The Protégé Page 10

  Wright’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

  “One thing I’m going to do right away is give Quentin a piece of the ups on Everest Eight. You okay with that, David?” Gillette assumed Wright wouldn’t be okay with that. Ups allocated to anyone meant less for everyone else, but Gillette had asked because he wanted to see Wright’s reaction. “Well?”

  Wright was waiting for Stiles to break. Stiles gestured for Wright to answer first.

  “It’s up to you, Christian,” Wright replied, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. “It’s your firm. If you think it’s the right thing, do it. We’ve been damn successful with you as chairman.”

  But Gillette could see Wright wasn’t on board a hundred percent. Which was fine—he wanted Wright to think for himself. He didn’t want his most valuable people doing what they thought he wanted them to do or saying what they thought he wanted them to say. “You sure you don’t have any issues with that?”

  Before Wright could say anything, Stiles drew back his stick and sent the cue ball flying toward the triangle of balls at the other end of the table. It exploded with a thunderous crack and four balls dropped—three solids, one stripe.

  Gillette had assumed Stiles was good—Stiles had told him how he’d hustled older guys in Harlem pool halls as a teenager, and another QS agent had said he’d been whipped by Stiles when they were on an assignment in Dallas one time—but Gillette had never actually seen Stiles in action. “Pretty good, Quentin.” You could tell by the way he broke that he knew what he was doing. His stroke seemed effortless, but the cue ball had rocketed to the other end of the table. And the result had been impressive—four balls off the break. A lot of that was because he was strong as hell, even in his weakened condition, but you still had to have the coordination to make it all come together.

  “Pretty good?” Stiles ambled down one side of the table toward the spot where the cue ball had ended up. “You only wish you could break like that, Christian,” he said, sizing up the way the balls lay, figuring out the best way to play things. “I’ll take stripes,” he announced.

  “But you dropped three solids off the break,” Wright pointed out.

  “Yeah, but we’ve got to even this up somehow. If I took solids, it’d be over in two minutes, judging from what I’ve seen of your play.” Stiles grinned. “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “That’s the other reason I’m going to be around more,” Stiles said, “to keep Chris humble when it comes to pool.”

  “We’ll see,” Gillette said.

  “That would be nice,” Wright mumbled.

  “Chris.”

  The three men glanced toward the door at the sound of Debbie’s voice.

  “Yeah, Deb.”

  “Kurt Landry is on the phone. Says it’ll only take a second.”

  “Okay. Transfer him in here.”

  “Right away.”

  When the cordless phone on the table in front of the cue stand rang, Gillette picked it up. “Hi, Kurt.”

  “Hello, Christian. Two quick things. First, thanks for lunch.”

  “Sure.”

  “Second, I want to let you know that I spoke to several of the owners about the casino issue, and they wanted me to assure you that you can move forward on that. Everything’s fine there.”

  Gillette’s mind raced back to the man who had handed him the shovel at the ground-breaking ceremony, wondering how that encounter fit into all of this. “Good.”

  “Other than that, welcome to the NFL. Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any questions or issues.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What did he want?” Stiles asked as Gillette hung up.

  Gillette shook his head, indicating they’d speak later about it. “So, David, no issues with Quentin joining the firm?” he asked again as Stiles bent to line up his next shot. He watched Wright struggle. It was obvious that the younger man wanted to say something, but it was also clear he understood how close Gillette and Stiles were and didn’t want Gillette to think hiring Stiles was bad.

  “Well . . .” Wright paused. “What exactly are you going to do for us, Quentin?”

  Gillette liked the way Wright was going directly at Stiles, shifting the conversation away from them, not using him as the intermediary. Efficiency was the key in business. And no matter what anyone else at Everest said about Wright, about his arrogance or his brash manner, he was direct as hell. People who were direct made progress, and progress—whether the results were good or bad—was the only way to get to the bottom line.

  “I’m going to focus on disaster planning, risk mitigation, and recovery alternatives,” Stiles answered. “I’ve had a lot of experience in those areas both in the private sector and when I was with the Secret Service and the Army Rangers. I’ve found that most entities aren’t really prepared for disasters, even big corporations. Whether the threat is terrorism, internal fraud, fire, bad weather, whatever. Most companies haven’t focused on protecting the entire entity against a disaster. Whether that means the physical plant, computer networks, or employees, they just haven’t done enough. In some cases, they haven’t even analyzed what disasters they face.” He gestured toward Gillette. “Chris wants me to do a full review of all the Everest portfolio companies to make sure your investments are protected as much as possible.”

  Wright’s gaze flickered back and forth between Gillette and Stiles. “How much of the ups are you giving him, Christian?”

  “One percent.” Gillette saw Wright’s relief immediately. With a twenty-billion-dollar fund, one percent could be a meaningful number, but it was probably well south of what Wright had feared. “I’m going to pay Quentin a million a year in salary, too. He’ll stay in charge of my personal security as well as doing all the other things he just talked about. I think a million’s fair.”

  “Of course, of course,” Wright agreed.

  “Any more questions?” Gillette asked.

  Wright shook his head.

  “Will you back me internally on this?”

  “Absolutely,” Wright said, “but I’m not sure that’s very important. I mean, I’ll be glad to say something positive about it at the managers meeting, if that’s what you want me to do. But I don’t know if that’ll help much.”

  “I’m going to have the managing partners vote on it before then,” Gillette said.

  “You probably don’t have to do that,” Wright pointed out. “This is probably something you can do on your own, as chairman. I can take a look at the partnership documents if you want. To make sure.”

  “Thanks, but don’t bother,” Gillette said. “I’m going to be extra careful here. Since Quentin’s a friend, I’ll feel better if the partners vote, even if the documents say I can do it on my own.”

  “Okay, but then what do you want me to do? I can’t vote, I’m just a managing director.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Wright’s eyes shot to Gillette’s. “Huh?”

  “David, I’ve got good news and bad news. Here’s the bad. Nigel and I have decided to open a Los Angeles office. I know how much you love L.A., but you won’t be going.” Gillette held up his hand when he saw that Wright was about to speak. “But here’s the good: I’ve promoted you to managing partner. I need to talk to Nigel one more time about your compensation, but the promotion’s done.”

  “Jesus,” Wright whispered. “Thanks.”

  “You deserve it. And I will need your vote as far as Stiles goes.”

  “You got it.”

  “Of course,” Gillette continued, “this means there won’t be any more incidents like this morning.”

  “Incidents?” Wright asked hesitantly, swallowing hard.

  “Not being able to reach you.” Wright had finally called Gillette as he and Stiles were headed to the hospital for the ceremony. “Debbie started calling you at nine this morning, but I didn’t hear from you until three-fifteen. What the hell happened?”

  “Sorry.”

  “W
here were you?”

  Wright looked down. “I was shopping for my wife. Our wedding anniversary is coming up.”

  Gillette looked over at Stiles, who had stopped playing. “That took all day?”

  “I’m buying her a diamond ring, and I was designing it with the jeweler.”

  “You didn’t have cell phone reception at the jewelry store? Where was this place, in a fallout shelter?”

  “I kept getting calls. The guy got pissed and told me to turn it off.” Wright looked up. “Sorry, it won’t happen again.” He took a deep breath. “Thanks again for making me a managing partner; it means a lot to me. A hell of a lot.”

  “You’re the youngest managing partner in Everest Capital history,” Gillette said, not completely satisfied with Wright’s explanation. “Beat me by a year.”

  Wright gave Gillette a grateful nod for the comment. “Does this mean I can call you Chris from now on?”

  “No. In fact, if you take more than thirty minutes to call me back again, you’ll be calling me ‘Mr. Gillette.’ ”

  Wright rolled his eyes and motioned for Stiles to start playing again. “By the way, Christian, I meant to tell you, I was able to get a meeting with the Hush-Hush CEO. It’s tomorrow morning. I know this is last minute, but can you come with me?”

  “Sure.” Faraday had already called his contact at the French clothing company. As Gillette had suspected, they’d been ecstatic about the possibility of picking up a hot U.S. women’s clothing company. Gillette figured they could bang a big profit on a quick flip here, maybe three to four hundred million without a lot of work, so he wanted to make certain everything went right. “What time is the meeting?”

  “Ten o’clock.” Wright watched Stiles sink one striped ball after another. “It should go about two hours.”

  “Okay, then I want you to come with me to my Apex meeting. That’s at one.”

  “Apex meeting?”

  Until now, Gillette had discussed his plans to buy Apex only with Faraday. “Yes, I’m getting together with Russell Hughes tomorrow.”

  “He’s the chairman, isn’t he? Why are you meeting with him?”

  “I’m gonna buy Apex.”

  Wright’s mouth fell slowly open. “Buy it?”

  “Yup.”

  “They aren’t doing very well right now. In fact, from what I hear, they’re doing awful.”

  “Which gives us an opportunity. Plus they’ve got five billion dollars of dry powder. And if we shoot some of the operating people at their dog investments and put our people in, I think we can turn those companies around fast. I’ve talked to the Strazzi Trust, the people who control Apex, and they’re interested in my offer.”

  “Which is?” Wright asked.

  “Par, what they have in it.”

  “How much is that in dollars?”

  “A billion.”

  Wright chewed on the figure. “Doesn’t seem too bad for twenty-two companies and five billion of equity commitments.”

  Gillette had known Wright would come around fast. The great thing about David was it was what he really thought, too. He wasn’t agreeing just to ingratiate. “The trust people are worried that if they keep Hughes as chairman much longer, their investment won’t be worth anything. Par sounded good.”

  “Why don’t they fire Hughes?”

  “Faraday asked the same thing. If they do, their investors will pull out,” Gillette answered, “and Apex would die on the vine. The good thing for us is that a lot of Apex’s investors are our investors, too. I’ve spoken to a number of them, and they’d support an Everest takeover of Apex. They wouldn’t pull out if we were in charge.”

  “You mean if you were in charge,” Wright said.

  “I don’t have time,” Gillette replied, “I have to focus on our new fund.”

  “You can’t keep Hughes around.”

  “No,” Gillette confirmed. “Not for the long term, anyway.”

  “You going to bring in someone from the outside?” Wright asked.

  “I’m bringing you in,” Gillette said, smiling. “This is going to be your first assignment as a managing partner. You’re going to be the next chairman of Apex Capital.”

  “My God,” Wright whispered.

  “We’ll need to talk at least five or six times a day, maybe more at the beginning,” Gillette continued. “Which is why I can’t have another episode like this morning.”

  “I told you, it’ll never happen again.”

  “The other managing partners may have a problem with this.” Gillette rose from his chair. Stiles was about to finish Wright off without even letting him take a shot. “They’ll think they should have been tapped. Especially Maggie. But I—”

  “Screw her,” Wright retorted sharply. “She couldn’t handle Apex. You know I’m better than her. Better than Blair and O’Brien, too. They couldn’t handle this assignment, either. I doubt even Faraday could. But you know I can.”

  Gillette glanced over at Stiles. “I’m worried about his self-confidence, Quentin.”

  Stiles smirked as he dropped the eight ball, winning the game. “I know what you mean. He just got his ass kicked at pool.”

  “Big fucking deal,” Wright snapped, his bravado back. “I’ll alert the media, I’m sure it’ll be front-page news.”

  “Come on, Quentin, rack ’em,” Gillette ordered, ignoring Wright. “Let’s go.”

  “You sure you want to do this?” Stiles asked. “Sure you want to have your unbeaten streak on your home table go bye-bye?”

  Gillette smiled, paying no attention to Stiles’s attempt to get in his grill. “Just rack them,” he repeated calmly, and turned back to Wright. “Where are the Hush-Hush offices?”

  “In the garment district, down on Thirty-eighth Street near Penn Station.”

  “All right, we’ll leave here at nine-thirty. You can brief me on the big issues on the way. After the meeting, we’ll get a bite somewhere and talk about how we’re going to handle the Russell Hughes meeting.”

  “Why even bother meeting with him?” Wright wanted to know. “Just go around him.”

  “First, the Strazzi Trust people asked me to meet with him. Like everyone else in the world, they hate confrontation, so they want me to let him know what’s coming. As if he doesn’t already,” Gillette added. “Second, as poorly as he’s run Apex, he knows more about it than anyone else simply because he’s chairman. I want to get as much of a debrief out of him as we can before we lower the boom. He won’t help much after that.”

  “Are you going to let him know he’s gone tomorrow?”

  “Haven’t decided yet, but I will let him know that you’re the new sheriff in town.” Stiles had finished racking, and Gillette reached in his pocket for a quarter. “That’s all, David, I—”

  “There’s one more thing I forgot to tell you, Christian,” Wright spoke up, interrupting again. “I’ve got a line on another big investor, a Bermuda-based insurance company. I know you said Everest Eight was closed at the meeting, but these guys are looking to invest five hundred large. You should think about letting them in like we did with the Wallaces. They could probably do even more in Nine.”

  Gillette broke into a wide smile and moved to where Wright stood. “This is why I promoted him, Quentin,” he said, touching the younger man’s shoulder. The same way his father had done when he’d done something well. A couple of light pats, then a squeeze. “He’s the only person at this firm, besides Faraday and me, who’s raised a dime for the new fund, and he’s got us going in to see the Hush-Hush CEO tomorrow. Impressive, huh?”

  Stiles grunted.

  “What do you think about the Wallaces coming into the new fund?” Gillette asked Wright.

  “The more the merrier,” he answered immediately.

  “I love it,” Gillette said, beaming. “You worried about Allison Wallace being on the ground here at Everest?”

  “Only if she starts to distract you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I g
ot a load of her the other day. She’s pretty, and she’s worth billions. You two would make a hell of a couple.”

  First Debbie, then Faraday, now Wright. This was getting old. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he assured Wright.

  Wright shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Let’s go,” Stiles called impatiently. “I’m going to show you how to play pool, Chris.”

  Gillette picked up Wright’s wallet off the table. Wright took it with him everywhere he went, even if he was just going to someone else’s office at Everest. “You can go now.”

  Wright grabbed the wallet. “I want to stay. I want to see you—”

  “Let him stay,” Stiles said, laughing. “Every protégé needs to see his mentor go down once in a while.”

  Gillette smiled thinly. He knew what Stiles was trying to do, but it wasn’t going to work. In fact, he was going to turn the tables on Stiles, take him where he didn’t want to go. “Okay, David, you can stay. Tell you what, Quentin,” he said, “let’s make this interesting.”

  Stiles stopped chalking his cue. “What do you mean?”

  Gillette grinned. Stiles knew exactly what he meant. “You’re about to come into some money,” he said. “Let’s bet.”

  “How much?”

  Gillette’s grin widened. He had Stiles right where he wanted him. “How about a hundred grand?” A lot, but not too much.

  Wright’s eyes flashed to Stiles’s.

  “A hundred grand?” Stiles glanced at Wright, then back at Gillette.

  Gillette shrugged apologetically. “Fine, fine. Let’s make it two hundred.”

  Stiles swallowed hard. “I thought this was about pride.”

  “It was until you got cocky.”

  “Isn’t pride more important than money?”

  Gillette shook his head. “Pride’s for pussies.”

  Wright laughed out loud, happy to see Stiles sweating.

  Stiles leaned on the table with both hands and dropped his head. “Two hundred grand, huh?”

  “Unless you want—”

  “No, no. Two hundred’s fine.”