Peter Spiegelman - Death's little helpers

Neary offered me a massive hand and we shook. The hostess looked relieved and led us to a table near the back. Neary hung his suit jacket on the chair, loosened his tie, and unfurled a white cloth napkin on his lap. A blond waitress recited the menu to us, and he listened closely and nodded slowly as she spoke. She took our drink orders and left, and I took a closer look at him.

Success was taking its toll. Behind the glasses, his brown eyes were bleary, and the skin beneath them was pouched and dark. There were new lines around his mouth and new gray in his hair. His big shoulders were slumped and rounded. He yawned and stretched out his arms and rolled his neck. I spoke over the clamor.

“Too much work?” I asked.

“Too much work, not enough hours. Too many meetings, too much talking-” There was a muted chime from under the table, and Neary pulled something hardly larger than a deck of cards from his belt. It was black and had a tiny screen and keyboard on the front.

“E-mail,” he said. “Like a fucking electronic dog leash.” But he read it. He shook his head and put the deck back on his belt. The waitress returned with a bread basket and our drinks: ginger ale for Neary, cranberry juice for me. She left with our lunch orders. Neary swallowed some ginger ale and rubbed his eyes. “You take the job?” he asked.

“About an hour ago. Thanks… I think.”

“You’re not sure?”

“You ever meet Nina Sachs?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’ve known Maggie Lind for a while, and done some work for her and her clients, but not Nina Sachs. Why?”

I shrugged. “A difficult personality.”

“I thought that was the definition of client,” Neary said. He reached across the table for a roll.

“Why did Brill pass on this?” I asked. “Was it too small for you guys?”

“Small was part of it,” he said. “But we had a conflict of interest, too. Brill is on the short list to take over security services for Pace-Loyette.”

I thought about that for a while. “Nina Sachs told me that Pace had more questions than answers about where Danes might be.”

Neary nodded, eyeing an elk steak that passed our table, gleaming and smoking. “If we win this beauty contest, I expect that finding him will be one of the first things Pace management asks us to do. If you’ve already located him by then, all the better.”

Wheels within wheels. I smiled. “Why are they so interested?”

“Danes isn’t just another office grunt,” Neary said.

“I know, he’s their wunderkind stock analyst- or he was until a few years ago, when he crashed and burned along with the rest of them. Now I guess he’s like all the other ex-superstars, the pile of dog shit on the kitchen table that everyone’s trying to ignore.”

Neary smiled. “His management is afraid he might be an exploding pile of dog shit.” I raised an eyebrow and Neary continued. “You see the articles in the Journal, on pending enforcement activity?” I shook my head. “I thought you followed this stuff,” he said, smiling. “I thought it was in your blood.”

“I’m in recovery for it. What’s the Journal say?”

“They’ve been running a series on what the next wave of Fed actions might be. Speculation is that the SEC and the Justice Department are looking at the small boutique firms- the niche playersand that they’re set to land hard on anyone who didn’t come to Jesus when they had the chance a couple of years back.”

“And Pace falls into that category?”

“Yep. They’ve got a nice little franchise, providing investment-banking services to tech companies. They’re a one-stop shop: doing M and A, underwriting, lending, syndications, and research. A lot of folks think they never really fessed up, back when the analyst shit first hit the fan- which could make them a prime candidate for some Fed attention this go-round. Pace management has consistently denied any wrongdoing- big surprise- but it’s no secret that they’re nervous.”

“Danes is a part of their worries?”

“He’s been their chief analyst for a long time. He’d inevitably be at the center of any investigation into whether or not Pace tailored their stock recommendations to curry favor with their investment banking clients- or potential clients. A firm in that position has to do some fancy dancing with a guy in Danes’s spot. A guy like that is under a lot of pressure. He could be… unpredictable. He could do damage. So they’ve got some tough calls to make.”

“Like what, whether they can serve him up to the Feds before he cuts a deal of his own?”

Neary laughed. “They haven’t been quite that blunt about it with me,” he said. He drained his ginger ale and waved to the waitress for another. “But they are worried about what Danes might be up to.”

“Is that just corporate paranoia, or has Danes given them reason?”

“The last time they saw the guy, he was storming out of his office after a twenty-minute shouting match with the head of the legal department, and he was muttering something about forwarding his e-mail to the SEC. The next thing they know, he’s on vacation. It got them a little nervous.”

“Very dramatic,” I said.

“But not out of character,” Neary said. “Not for him. You know much about the guy?”

“Not too much. I’ve seen him on the tube- though not lately. Today I heard he’s an asshole, unreliable, a bad father, a liar, and friendless- the usual stuff you get from the ex. But I realize that might not be the whole story.”

Neary made a maybe, maybe not shrug and started to speak, but he was interrupted by our waitress, bearing lunch. Neary’s buffalo steak ran with blood and juices and threatened to overwhelm his plate. My duck sandwich on sourdough was a bit smaller- but just a bit. She laid platters of carrots, steamed spinach, and spicy onion rings in the middle of the table. I took a bite of my sandwich. Neary cut himself a piece of steak and chewed it with his eyes closed. He sighed and nodded to himself. Finally, he came back to earth.

“I never met the guy, but I got an off-the-record earful from some folks at Pace. According to them, Danes is a massive pain in the ass: an egomaniac, a bully, and half a nut job to boot- maybe more than half.” He paused to savor another hunk of buffalo. Color was returning to his face, and his eyes had lost some of their muddy look.

“When the market was up and he was on TV every other day, he was a real prima donna. He roared around the office like a bull in a china shop, terrorizing everyone who crossed his path- including senior management.”

“Nice hobby, but maybe not wise.”

“Apparently he wasn’t too worried. He fancied himself the greatest thing since sliced bread- or the smartest thing, anyway- and he had the press to back him up. He barely tolerated the less gifted- which, according to him, covered pretty much the rest of the world. And they tell me he reserved a special contempt for the Pace-Loyette management committee, his bosses. Thought they were bureaucrats, second-raters, et cetera, and he made no secret of his feelings.”

“No one ever took him out to the woodshed for an ass-whipping?”

Neary shook his head. “I guess the committee tried to get him to chill a couple of times, but in those days- when the market was riding high, and Danes was their analyst poster boy- he had them by the balls, and he knew it.”

“He sounds more like a head trader than an analyst,” I said.

Neary nodded. “Except back then he made more than any trader at Pace.” He picked an onion ring off the platter.

“I take it he toned down his act when the market tanked.”

“A good guess- but wrong. The Pace people tell me that, if anything, he’s gotten worse. Going from hero to goat overnight was a real kick in the head for him- which is maybe understandable. I mean, one day he’s everybody’s favorite market expert, and the next nobody takes his calls. That’s got to hurt.”