Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

It didn’t. The clerk returned in twelve minutes. “There is an amendment,” she said. “It’s a good thing for you we checked.”

“How significant is the change?”

“Pretty significant. He sold all of the stock last month.”

Pace sat bolt upright. “All of it?”

“Every last share, on April 17th.”

Pace felt his heart slam into his ribs. “The same day as the crash,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“A copy of the amendment is being sent down,” the clerk said. “I assumed you’d want to have it.”

“Indeed I do. And a copy of the original filing, too,” he said.

The clerk leaned over and pressed a button on the microfiche. A copy slipped out the bottom of the machine. The clerk smiled at him.

“I never was mechanical,” Pace explained.

“There you are, Pace! I hoped I’d find you.” The voice came from behind the clerk, but Pace recognized it.

“George, hi. What brings you here?”

“Looking for you. Find anything interesting?”

The clerk excused herself. “I’ll bring you that copy as soon as it gets here,” she said.

“Thank you,” Pace replied. Then he told Ridley what he’d found.

“I shudda been a reporter,” Ridley said. “I got all the right instincts.”

He opened his thin briefcase and pulled out a dog-eared copy of The Wall Street Journal, open to an inside page, and a yellow pad with a lot of numbers and notes on it. “I also read this rag cover to cover,” he said. “I had more than a hunch what you’d find here.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Pace said.

“Look here,” said Ridley. “This is a story on April 18th, the day after the ConPac accident, about the impact on Converse stock. It says all the shit you’d expect about the stock taking a beating. But here, look at this one paragraph: ‘NYSE officials say a single investor sold 50,000 shares of common stock just before noon. They attributed the subsequent steep slide in the stock’s value in part to the uncertainty created by that sale.’ “

Ridley pointed at the 50,000 figure in the story and then at the 50,000 figure on the paper in Pace’s hand. “He bought in when the price was good, but when the accident happened, it was ‘Fuck you, Charlie.’”

“Let’s talk this through. Since Marshall dumped the stock, what motive would he have left to carry water for Converse? He didn’t have to stick his neck out with the NTSB. He was out of it and probably richer for it.”

“He still had a constituent to protect. And he had the opportunity to make another killing. After he sold, the stock’s price went right into the toilet, right?” Pace nodded. “Say he buys back in again at bargain-basement rates, all the while he’s scheming to get the C-Fan exonerated from blame in the accident. If he’s successful, the stock goes right back up. It’s ingenious.”

“Can we figure what he made on the sale?”

“We can take a run at it,” Ridley said.

They found that on the day Marshall filed Schedule 13D with the SEC, Converse stock closed at fifty-nine dollars a share after hovering right around that figure for the entire week, a pretty reliable barometer that the price Marshall paid was in that ballpark. The purchase price would have been $2.95 million. On April 17th, it opened at seventy-nine and a quarter. If all 50,000 shares sold for two and a quarter points under the opening, at seventy-seven dollars, Marshall would have reaped $3.85 million—a $900,000 profit.

“Less broker commissions on the buy and sell,” Ridley cautioned.

“It was still a handsome profit, George,” Pace said. “And he’d been collecting dividends all those years, probably more than enough to offset broker charges.”

What Pace didn’t add was the thought that $3.85 million would finance a dandy cover-up.

In his office, alone by his own order, Harold Marshall rubbed his temples. The dizziness returned in waves.

He knew the Democratic members of the Ethics Committee had voted to hold formal hearings on his conduct and thought they could get at least one Republican to go along. If that weren’t the case last night, it surely would be this morning after everyone in Washington read the Chronicle story detailing the enormity of his holdings in Converse and his profits from the stock sale on the day of the ConPac accident. How Steve Pace had pieced together the details was beyond him. Although the reporter’s figures weren’t exactly correct; they erred on the conservative side.

Well, fuck Pace. Fuck ’em all. They didn’t know what he used the money for, and they’d never find out.

If only the dizzy spells would go away, and he could concentrate…

In the Chronicle newsroom, Pace was accepting congratulations.

“Yowser. I’d probably kill a few people for somebody who handed me nearly four million dollars,” Glenn Brennan said. “Far be it from me to suggest how a superstar should pursue this story, but I wonder where a hick lawyer like Marshall got the millions it cost him to invest in Converse in the first place. He inherit money?”

“I don’t think so,” Pace said with a frown. “That’s a pivotal question.” Brennan leaned in close to Pace in a conspiratorial way. “What if Converse paid him off for arranging those tax concessions on the move to Ohio? They lay a cool three mil in his hands. He is overcome with gratitude and turns around and invests the whole wad in the company.”

Pace picked up the thread of the thought. “And when the company needed somebody to finance a cover-up, he cashed in the stock and had nearly four mil at his disposal.” Brennan was nodding. “Actually, that occurred to me yesterday,” Pace said. “Suspecting it and proving it are vastly different things.”

“I’d give a week’s pay to be a fly on the wall in Hugh Green’s private office today,” Brennan said. “I bet he’s got some interesting ideas where to take this. And speaking of Green, here comes Jill. What’s the poop from the ethics front, kiddo?”

“I haven’t talked to anybody yet,” Hughes said. “Uh, Steve, you suppose you could give me a little help with this thing?”

“Sure, if I can. What do you need?”

“There’s a report around, unsubstantiated, that committee Democrats met yesterday and voted to proceed with the Marshall investigation, assuming, of course, they can get a Republican to go along. Given today’s story, I think they’ve probably got a shot. Could you, uh, you know, call Hugh Green and ask him about it?” Hughes continued. “He’d talk to you. You’ve got kind of a special relationship.”

Pace was annoyed that Hughes would ask. “Hugh and I don’t have a special relationship,” he said, keeping his voice unemotional. “Hugh’s administrative assistant and I have a special relationship. That’s different. And I won’t trade on it.”

“Don’t you think he’d understand, given the circumstances and all?”

“He might understand it, but I’m not sure Kathy would. Aren’t there any options?”

”I’ve got calls in to the other Democrats, but they’re not returning them.”

“How about the Republicans? They’ll know if an investigation’s in the works. Green’s probably talked to them by now.”

“I know. I’ll try. I thought Hugh Green would be a shortcut.”

“Maybe, but the cost would be too high,” Pace said. “I can’t risk it. Besides, I’m not sure about the ethics of it.”

“Okay, I understand. I’ll keep after it the old-fashioned way.”

“Thanks for understanding, Jill.”

“I’m sorry I asked.”

“No reason to be. I’m sorry I can’t help.”