Within three months, the company’s price/earnings ratio had gone supernova. That ratio divides a publicly traded company’s market price over earnings per share and indicates a security’s market price in relation to its earnings. It tends to be a pretty good indicator of what lies in store for the stock price’s immediate future. After only four months at the helm of this little company, the security was trading at a very impressive five times trailing earnings. At the end of the year, with the company looking much happier — at least on paper — Ernie had replaced himself as CEO and resigned to take another post. Where the same thing happened again. Only this time faster, with results even more out of synch with the company’s financials. And, once again, the business press chose not to notice this. Instead, they plastered Ernie’s face on ever more impressive articles and magazine covers. Wunderkind. Golden Boy.
All pretty on paper, but if you looked very carefully and took a couple of artful leaps you could draw a different conclusion, just as Jack had.
To really manipulate the market, you’d need a talented and connected outside person. One that the rest of the world wouldn’t necessarily associate you with. That was what Jack couldn’t have known, even if he’d suspected it. Even Ernie and Paul having been at university together wouldn’t be enough of a connection: it was Harvard, I’d graduated with a lot of people I was sure I’d never even seen before, as had Paul and Ernie. There was nothing post-University that I could find to connect the two of them to each other.
What was easy to track was the meteoric corporate rise of Ernest Carmichael Billings. And, as the years went by, the corporate recoveries he was responsible for got increasingly more dramatic and took ever shorter periods of time.
Understandably, before very long Ernie was a hot property and articles about him starting blabbing about all of the companies that were trying to snag him. After a decade of this, and with a lot of experience under his belt and a great record, he could pick and choose who he worked for. At that point he could, I’m sure, have worked anywhere in the world he chose. He would have had offers from all over the US and there would have been companies in Hong Kong and Montreal and Leeds and everywhere competing for a year or so of his time. They would have been big high techs and resources and brand name electronics. And, out of all comers, he chose a glass manufacturer based in Culver City, California. The math of all of that really wasn’t very good. It was practically nonsensical.
The more I thought about it, ran the numbers, looked at the old clippings and Jack’s research and just put everything together, the more I started thinking that Ernie — and most likely Paul — had decided on Langton because it could represent the big piñata. A company so lame, so badly managed, so undervalued and so out of the mainstream that it was ripe for their biggest, most outrageous and richest scam yet. They’d shortsell the shit out of it, arrange a high profile kidnapping of the CEO and — yes — the more I thought about it, the more sense it made, they’d even arrange for a witness — me — to see that CEO killed. Just thinking about what that little piece of news would do to the stock price Monday morning made my head hurt.
So Ernie, I decided, wasn’t dead. Just hiding out someplace new. Waiting to reap the rewards of his ill-gained labor. I wasn’t sure how they’d arranged to have me there to see their little show, but by now I was pretty sure there must have been blanks in the gun, both when Ernie was “shot” and when Paul took a shot at me. Which would, of course, let me off the hook for allowing him to die in front of me, but my guilt was just replaced with anger. I was so confident that I was right, I would have put money on it: Ernie was not dead. He was alive. I could feel it in my bones and, certainly, in my gut.
The ringing of the telephone stopped the spiral of my thoughts.
“The cock crows at noon. The sun shines on the elevator shaft.”
“Emily.”
“Da. I’ve got ze microfilm.” Her Russian accent was really quite terrible.
“I take it you got hold of Corby.”
“Da, he ees expecting to be auditioned at high noon.”
I checked my watch: it was nine-thirty now. “Perfect. You want to meet me up here, or at the bottom of the hill?”
“Your place, please. I want to see the teeny guest house I’ve heard so much about.”
“Done. See you when you get here.”
Being on the telephone reminded me that I had yet to return Alex’s call. And, with everything I’d been thinking about relating to Jackson’s package, I felt a sudden urge to speak with him. I dug out his office number and dialed it quickly, before I could change my mind.
“Hi Alex,” I said when he again answered his own phone. “It’s Madeline Carter.”
“Madeline! It’s lovely to hear from you. I enjoyed our dinner the other night very much.”
I flushed a little at that. His interest in me was so obviously romantic. And, while I liked him well enough and under other circumstances I might even have been interested, my attention had been… diverted.
“I did too. Sorry not to return your call sooner, Alex. I’ve been so preoccupied with a… with a business matter that I’ve not been good about returning social calls this week. Forgive me.”
“But of course,” he said instantly, and I had to smile. There was this old world charm and courtliness about him that was practically irresistible. Which wasn’t why I was calling him.
“To be honest, Alex, this call isn’t entirely to return your call, either. It’s the business matter I was referring to. And I guess I mentioned it the other night, as well,” I took a deep breath before I went on. Just say it, Madeline, I said to myself. “I’ve become embroiled in something rather ugly — criminal, I think — involving an old… school friend of mine and a company he has recently been made CEO of and — how can I put this…?” because it suddenly all sounded so ridiculous, out loud and hanging on the telephone line between us. Preposterous, really. And what did I think Alex could do? And yet…
“You think this person is a corporate psychopath?” Alex asked. And he didn’t sound skeptical or annoyed or anything. Which gave me the courage to continue.
“I do. And, actually, from what you’ve said and from… things that have been happening, I’m pretty sure about it. Except one thing I wanted you to clarify, if you could, that would be helpful to me.”
“If I can, Madeline, I will.”
“Well, the other night you mentioned a ‘career arc’ that is not unusual in psychopaths. You said they might start with small things and then work their way up.”
“It is, I think, because of the boredom,” he said, as though I’d caught up with him in mid-lecture. “When a thing is done — accomplished as it were — it’s no longer interesting to revisit. For the psychopath that seems to be true of people as well as activities, substances and so on.”
“But is it true also for corporate psychopaths? Or does it manifest itself in different ways?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you talked about the psychopath starting with stealing from the corner store, then maybe stealing a bike as a teenager and then graduating to larger ticket items. But a corporate psychopath would have a different career arc, don’t you agree?”
“I do, but go on. It sounds as though you have a hypothesis. Let’s hear it.”
“Well, I think it’s all about environment. Accessibility.” I thought of some of the stories Ernie had told me when we were first together, during our honeymoon period when we were just getting acquainted. Stuff that I’d maybe thought was cute at the time, with the blinders of new love upon me. “Maybe he’d start out by cheating at monopoly or stealing the money from his brother’s piggy bank. Then maybe move up to manipulating his paper route for his own profit, taking money from his mother’s purse, cheating on high school exams, that sort of thing.”
“All of this is possible,” Alex agreed. “But none of it conclusive.”
“But what I’m thinking is this: all that truly separates the cor
porate psychopath from the other kind is opportunity. Advantage. Perhaps intelligence, but also education. But the regular, everyday psychopath mostly gets put out of circulation. You said you thought prison psychopath populations were as high as twenty-five percent.”
“That’s right.”
“But is that just because corporate psychopaths behave in a manner that’s acceptable in their environment? Acceptable and maybe even encouraged? Is it not even possible that, to get to the top at a lot of big companies, it’s almost necessary to display that type of behavior?”
“This is something I’ve noted as well. There is even a theory that psychopathy as found in certain individuals is a genetic influence, one that is perhaps there to help ensure that individual’s survival.”
“Please, Alex. I don’t even wanna hear that.”
He laughed. “Science is full of things none of us want to hear, Madeline.”
“I see what you’re getting at, though. But the career arc, Alex. On the surface of things, it sounds like your average jail-bound psychopath is more dangerous than the corporate kind. That the corporate ones will do ruthless stuff for advancement, maybe have crummy marriages and terrible personal lives, but the really awful stuff is left for other, commoner, psychopaths. But that’s not true is it?”
“No, it’s not.”
“In fact, Alex, I’m thinking the opposite may be true. That because he is more cunning, more versed in the way the world works and perhaps more practiced that — over that career arc — the corporate psychopath could potentially be even more dangerous than the non-corporate kind. Because he’s smart and educated. I think — and this is why I’m calling — that sort of corporate psychopath would be capable of… well… anything. Do you agree?”
“And we’re still really talking hypothetically, aren’t we Madeline?” Alex asked with the professional caution of one who knows his way around the mysteries of the ivory tower.
“Sure. Yes. Of course.”
“Well then, I’d have to say yes. I agree. The corporate psychopath is capable of — as you say — anything at all.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I had to find Arianna. When we’d met, I couldn’t imagine why I’d want to call her, so I’d given her my phone number and not asked for hers. Between that and the forgetting-phone-numbers-with-Steve fiasco, I knew this was yet another personal flaw that was going to require work.
Now I needed to talk to Arianna and I had absolutely no way of getting in touch with her. And then I remembered: A billboard across from the cafe where I’d met with her. And then the back of a bus bench. A raven-haired woman, beautiful in a carefully-preserved kind of way. I couldn’t think of her name or the company she’d been with, but I had a feeling she’d be The One.
First things first, though. Emily and I had a date with a surfer, sort of. At exactly ten-thrity, Tycho chuffed when he heard a knock at the door.
“Open!” I called from the bedroom.
Then Emily’s voice, “Is that a good idea?”
“Please,” I popped my head out, and indicated Emily take a stool, “don’t start with me on that one. I’ve heard it all before.”
Being reminded of that made me think of Jennifer and what we were about to do.
“Are we crazy?” I asked Emily as I joined her in the living room. “Is this a crazy thing we’re contemplating?”
“Of course,” she laughed. I could see the signs of the short night on her face, but she looked excited at the prospect of the adventure before us, “and that’s why I’m here: to keep you from bailing. And you’re here to keep me from bailing. But the two of us together can do this, no sweat.” If she was the least bit apprehensive, she didn’t show any signs of it. I supposed I probably looked the same: calm and resolved.
We both took our cars to the Malibu Center Mall and parked within eyeshot of the entrance to the cafe with fifteen minutes to spare. My car was closer, and Emily joined me for our vigil.
We saw the green gold van pull into the parking lot. If I needed further confirmation, I checked the plate number on the van against the one Anne Rand had given me in Redlands. A match. There could be no doubt: this was Corby’s van.
“There he is!” Emily said needlessly.
“Oh shit,” I said as we watched him cruise for a parking spot. “Jennifer’s with him.” This wasn’t something we’d expected. “What if she goes in with him?”
“She won’t,” Emily said. “This is supposed to be an audition, remember? He’ll leave her in the car.”
Emily was right. Corby parked the van on the other side of the lot. We could see him give Jennifer a quick kiss, and then practically skip into the coffee place. He was excited.
“OK: change of plans. Em, you’re going to have to go in and keep him there for a while.”
“What if he remembers me from Tyler’s party?” She sounded slightly panicked.
“It won’t matter. It was mostly film people anyway. You could even say you scouted him there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. And I wasn’t. “Just go. If I’m not here when you come out, meet me back at my place.”
I watched Emily go inside, counted to ten while trusting she’d get Corby out of view of the window if he was anywhere near, then left my car.
Reasoning that Jennifer wouldn’t be looking out the rearview mirror, I skirted around the lot so that I approached the van from behind. I could hear the baseline of a noxious rock tune bleeding from inside the vehicle and, when I got close enough, I saw that the passenger door was unlocked.
Because of the music, stealth wasn’t required. I was quiet anyway. With my hand on the door handle, I counted to ten silently — one, two, three… — as much to calm my nerves as anything. At ten, I opened the door and snaked out my arm, grabbing hold on Jennifer’s wrist while simultaneously bringing myself around to face her. After all this, I didn’t want her running away.
“Madeline?” she looked terrible. Wasted. Bedraggled. And, I was relieved to note, in no condition to fight me.
“Come on,” I said, practically heaving her out of the van.
She followed me docilely enough at first. “Where we goin’?” she asked as I led her across the parking lot.
“Home,” I managed, moving her steadily towards my car.
“I’m not going home,” shedding the docility like a sweater and twisting away from me. The change in attitude — from compliant to wildcat — took me by surprise and I felt Jennifer’s dry, slender wrist slip out of my clammy grip.
“Jennifer!” I called after her as she headed across the parking lot towards the coffee place; towards Corby. If she heard me, she gave no sign.
It’s funny how time compresses in urgent moments. From the time Jennifer slipped out of my grasp until I rear tackled her near the entrance to the cafe could only have been about twenty or thirty seconds, but so much happened in that time.
I was running full out when Jennifer narrowly missed being hit by a would-be shopper cruising too fast looking for a parking space. Jennifer wasn’t watching where she was going and jumped practically into the path of a white Audi convertible. The driver had the top down and screamed, “Crazy bitch!” even as he hit the brakes.
The sound of the car and the adrenalin-mad driver caused Jennifer to hesitate for a couple of seconds. Not very long, but it was enough. As she pulled herself back into a running position — her eyes wide as she looked around like a wild horse in the path of a predator — I launched myself at her, both of us scraping our knees on the concrete walkway.
I have about five inches and at least twenty pounds on Jennifer. Once I grabbed her, I knew she wasn’t going to get away from me again. We tussled a bit, but I pulled her arm behind her back in a half-nelson and began forcing her to her feet with the upwards pressure on her delicate little arm. My concern was two-fold at this point: get her away from the cafe before boyfriend person came back out, while not breaking the girl’s ar
m. The funny thing was, I knew in that instant that I would have broken her arm to prevent her getting away from me again. I think she knew it, too, because the struggle seemed to go right out of her.
“Is everything all right?” The woman’s voice was cultured, soft. She had come out of the flower shop we’d landed in front of and her well-made features showed two clear emotions: fear and genuine concern.
“Call the police!” Jennifer screeched. “This crazy bitch is trying to kidnap me!”
The woman looked from Jennifer’s wild, hyper-dilated eyes, to mine with obvious concern. “Sorry to bother you madam,” I said, trying to sound as controlled as possible. “The girl is my daughter. She’s been running with a very bad crowd and I’m just trying to get her home.” I didn’t wait for a reply to either my words or Jennifer’s blue screams of denial, but started half dragging, half pushing the girl across the parking lot towards my car. The woman followed us for a bit.
“Can I help?” she asked, obviously believing me.
“Yes, please. Can you open the back door of that silver car right ahead of us?”
Once I was behind the wheel I activated the childproof locks in the back. I wondered how I was going to manage driving with a deranged teenage animal in the backseat, but I needn’t have worried: the fight seemed to go out of her as soon as the doors were locked. A few beats later Jennifer slumped into a beaten heap. I looked over my shoulder at her: was she trying to con me? But no: I could see she’d passed out.
I backed out of my spot and drove past the café, honking to get Emily’s attention, wanting her to know that — with the exception of a few bad moments — Plan A had actually worked and we were underway.
And then I headed for home.
*
We managed to get up the canyon without mishap, but once I’d parked I realized there was no way the semi-comatose girl could manage the cliffstairs alone, and I didn’t want to leave her while I ran and got Tyler. It was while I sat on the hood of my car waiting for Emily, one eye constantly on Jennifer still in the back seat, that my hands started to shake. And I didn’t mind. Some type of delayed shock. Better delayed, I thought, than at the scene.
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