in the entire banking business. During his ten years as chairman, through a series of expertly planned and smoothly executed acquisitions, he had propelled Sumter from its position as a sleepy Virginia retail institution—little more than a corner savings and loan operation—to an aggressive, superregional bank with a massive mortgage portfolio that had caught Wall Street’s attention. After several large, high-profile acquisitions in North Carolina and Tennessee, Dudley had been ruthless, summarily firing the acquisitions’ existing senior management and replacing them with his lieutenants—after initially promising that there would be no blood once the deal was done. But Dudley had made billions for Sumter stockholders, and the defeated men had slunk silently away, unable to get anyone to listen to the fact that Dudley had lied to them.

  But now Dudley was on the defensive, uncertain of Lawrence’s motives. Now he was the hunted.

  “What was his response, Ms. Day?” Dudley demanded.

  A week ago she’d been a nobody. Now this. Suddenly she wished she could go back and decline the opportunity to meet Jake Lawrence. “He said he thought the bank’s shares still had a good deal of room on the upside. He said he thought that the bank was very well positioned as a strong player in one of the hottest regions in the country. The Southeast.”

  “Did he say anything about acquiring Sumter?” Hill spoke up. “Or wanting a board seat? Did he mention anything like that?”

  Angela shook her head. “No.”

  “Did he say he was viewing Sumter as simply another investment in his liquid portfolio? Did he talk about buying more shares?”

  She knew where Hill was going with this. He was trying to read the tea leaves to figure out Lawrence’s true intentions. Searching for buzzwords in anything Lawrence might have said for clues as to whether Lawrence would buy more shares and ultimately announce what would be a hostile takeover attempt or remain passive, which was what she knew they hoped.

  “No,” she answered.

  “Dammit,” Dudley cursed under his breath.

  “Easy, Bob,” Hill said soothingly. “I don’t think you need to—”

  “Shut up, Carter,” he snapped, glaring at Angela. “Ms. Day, don’t you find it odd that out of all the banks in this country and all the lending officers working at those banks, Jake Lawrence would secretly contact you to discuss a transaction about which he ended up giving you no real information? While at the same time he’s accumulating shares ofmy bank. Don’t you get the picture? He could have called any of the big New York banks he works with all the time to help him leverage his portfolio company.” Dudley gritted his teeth. “They’d fall all over themselves to do a deal like that with him, but he called you.”

  “I told you,” Angela said evenly. “Nobodysecretly contacted me. The contact was made through Ken Booker. You can check with him. He’ll tell you what happened.”

  Dudley continued staring at her for a few moments, then eased back in his chair and forced a calm smile to his face. “How did you leave things with Jake Lawrence?”

  “I told him not to contact me again, Mr. Dudley. The man made a pass at me. Didn’t you hear me? My God!”

  Dudley’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say to that?”

  “Say?”she asked.

  “Did he tell you he still wanted you to be involved in this supposed transaction? Did he still want you to lead it, even when you wouldn’t let him have what he wanted?”

  “Even?”

  “If you’re so damned angry about him copping a feel, why didn’t you call the police?”

  “The police?” she asked incredulously. “Do you think they would have believed me?” The world took the word of a rich man over that of a girl from a trailer park. She knew that from personal experience. “Or done anything even if they had believed me? We’re talking about Jake Lawrence here.”

  “So how did Lawrence leave it with you?” Dudley demanded. “What did he say when you told him no?”

  “I didn’t give him a chance to say anything. I got out of there as fast as I could.”

  Dudley pointed at her with a gnarled finger, the way he always did when he really wanted someone’s attention. “If Jake Lawrence or one of his people contacts you again, I want to know immediately.” He hesitated. “And I don’t want you to tell him to go to hell either, Ms. Day.”

  “I don’
t understand.”

  “I want to know what Jake Lawrence’s intentions are. I want you to be loyal to Sumter Bank and to me,” Dudley said firmly. “I don’t want you to mention what he did to you in that cabin if he calls. I want you to act as if nothing out of the ordinary happened in Wyoming. You are to continue working on this transaction, if that is what he asks of you.”

  “But, I—”

  “Bob, we ought to think this through,” Hill cut in. “I mean, we don’t want to put ourselves in a difficult position.” He flashed a nervous smile at Angela. “We don’t want to put Ms. Day in a difficult position either.”

  “I’m not asking Ms. Day to put herself in a difficult position,” Dudley snapped, peering at Angela. “I’m simply asking her to be a loyal employee, loyal to the bank and loyal to me. Jake Lawrence is a bad man. And he has no idea how to run a bank like mine. I’ve devoted too much of myself to this organization and its shareholders to let a slimy son of a bitch like him ooze his way through the crack beneath the front door just because he’s got so much money. None of which he earned himself,” Dudley added snidely. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Ms. Day?”

  She nodded slowly, appalled by what the chairman was saying, appalled by what he was asking of her.

  Dudley nodded back. “Good. If you hear from Jake Lawrence, you are to contact Mr. Hill or his assistant immediately,” he instructed, gesturing at the president, “and arrange an appointment with Mr. Hill using the project name Snake. Mr. Hill’s assistant will understand what that means and what to do. Are we clear on all of that?”

  Adrenaline surged through Angela. The bastard didn’t give a damn what Jake Lawrence had done to her on that couch in Wyoming. To Dudley she was nothing but a readily expendable foot soldier in his personal war to maintain total control of Sumter Bank.

  “Ms. Day?”

  “Yes,” she said curtly. “We’re clear.”

  “Good. That will be all for now.”

  Angela stood up and headed for the door, feeling Dudley’s glare boring into her back. When she’d made it through the anteroom and the lobby, and the elevator doors had closed in front of the receptionist who had watched her walk all the way across the lobby, Angela allowed her head to fall back against the car wall and closed her eyes as it began to descend. The risks in her life had suddenly risen immeasurably. She hoped Jake Lawrence would leave her alone.

  “What do you think, Carter?” Dudley stood in front of the window, hands clasped tightly behind his back, gazing out at the snow falling on Richmond. “What did you think of Angela Day’s performance?”

  “Performance?”

  “What was truth and what was for our benefit?”

  Hill shook his head. “I don’t know, Bob. If any of that was acting, she should win an Oscar.”

  “Do you think Jake Lawrence really assaulted her?”

  “Yes,” Hill answered thoughtfully. “I’m convinced. I saw sincere emotion in her expression.”

  As Dudley watched, the snow began to fall more heavily. The James River, only a quarter of a mile away, was all but obscured. “But why would he do that, Carter? What was his motive?”

  “I don’t think there was any motive, other than getting some action. It’s as simple as that.” Hill shrugged. “After all, she is pretty.”

  Dudley pivoted slowly away from the window. “What did you say?” he asked coldly. “That she’s pretty?”

  Hill shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong. I was just making a point about how Lawrence—”

  “First of all, according to the preliminary information your people dug up, she’s a Wop from a trailer park.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  Dudley’s lip curled. “Worse, she’s a nigger lover. She hangs around with that reporter bitch Olivia Jefferson from theTribune .”

  Hill grimaced.

  “She’s one of those bleeding hearts who feels sorry for savages whose ancestors ran around spearing water buffalo and running from lions, whose cousins still do.”

  “Jesus, Bob, you’ve got to be careful about that kind of stuff. One of these days you’re going to do that in public. Then there will be hell to pay.”

  “I don’t care about the public,” he muttered. “What I care about is figuring out what Lawrence is up to.”

  Hill glanced at the ceiling and groaned quietly. “I think it was simply as she described. He was looking for a little action.”

  “You’re being naive, Carter.”

  “Bob, people I know in New York have told me that he’s got a helluva sex drive. It borders on addiction.”

  “What people?” Dudley hissed. “Have you spoken to any woman who’s ever actually been assaulted by Jake Lawrence?”

  “Well, no,” Hill answered slowly. “The people I spoke to said they’d heard about him from others. But they weren’t rumormongers.”

  “Everyone’s a rumormonger. Remember that.”

  “These were senior people at several of the large investment banks I’m talking about.”

  “And we all know how ethical and honest they can be.”

  “Well . . . “

  “So you didn’t press them on how they acquired their information concerning Jake Lawrence?”

  “No,” Hill admitted.

  “Well, I suggest you do, Carter. I have. And when you really drill down there is no hard evidence of anything concerning Jake Lawrence. And I’m not talking about silly sexual dalliances that you, I, Jake Lawrence, and the rest of the male galaxy are guilty of. I’m talking about any hard information at all. I can’t even find a picture of him.” Dudley turned back toward the window. Only the closest building was still visible through the snow at this point. “From now on, Carter, we will monitor Angela Day very closely.”

  “Are you worried that Lawrence might try to use her as some kind of information source? Inside information?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “But how could she help him? What kind of information could she possibly have access to that would help him take over Sumter?”

  Dudley shook his head, gazing into the storm settling down onto the city. “I don’t know. But by five o’clock this afternoon I want your people to get us a second, much more detailed report on Ms. Day. Not just the easy and obvious stuff this time. I want to know exactly what time she gets up in the morning, what she eats for breakfast, who her friends are, who she’s screwing, and how he’s doing it to her. I want to know what drawer she keeps her damn panties in!” Dudley paused to catch his breath. “Do you understand?”

  Hill nodded and turned to go. He’d made a career out of doing Bob Dudley’s dirty work. This was simply another filthy example.

  “One more thing, Carter.”

  Hill sighed quietly and stopped. “Yes?” he asked, trying to mask his irritation.

  “Do you think any of this could be related to that article Liv Jefferson wrote?”

  “Sir?”

  Dudley moved away from the window to his desk. “Thearticle,” he said loudly, frustrated that Hill didn’t understand exactly what he was talking about right away. “The one accusing me of shutting down our branches in minority-dominated areas of the city, of orchestrating a conspiracy to deny mortgages and other services to minorities across the state.”

  “I suppose, but I don’t think it’s likely.”

  Dudley clenched his hands more tightly. “I called theTrib ’s publisher the day that article came out, and I told him I was going to sue the paper. He told me he would welcome that. He told me he had evidence supporting Liv Jefferson’s claims. A memo or something.” Dudley stared at Hill. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  Hill shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Dudley pursed his lips, then nodded. “You’ve been tasked, Carter. Get to work.”

  Angela slowly replaced her office phone in its cradle after listening to her voice mail. The last message had been from Kate Charboneau, the attorney who had represented Angela in her divorce from Sam Reese six
years ago. And in Angela’s failed attempt to win custody of Hunter. She and Kate hadn’t spoken in two years, and now Kate wanted to get together for a drink after work. One of the men who had lied in court about having sexual relations with Angela during her marriage to Sam Reese had contacted Kate late yesterday and there was an important development to report.

  Angela gazed across the large room at Ken Booker, who was staring back at her from his doorway. Jake Lawrence had promised to talk to his people about helping her. Perhaps, despite Tucker’s skepticism, Lawrence had come through after all. But why this time? What made this situation so special?

  She moved out from behind her desk and headed quickly toward Booker’s office. “I need to talk to you,” she said angrily as she neared him. This was risky, but she wanted answers. And she felt she deserved them.

  “All right.”

  “Inside.” She didn’t want Booker’s assistant to hear this.

  He shrugged, moved back to his chair, and sat. “What is it?”

  “Why did you tell Bob Dudley I was acting on my own when I went out to meet with Jake Lawrence in Wyoming?”

  Booker shook his head. “What are you talking about? Bob Dudley and I never spoke about you going to meet with Jake Lawrence. I haven’t spoken to Bob Dudley in six months. I report to Carter Hill.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sharp rap on the oak door came exactly at five o’clock, as ordered. And that was what Bob Dudley liked most about Carter Hill: his precision. He did what he was told to do exactly when he was told to do it.

  Carter would never be Sumter’s chairman. Dudley had come to that conclusion two years ago, disclosing to a confidant on the bank’s board of directors that Hill was too much of a consensus builder. In essence, Hill didn’t understand enough about manipulation, coercion, and ruthlessness to run an organization as large and complex as Sumter. Worst of all, Hill cared too much about people’s feelings. But, like everyone else in Dudley’s life, Hill served a purpose.

  “Come in,” Dudley called from the same chair he’d been sitting in this morning when he’d met with Angela Day.