“Do I even want to know this, mom?”
She continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “I told him what you told me about Ernie…”
“Oh mom, you didn’t do it. Tell me you didn’t.”
“… and I told him to buy a lot of that stock for me.”
“How much is a lot, mom?” My voice was a monotone. But I was still a little hopeful. A lot could be anything to my mom. It could be a few thousand bucks. Nothing serious.
“Well, Roddy had sold some tech stocks I was holding a while back and he hadn’t found anything for me that he liked well enough to reinvest the money into…”
“How much mom?”
“Eight thousand shares.”
“At how much?” It was already worse than I thought.
“A little over six dollars.”
I did a quick calculation. “Are you saying you bought about fifty thousand dollars of LRG? This morning? After we talked.”
“Now sweetie, I knew you’d be mad.”
“Mom, I’m not mad. Really. It’s just that I feel terrible. I mean, mom: I didn’t tell you to buy that stock. I didn’t say anything like that. I just thought you’d think it was funny. About Ernie, I mean.”
“I know sweetie. I know you didn’t tell me. And I know you never tell me. I know it’s your rule. That’s why I didn’t say anything. But you said you were pretty sure you’d make a nice chunk on this one, that’s what you said. That’s exactly what you said.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And after I got off the phone with Roddy, I called Clarissa.”
“Oh mom.”
“And she called her stock guy and bought some, too.”
“Oh mom.” It was a virus. It was spreading. And I had started it.
“And… and now it’s gone down quite a lot and Roddy says I should sell but I thought… I thought I’d better call you.”
It was difficult for me to talk, what with my forehead pressed to my desk while I studied the floor. My neck was rapidly crikking up and all the blood was rushing into the top of my head. But, for the moment, the pain was good. I wanted pain. Because of a casual remark I had made, my mom was currently down five thousand bucks on the day. My mom: the woman who spent 16 hours in difficult labor bringing me into the world, but who is too sweetly tempered to ever bring that up at a time like this. And, needless to say, managing a par three golf course with a snack bar — not a restaurant — outside of Seattle is not the most lucrative of occupations. Five thousand bucks was serious change to her. And her friend Clarissa — who, by the way, is also a widow — how much had she “invested”? I didn’t even want to know. I had fleeting thoughts about karma: about what happens when you make the wrong choice. About how you pay. Was I paying now? With my mother’s — and my mother’s best friend’s — security?
“Mom, I can’t tell you what to do. I’m not your broker,” I thought about this for a moment. “I’m not even a broker at all anymore. I can’t give you advice.”
“Madeline Carter: I’m your mother, not a client.”
“I know mom. That’s what I mean.”
“So what should I do?”
“Well,” I checked my screen to confirm what was happening, “right now there’s a trading halt. You can’t do anything.”
“I can’t?”
“Roddy didn’t tell you that part?”
“Oh, he might have. Yes, maybe he did. But I didn’t think it meant I couldn’t actually sell if I wanted to. I didn’t think that could happen.”
I sighed. My forehead was beginning to sweat. It was now stuck to the desk. I didn’t mind. “It can. It does,” another sigh. “It did.”
“When will it stop?”
“Stop being stopped? I’m not sure. Maybe before the end of the trading day.” There was a time when I had a spiel for situations like that: Don’t worry, everything will be fine, it’s all — ahem — par for the course. But that was then. And never for the woman who, when I was five, had been able to tell I was up to something if I was too quiet, even when I was in another room. It had made me think she was magic. “And mom, I really can’t tell you what to do. I just can’t. Ask Roddy. He’s your broker. It’s his job.”
She was very quiet. “But I’m not his mother.”
“Mom, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the whole thing. I should never have mentioned Ernie or anything. I was excited: I didn’t think. But please don’t ask me what to do, not about this. And… I’ll make it up to you somehow. I promise.”
It was that promise that did it. Or maybe just her childlike acceptance of it. Just as she’d accepted my news about Ernie and his stupid stock with the same trust. My mother believed in me. She always had. And I — inadvertently, sure, and indirectly — had let her down. I loathed how it made me feel. And the load it added to a day that had been careening downhill almost since I’d placed the first cup of coffee on my desk.
I needed action. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and applied myself to my computer. I consulted several of the databases I’d signed up for, scanning for information on the Langton Regional Group. I was looking for, I don’t know, a hint, I guess. Some kind of clue about whatever was suddenly going on with LRG: whatever nasty thing I’d inadvertently stumbled into. It was all information I’d gone over quickly and expertly on Friday and over the weekend: financials, run downs on LRG’s corporate structure and press releases and news items going back the last couple of years. I’d looked through all this stuff before, but even reading through it again now, with my newly jaundiced eye, it presented the picture I’d come to prior to this morning’s disaster: a quiet little company ripe for good things. Except, that wasn’t what was happening. Not today.
Before I thought about it too much, I picked up the phone and dialed the number on the bottom of one of the press releases.
“Langton Regional, how can I direct your call?” It was one of those bright, slightly nasal voices that, as far as I know, answer telephones at large corporations worldwide, though in regional accents and appropriate languages.
“Martin Hewitt, please,” I said, reading the public relations flack’s name from the release.
I was on hold for a mercifully brief time before a youthful male voice burst onto the line.
“Hewitt!” He said briskly, practically shouting it.
“Hi Martin,” I started brightly. “My name is Madeline Carter. I’m an LRG shareholder,” it was a recent event, my becoming a stockholder. But it was still true. And I didn’t feel the need to mention my mom or Clarissa. “Did you know that there is a trading halt on Langton’s stock?”
“I did… I do know that. Yes. It’s true. There is.” It occurred to me right away that he was talking too much. Of course, there are times when such a piece of information can be useful. In a business negotiation, for example, when you’re trying to pay less for something that costs more. If the other guy starts prattling, you know you’ve got him on the run. Right here and now, though, having figured that out wasn’t helping me much. Public relations guys often spend their whole careers on the run, or a reasonable facsimile. Prattling goes with that territory. In the second place, unless I asked the right questions, I knew I probably wouldn’t get Hewitt volunteering anything. PR guys just aren’t built to blab. Probably part of the whole careers on the run thing.
I thought I’d try anyway. “Can you tell me the reason for the halt?”
“Well, um, Miss…”
“Carter,” I supplied again helpfully.
“Well Miss Carter, as you, um, can imagine, these things can be fairly sensitive in nature, and…”
“… and?”
“Well no, sorry. I’m not at liberty to say. At the moment. Right now. Maybe I will be later. But not now. No.”
“Well, perhaps someone else can help me? Mr. Carmichael Billings, maybe? Will you please forward me to his extension?”
“No! That is to say, I’m sorry, I won’t be able to do that. Our phone system doesn’t have that capacity.”
“Bu
t he’d probably be able to answer the question for me?”
“Well, no, maybe not. That is, he might also not be at liberty to say. As well. But… but if you can be patient, we are confident that the matter will resolve itself. Quickly.”
“Well now, see,” I said, ultra-reasonable, “I don’t want to wait for the matter to resolve itself. I want to know now. So who do you suggest I talk for answers?”
“I really couldn’t say, Miss…”
“Carter.”
“Miss Carter. But we currently feel confident that the matter will resolve itself prior to the end of trading today. By tomorrow morning, at the latest.”
“Mr. Hewitt,” my voice was honey sweet. Innocent. “Is it true that Mr. Billings Carmichael is missing?”
There was a longish pause before he answered. I presumed he was collecting himself while wishing that it wasn’t so darn easy for shareholders to get his name and number. “I can’t comment on that,” he said carefully when he answered. Another pause, and then. “Where did you hear that?”
“It’s true then?”
“I didn’t say that.” But there was the teensiest note of wheedling in his voice.
“But you’re obviously concerned that…”
He cut me off. “As I said, we are confident that the matter of the trading halt will be resolved shortly. Have a nice day,” he said as he hung up.
Have a nice day.
After I got off the phone, I sat and pondered for a bit. I felt as if I’d discovered something, I just wasn’t sure what it was. Sal had said Ernie was missing, and Hewitt hadn’t denied it, but missing could mean a lot of things. He could be missing work. He could have missed his off-ramp on the freeway. He might have dumped LRG at the last minute — before he even started — for a better job offer. Somehow I doubted all of these things and the doubt — combined with my continued self-recriminations, my sudden questioning of my own abilities, the very real fear of losing all of my working capital and the thought of my mother’s face — made me, to put it mildly, a little squirrely. It’s not a feeling I can take sitting down, especially with the knowledge that the company in question was headquartered less than an hour down the road from me.
I looked back over that morning’s first LRG news release and the name “Ernest Carmichael Billings” jumped out at me again. A little, half-baked plan was starting to form and I contemplated the intelligence of what I was thinking. But then, what the hell? What are ex-lovers for if not to answer questions? And, anyway, I did have a valid reason to call him. More or less. There had been that less than idyllic year back at school and the drink last week and his “good tip.” Besides, if my information from Sal and my gut reaction about what Hewitt had said were true, it wasn’t likely I’d get Ernie on the telephone anyway. But how would I feel about myself if I didn’t even try? My mom’s face floated in front of my eyes again. I punched the redial button on my phone before I could stop myself.
“Langton Regional, how can I direct your call?” It sounded like a recording of the voice I’d heard when I called the PR guy, Hewitt.
“Ernest Carmichael Billings, please.”
Was I getting paranoid? Jumping at shadows? But it seemed to me that the receptionist’s voice got a little more distant, if that were possible. Sort of evasive, without evasiveness being required. “I’m sorry, Mr. Billings isn’t in the office at the moment. Can I have him return your call?”
Not in the office? I wanted to shout it. How could he not be in the office? They’d just made an announcement. It was his first official day on the job. Not exactly the right day for a three martini lunch or a nooner, was it? I, of course, said none of this. Here is what I did say: “When do you expect him?”
And, here again, I imagined I heard a hedge. “I’m not precisely certain.”
“He didn’t leave word?”
“No. Sorry. But I can take a message and…”
“Wait though: it’s his first day on the job and you’re telling me you don’t know where he is?” I said it calm, but there was a cut to it.
“No, but a message…”
“I’m an old friend. From Boston. Is he reachable by cell phone?” Did I even have the teensiest idea that this line — true though it may be — would work? No. I did not. Any receptionist who gave me that information should be fired on the spot. Shot, even. This one was in no danger. In fact, having recovered from the hard line I was taking, she was having no more of me. I couldn’t blame her: I would have put up with less of me than she had.
“I’m sorry, Miss,” and I could tell she wasn’t. “If you’re not going to leave a message, I’ll be forced to terminate this call.”
Telephones are so safe, aren’t they? So pleasingly anonymous? “So now you’re the Terminator?” I quipped before I hung up, feeling pleased with myself for about 42 seconds. Because all of that had gotten me exactly… nowhere. And anyway, really, what was so weird about him not being in the office? Sure, Sal had said he was missing and Hewitt had sounded — to my prejudiced ear — somewhat cagey, but there were any number of places Ernie could be that had nothing to do with being missing. He could be at home changing his children’s diapers — because, of course, there seemed no possibility that Ernest Carmichael Billings wouldn’t have children by now. (Though the diaper part was probably stretching it: he’d have people to do that.) Or he could be on the golf course. Or in a boardroom. Driving to a meeting. And yet, none of this really made sense. Sure: he might be “in a meeting” or “unable to come to the telephone,” or “not taking calls, can I direct you to someone else in the company” (with the words “someone less important” left silent). But the day that a publicly traded company with a less than sterling recent record chose to announce a new CEO, you’d think that said new CEO would be somewhere on the premises, holding court or rolling heads or otherwise making his presence felt so that the damn stock would go up. That was how it was supposed to work. That’s what he’d implied to me at Club Zanzibar that night. That’s what I wanted him doing now.
But here, on the heels of their big announcement, a trading halt. Which could mean any number of things; most of them not good. The most obvious possibility — and the least likely considering the nature of this company — was that they’d somehow and suddenly run afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission. But it just didn’t seem like that kind of company. Or they might have botched some sort of official paperwork. And, here again, it didn’t seem likely. For one thing, the Ernest Carmichael Billings that I knew wouldn’t have gotten himself mixed up with an operation that wasn’t doing things the right way. For him, even wrong things had to be done the right way. He would have done his own sort of due diligence before signing on.
The most frequent non-SEC reason for a halt to trading was that something was going down that would impact the stock price one way or the other and, in order to keep insiders out before the announcement could be made, trading was stopped. And, to be honest, at this point I would have almost preferred some lost paperwork scenario to this last possibility. Because that sort of trading halt at this stage in the game likely meant a plummet would happen when the halt came off.
Back to the phones. Ernie had told me he’d moved into the area the month before. I might be able to get a new residential listing from information. But, even as I dialed, I knew this was just me trying to make myself feel like I was doing something. Ernie was as likely to have a listed phone number as he was to live in Reseda. And I was right. No listings anywhere in the greater Los Angeles area — including Reseda — for an Ernest Carmichael Billings or any corruption thereof. Back to square one.
By now the markets were closed and I could safely leave my terminal without all hell breaking loose. Except, somewhere inside, I was planning hell breaking loose without even being completely aware of it.
First I called Emily who, as luck would have it, was home. I told her I was planning on being in town this afternoon and did she feel like meeting somewhere in West L.A. for dinner? We
agreed to meet at a Mexican place on La Cienega that I’d heard about and that Emily liked a lot.
Now, just under the freeway and a little bit west is Culver City: a coincidence that I had created. I put on a camel-colored business suit — trousers, not a skirt — a black turtleneck and my best Italian pumps. Do I know I’m going to Culver City as I dress? Maybe. It’s a possibility. It could happen. But it’s a kick-ass suit: Prada, left over from my trading days, but still chic and shapely. At least, enough for L.A.
For me, part of all of this had to do with my mom. I kept imagining her eyes. That trust. Her unwavering — albeit in this case unasked for — faith in me. That I knew what I was doing. That I’d always do the right thing. But another part of me was running on pure instinct. This is also part of the whole stock thing. It’s like you’re a jungle animal and there’s nothing in the world you can rely on besides your instinct. Like you’re a big cat and you have to be prepared to pounce at the first sign of movement to make sure you don’t miss dinner. Other times it’s like you’re some pathetic rodent — or a bird or a rabbit or something else highly edible — and you just trust your gut and run in order to avoid being another creature’s dinner. I have been a successful trader for over 10 years. In me these instincts are so highly honed sometimes it feels as though I don’t control them. I don’t always think: I just act, or react, as the situation dictates. And then I deal with the consequences, in one way or another.
So, at this point, what am I thinking? Drinks, dinner and maybe clubs with Emily. But somewhere in the back of my mind is Culver City to find out if Ernie is missing and, if he isn’t, to have a one-on-one with him, just to answer some questions. And, anyway, if rationalized correctly, Culver City is precisely on my way to meet Emily.
Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money Page 8
