Chapter 3

Stocks
crashed but the dollar and the debt markets weathered the storm. Nobody
dumped. Japan doesn't want its prime customer to go belly up. Who else
is gonna buy all that shiny crap?"

I studied my glass again. If Henderson, who had pulse- feelers around
the globe, wasn't worried, then maybe Matsuo Noda was just a nervous,
spaced-out old guy. A loony-tune with an itch to gamble. Funny, though,
he appeared the very essence of a coolheaded banker.

About then, the two women across the bar waved for their check and
began rummaging their purses. Sadly enough, the brunette had done
everything but send over an engraved invitation for us to join them.
She and I had looked each other over, and we both knew what we saw. The
walking wounded.

It made me pensive. More and more lately I'd begun to wonder about the
roads not taken, the options that never were. What if all our lives had
started out differently? Where would you be? Where would I be--playing
lawyer now, or maybe driving a cab? It was the kind of woolgathering
that drove Donna Austen insane.

It was on my mind that first afternoon I met her, when she brought her
sound guy down to record some "voice-overs" to use with shots of the
house. She made the mistake of asking for a little background, so I
decided to go way back and give her the big picture. It turned out to
be a little kinky for the six- o'clock news.

I suited the tale by telling her about my father, once a rig foreman in
the oil patch out around Midland, Texas. I was still a kid when he
started tinkering around weekends with drill bits out in his shop, and
I was no more than about ten when he came up with a new kind of tip.
Turned out it could double the life expectancy of a bit, not to mention
the life expectancy of a lot of roughnecks who had to change them every
few hours. He patented the thing, and next thing you knew, he was
"president" of Permian Basin Petroleum.

"Your father was a successful inventor?" She'd set her Tab down on the
living room table and perked up. Here was some "color" for her profile.

"More than that. The man was a believing capitalist." Was she really
going to understand the significance of what happened? "You see, since
no banker would risk loaning out venture capital back in those days, he
had to take PBP public. He needed money so badly he sold off sixty
percent of the company."

"Like those entrepreneurs who created home computers in their garage?"
She brushed at her carefully groomed auburn hair. Maybe here was her
hook, the grabber.

"Close. He took the money, several million, and started production. And
guess what? The bit he'd invented was too good. Next thing you know,
another outfit that will remain nameless here came along and infringed
on the patent, saying 'sue us'--which he began trying to do. But since
they were already tooled up to manufacture, they undercut his prices
and drove PBP's stock down to zip. Then came the kill. They staged a
hostile takeover and--since PBP now owned the patents, not him--axed the
lawsuit. Bye, bye, company."

"How does this story relate to what you do today?" She was checking her
watch, no longer overly engaged.

"Well, by the time all this happened, I was off studying engineering at
the University of Texas. But when I graduated, I decided to do
something else. I headed for Yale Law."

"If you can't lick 'em, join 'em? Something like that, Mr. Walton?"

"Not exactly, Ms. Austen. I wanted to find out if the Bible's right:
that guys who live by the sword better be ready to die by the sword.
After the sheepskin, I shopped around and found the Manhattan law firm
that handled the biggest oil-field-service outfit in the country, then
applied to that firm's corporate department. A couple of years and a
lot of memos later, our oil-field client somehow got the idea they
ought to go vertical, acquire their own source of equipment. Next I ran
some numbers and showed them how profitable it would be to acquire a
certain tool company that now owned the patent on a terrific drill bit.
Of course, it would require a hostile buyout, but with a little
restructuring they could swing it financially."

"And?"

"I worked nights and weekends for six months and personally devised the
takeover. By oddest coincidence, when we were through we decided to
strip all that company's overpaid executives of their 'golden
parachutes' and dump them on the street. My graduation present to the
old man."

She rolled her eyes and waved at her sound man to shut off the mike.
"Mr. Walton, I think our viewers would be more interested in personal
stories."

What did she want, I wondered. This was the most "personal" story I
had.

"What do you mean? What I eat for breakfast?"

"I do personalities." She looked around the living room. "Are you
married?"

"I was."

On came the tape. But she didn't get what she wanted. Joanna wouldn't
appreciate being critiqued on Channel Eight's evening news. And Amy
would have killed me. So I just plunged ahead and finished off the
other saga.

"There's a bit more to this intimate bio. Guess I'd seen enough quick
money in the oil business that I'd forgotten you were supposed to be
impressed by it. Or maybe I'd just never mastered the art of kissing my
elders' asses convincingly. You'll find, Ms. Austen, that those are two
attitudes whose rewards are largely intangible; Wall Street
compatibility definitely not being on the list. After five years the
Management Committee offered a partnership, but by then I'd decided to
go out and try making it on my own. Be my own man."

She waved the sound man off again. "You mean you quit?"

"Couldn't have said it better. I hung up a shingle . . . and started
playing the other side of the scrimmage line."

"I understand you've been in quite a few takeover fights."

"Let's say I've fought a lot of takeovers, Ms. Austen. There's a subtle
but important distinction."

Donna Austen turned out to be more interested in my marital status than
in anecdotes about corporate mayhem. Thing was, beneath all that glitz
I found her a challenging woman. Amy, on the other hand, despised her.
But then she never likes anybody I bring home. The real problem,
however, was that I kept thinking more about Joanna than I did about
Donna. As witness this evening, when that sadder-but-wiser brunette
headed out the door reminded me of her more than a little. . . .

"Hate to see that young specimen depart without a good-faith offer of
condolence." Henderson was wistfully eyeing the young blonde.
Definitely his type. "Trouble is, I couldn't locate the equipment
tonight with a compass and a search warrant." He hoisted his glass,
then turned back and reached for another Dunhill. "So tell me what
brings you uptown. Never knew you to venture this far into civilization
just to stand a drink for your oldest and wisest confidant."

Back to reality. "William H., you will undoubtedly find this difficult
to accept, but I just got asked to front some Treasury action for a new
client. Selling futures."

"Where do you find your suckers?" He grinned. "That's never been your
game."

"Hey, at least I know the rules. Corporations have been known to hedge
their debt offerings, my friend. But what I've done up to now's been
strictly bush league compared to this."

"So what's the play?"

"A foreign outfit that wants low profile. And P.S., they're talking
substantial numbers."

"What do you mean, 'substantial'?" Suddenly Henderson's input file was
on red alert.

"Probably wouldn't impress a high roller like you, Bill." I paused.
"Half a trillion dollars."

"Jeezus." He went pale. "Who's putting up the earnest

money for this shot? Let interest rates head the wrong way, you
couldn't cover the margin calls on a position that size with the GNP of
South America."

"What if it happened to be some of our friends from across the Pacific?
An outfit that calls itself Nippon, Inc." I looked at him. "Ever hear
of it?"

"Nope." He just stood there, examining his drink as though it suddenly
had acquired an enormous insect. "But you've got a surefire knack for
really messin' up an evening."

"I guess this is what's meant when people talk about the big time."

"Christ Almighty. Tell you one thing, that's a hell of a number to put
on the table. I'd sure like to see those boys' hand."

"Maybe somebody's paying to see ours." I finished off my drink and
signaled for another. The more I thought about Matsuo Noda, the more I
realized I needed it. "You know, this half scares the crap out of me."

"Matt, old buddy, do yourself a favor. Stand clear. Just back away." He
was getting more sober by the second. "You'd be lifting up some kind of
big rock when you don't know what's under it. I never do that. Ironclad
rule. Same as I always cut losses at ten percent and never let a long
position ride over a weekend. And I'll tell you something else. Nobody
lays down a bet like that unless he knows the casino's fixed." He
paused. "I wonder if maybe we oughtn't to give Jack a call?"

"O'Donnell?"

"Low-key. Just touch base. Inside word is his Finance Committee's going
to be holding hearings on foreign investment, maybe in a couple of
months. Besides, I know for a fact he owes you a few."

That was true. Senator Jack O'Donnell was headed for reelection
headaches. He was America's corporate nightmare-- a former professor of
labor law at Columbia who'd gone out and bought some tailored suits,
shed thirty pounds, dyed his hair, and actually gotten elected to the
U.S. Senate. He was despised on Wall Street for good reason. O'Donnell
was the Grand Inquisitor of the corporate scene, hauling CEOs in front
of his committee every time he sniffed some new scam to shortchange
stockholders. Since we saw eye to eye a lot, I'd made it a point to
lean on a few of my clients and come up with some campaign bucks for
him, telling them it was good "insurance money." Still, if I leaked
this to Jack, I'd probably be reading it tomorrow in The Washington
Post.

"Henderson, I can't bring him in. Nobody's talking anything illegal.
Still, I'm beginning to think I ought to keep an eye on this from the
inside."

"Matt, you haven't been listening. Let me pass along a major working
principle on how to keep your ass intact in this world. Write it down
and tape it to your phone: Staying on the sidelines is a position too.
That applies to Wall Street, and it damned sure applies to life." He
stretched for a Dunhill, then leaned back. "Ever tell you about that
feisty 'coon hound I used to have, redtick I called by the name of
Red?"

"Only about a hundred times." Red was his favorite sermon text.

"Well, ol' Red somehow conceived the idea he was just about the meanest
fucker in the county, and he was always out to prove it. Then one night
he made the mistake of treeing a big old mama 'coon, up in this little
sycamore we had down by the creek. I heard him barking and raising hell
and I knew I wouldn't get a wink if I didn't go down and see about it."

"Henderson, Christ, I've already heard this."

"Well, I'm gonna finish it anyhow, by God. Sounds like you could use a
refresher course." He took a drink. "Now then, after I made it through
the copperheads and briers and got down there, naturally the first
thing I did was shine that tree with my light and count the eyes. Turns
out that mama raccoon had a bunch of her little ones up there too. So
she was in a real disagreeable frame of mind. Her eyes were bright red
and I could tell she was thinking she just might eat herself a smartass
hound for supper. I tried to explain this to Red, call him off, and get
him to come on back up the house, but no, sirree, nothing would do but
he had to take her on. So I figured it was time he had a little reality
contact. I chunked a couple of rocks, got lucky, and down she tumbled.
Next thing ol' Red knew, he thought he had his ass caught in a brand-
new John Deere hay baler. I finally had to kick her off him and get her
back up the tree before she really got mad."

"Henderson, I hear you."

"Listen up, friend. There's a moral. You see, ol' Red didn't have
enough expertise that night to know when to stand off. But I'll tell
you one thing: he learned real fast. Next time he chased that
particular mama up that sycamore, he took one sniff and just trotted
right on back to the house." He sipped again. "Every time I come across
a tree full of something I don't know about, I remember old Red and
just turn around and walk away."

"I'm taking your warning under advisement." I threw down a fifty,
glanced at the soundless Mets game on the TV over the bar, and reached
for my coat.

"You'd damned well better."

"Henderson, get some sleep. As a friend and colleague, I must in all
honesty advise you, you look like absolute hell."

"I've always valued your candor." He waved for another drink. "But I've
got some heavy thinking to do."

"Okay, get home safe. Let's keep in touch."

He saluted with his glass. "Tell you what, Matt, maybe I'll just do a
little sniffing around myself, see if I can't get a fix on what's up
the tree."

"Okay." I was putting on my coat, checking through the window to see if
the rain had stopped. Looked like it had. "Let's both sleep on it."

"You do that." He wasn't smiling as I headed out the door.

Henderson, who could slumber like a baby when he was down a million for
the day, didn't look like he had much rest ahead that night. For all my
brave talk, I didn't either. Now that the rain was over, I wandered
over to Fifth to look at the trees sparkling in the streetlights. And
to think. If you're from West Texas, you love to see green things wet.

Then I hailed a cab downtown, still with lots of unanswered questions
on the subject of Matsuo Noda. What had happened to my country that
could make it so vulnerable to the financial shenanigans of a single
white-haired foreign banker? Was this what people meant when they
talked about the tides of history? Was the free ride over?

Back when I was a kid, I'd accepted as an article of faith that America
was the greatest, that we were destined to lead the world forever. Was
that hubris? Now I had this sinking feeling we were about to begin
learning a little modesty. Maybe Amy didn't know it yet, but her
America was going to end up being a lot different from mine. All of a
sudden folks all over the world were about to be richer than we were.
It was going to take some painful adjustment.

That's when I finally decided. Yes, by God, I would track this one. And
when I figured out what Noda had up his sleeve. I'd blow the whistle.
Somebody needed to stand guard over this country, and if not me, who?

Matt Walton vs. Matsuo Noda.

As it turned out, the evening still wasn't over. Things continued to go
off track, beginning with when I walked in my front door. I guess by
now everybody's pretty blase about urban crime, but it's still always a
shock when it happens to you. I also think it's getting worse. I can
remember five years ago when Joanna and I never bothered even to latch
the street windows. These days they have bars--a small precaution
following an evening on the town during which everything we owned with
an electric cord attached walked out into the bracing Manhattan night.
That was my first experience with the hollow feeling in your gut when
you realize your sanctum has been plundered. It's not the lost toys,
it's the violation that gnaws at your karma.

This time, though, it appeared to be minor. No forcible entry. Somebody
had actually picked the front-door lock, a fact I only established to
my satisfaction after every other possibility had been considered and
dismissed. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything at all
that night if not for a wayward train of thought on the way home.

I'd been meditating on a particular sword in my collection, a _katana_,
which was totally without distinction except for a little oral history.
Reportedly the blade once tasted blood in a rather arcane episode. Noda
probably would have approved. The story was, the samurai who'd
commissioned it decided he liked it so much he didn't want the
swordsmith telling anybody how he'd forged it. So after he'd thanked
the guy graciously, deep bows and all the rest, he picked up the sword,
bowed one more time, and then hauled back and sliced him in half, clean
as a whistle. The _kesa _stroke, left collarbone straight through the
right hip. It's said a samurai could do things such as that in the old
days.

My meeting with Noda had made me want to look it over, to refresh my
memory concerning that Japanese capacity for the unexpected. So after I
let myself in through the front foyer, I tossed my raincoat over a
banister, headed down to the kitchen to pour myself a nightcap, and
proceeded upstairs to the "office."

I clicked on the light and then . . .

Jesus! The place had been trashed. Drawers open, files

tipped over, piles of paper askew. After the first numbing shock, that
perception-delay your senses impose before you can actually accept what
you're seeing, I quickly started taking inventory. Okay, what did they
get this time?

Well, the computer and printer were both intact, cordless phone was
there still, the little nine-inch Sony in the corner was untouched. . .
. Hey, could it be they hadn't actually lifted anything?

Then I remembered why I'd come upstairs. Off to the side, under the
back stair, was a big walk-in closet I called my sword room, always
kept under lock and key. I glanced over at the door.

Hold on. It was hanging open slightly. I strolled over and checked it
more closely. The mechanism had been jimmied, professionally, but with
enough force that the metal frame around the door was askew. Not a
blatant entry, but a determined one.

My heart skipped a beat. That's why they didn't bother with TVs. These
guys knew where the real action was, the lightweight, very expensive
loot. I opened the door, took a deep breath, and felt for the light.

You could have heard my sigh of relief all the way out in the street.
From the looks of it, nothing was missing here either.

Be sure now. I quickly glanced down the racks, mentally cataloging the
pieces. Everything had a place, and all the places were still full.
Strange. This stuff was worth thousands. Burglars break in to steal. So
what happened? Maybe something scared them off. My sheepdog Benjamin,
the fearless terror of the streets? He was now snoring at the foot of
the stairs, but who knows . . .

Walton, you lucky stiff, this could have been a major hit. I cursed at
the thought of having to have the door and lock repaired, made a mental
note to remember to call the locksmith over by Sheridan Square in the
morning, and pushed the damaged door closed.

What a hell of a night. I pulled the Sotheby's catalogue out of my
pocket, recalling the auction that had inaugurated this fateful
evening, and turned to chuck it in the file cabinet where I kept all
the records for my hobby: prices, news clippings, correspondence, the
rest.

The cabinet, one of those cheap tin jobs you buy at discount office-
supply places, was slightly askew. What's this? I yanked open the top
drawer and saw chaos.

Uh, oh. I went down the row, checking. Tell you one thing, my intruders
had been thorough. Every drawer was a mess, just like the office. Then
I got to the bottom, the one with backup data on the collection.
Appraisals, provenance of the pieces, that kind of thing.

It was empty.

But of course! Any pro would know that half the value of a collection
such as this would be in all the documentation. Which meant my
methodical thieves were no dummies; they'd started with the paperwork,
the valuations and authenticity info . . . which meant they weren't
through. I must have interrupted their . . .

My God! They could still be here.

I edged for the phone and punched 911, the police emergency number.
Next I went back and pulled down a sword, just for protection, and
swept the empty house. It was all nice and tidy.

Finally New York's men in blue showed, an overweight Irishman and his
Puerto Rican partner, both with mustaches. I actually knew them, having
once received a ticket for walking Ben off the leash. We went through
the formalities, lots of questions with no answers worth writing down,
and then they offered to send around a fingerprint squad in the
morning. Sure, why not. And you'd better get new locks for this place,
Mr. . . . Walton. Right. We all thanked each other and I saw them out.

Then I headed back down to the kitchen. What was this all about?
Stealing files? Papers? Those documents, lovingly and painstakingly
assembled, were what made the swords somehow uniquely a part of my
life. Something that actually wasn't going to decide to take a hike the
next week. The stuff had no value to anybody except Matt Walton.

Or so I thought.

CHAPTER THREE

Some people will swear life runs on coincidence. Is it true? If so,
here's one for the history books. It's the tale of an old flame. Before
my ex-wife Joanna, before my later ill-starred adventure with Donna
Austen. The lady's name was Tamara Richardson, and she was a professor
at New York University. When I knew her, though, she was merely an
assistant prof with a shiny new Ph.D. At any rate, she was fresh out of
Columbia's graduate school and very much starting out. I was too. Best
I can remember, we met shopping for green groceries at Balducci's, just
up Sixth Avenue from my place, and we saw each other a few times. It
had to be at least fifteen years (how time flies) since our brief
episode.

Tam Richardson, however, was not easy to forget. There was a kind of
under-the-surface intensity about the woman that seemed always close to
the ignition point. When you were around her, you were always worried
somebody might accidentally light a match. However, she had no shortage
of men in her life, and eventually we each went our own way. Ships that
passed in the night. I never expected to hear of her again.

Things didn't quite work out that way, however. She started getting
famous, as a thorn in the side of America's lackadaisical corporate
management. Somewhere along the line, Tam Richardson had taken it upon
herself to single-handedly kick some overpaid ass in America's plush
boardrooms, and she wasn't trying to win any popularity contests doing
it. She was the kid in the story who pointed out the emperor had on no
pants, while everybody else was claiming his tux was a great fit. Guess
you can't fire somebody in academia merely for saying what everybody
knows to be true but doesn't have the guts to verbalize.

Then about a year ago, I noticed a full-length profile of her

in an airline magazine spread about "America's New Achievers." No
escaping her. Between the lines, I got the definite impression she
hadn't really changed all that much over the years. She was around five
seven, high cheekbones, dark hair that looked like it could use a
brush, and eyes that made you think twice about giving her a lot of
bullshit. Reminded me of, say, the young Glenda Jackson with a heavy
spike of Debra Winger. For my money, though, she was just about ideal
in the female department. Trim bottom, nice little twist in her stride,
just enough cleavage to make you wonder. She didn't go out of her way
to advertise, but you figured the goods were on board. My recollection
in a nutshell? Tam Richardson was a better than average looker, damned
smart, and she knew no fear. None.

There was something about her, though, that always left people
puzzling. Where'd she come from? American, sure, but no way could she
have been corn-fed Midwest like her surname. The answer was, she had a
slightly more exotic, and probably painful, history than most of us.
Maybe that was part of the reason she always seemed to be a loner,
never went along with the crowd. The one time she'd tried that, it
hadn't worked. I got to know her well enough to hear a bit of the
story, but I'd sort of repressed the details.

Maybe I'd do well to come clean and admit I still thought about Tam
from time to time. What's more, I gleaned from the magazine piece that
she still lived right around the corner. Made me think briefly about
giving her a call, get together for a drink, the old days, etc. But I
finally decided I'd had enough high-spirited women for a while. Time to
mellow down. Why go looking for lightning in a bottle?

She'd always liked three things: good-looking men, telling the high and
mighty unpleasant truths, and interior design. Consequently it was no
great surprise that the magazine devoted a photo spread to her rambling
six-room apartment. The place was in one of those NYU-owned buildings
on the west side of Washington Square Park, and it was definitely a
knockout. She'd played off the old classic interior, a generously
proportioned thirties layout, turning it into an environment that
blended technology and design. Not for Tam, though, the utilitarian
"high-tech" look so trendy a few years back; no ugly "state of the art"
machines. It was eclectic--modernism here, deco there.

Take her library-office. I smiled when I noticed that next to the
latest IBM PC was a "streamlined" Raymond Loewy- designed calculator,
pure thirties. Same old Tam. On the other hand, just to keep it all
from getting too serious, she also had a collection of kitschy salt and
pepper shakers scattered among the books--a dog peeing against a
hydrant, a naked babe with spicy boobs . . . she told the writer it was
her "tribute to America."

The place was everything she was, a potpourri of the world, a mishmash
of styles, and she clearly loved it. I probably missed a good half of
the insider gags, this outrage up against that one, but I must say she
brought it off with appreciable _elan_. Truthfully the place was a
perfect reflection of the Tam I remembered--a woman who did her own
thing.

She was now, so it said, a full professor at the university.
Undoubtedly she deserved it. She was also director of their new Center
for Applied Technology, which she'd founded. When the interviewer asked
her which department the Center was under, she'd apparently shrugged
and said "certain people" at the university wanted to bring it in under
the School of Business. But the Center had outside funding, was doing
vital work, and she was darn well going to stay independent.

Whoops. That ballsy crack, although perfectly in character, meant she
was now giving the back of her hand to university politics. Mouthing
off in a national publication about some departmental power play is no
way to endear yourself to college deans. It lays bare all their petty
empire-building. Didn't seem to worry her, though; just like in the old
days, she said exactly what she was thinking and let the chips tumble.

Her major occupation in recent years, as anybody who reads the op-ed
pages around the country knows, was to shame American executives into
getting off their duffs, to make them start diverting some of their
executive perks into the serious problem of getting this country
competitive again. She had plenty of ideas where the corporate-jet
money could be better invested. Over the years she'd knocked out half a
dozen books on technology and the American workplace--office automation,
computer-aided design in engineering, robots and computer-integrated
manufacturing, that kind of thing. Tam Richardson still believed
America could whip the world, but it would take more than speeches and
flag waving. Her latest expose of America's corporate fat cats, which
actually got a sidebar in the story, claimed they'd better start
cutting their million-dollar salaries and putting the money into
creating American jobs, or we'd all soon end up fetching coffee for the
new Pacific Rim dynamos and buying our goodies at East Asia's company
store.

Only she didn't bother to say it that nicely. Worse than that, the book
actually supplied a long list of America's more notoriously overpaid
CEOs. I suspect there were a lot of corporate contributors to the
university who'd just as soon seen her muzzled. Good luck, Tam.

Now the coincidence. The Saturday following my Friday night episode
with the inscrutable president of Nippon, Inc., an event occurred that
would soon bring Tam Richardson back into my life.