Clawback Read Free Page A

one-man band. Typical for a small investment shop, the kind of firm with a billion or two under management, mostly for other rich guys and some banks and so forth. He was a dabbler: a little private equity, a little trading, a little debt arbitrage. That deal with Hayden was the sort of one-off that would scare any sane investor away from a Marlett prospectus, but he found his investors on the golf course and the yacht club. You know, places where due diligence didn’t run much further than seeing if Marlett picked up the bar tab.
    Which meant that Marlett Capital’s returns depended entirely on Tom Marlett himself. Whatever happened a half hour ago, the short-term outlook for his investors was a flashing-red SELL ! I thought Johnny could use the information to get in and short Marlett ahead of the crowd—a sure bet on the rigged roulette wheel of Marlett Capital’s forthcoming swan dive.
    “It’s not a public company,” said Johnny. “There’s no stock to sell short.”
    “Jesus, I know that.” What was I, an idiot? “So go after his debt. Or whatever deals he’s got cooking—it’s all going to tank as soon as Wall Street wakes up this morning.”
    “The problem is he’s
already
in the basement.” Johnny laughed. “The sub-subbasement, in fact. With rats and sewage and broken utility mains.”
    “I didn’t know it was that bad.” True, rumors had been zipping around, especially after Marlett had delayed his quarterly perfor-mance letter. I’d figured that was why he was so keen on recovering the ten mil from Hayden. But because I was on a contingency funded directly by Hayden’s cash, I hadn’t done any kind of liquidity check. “What do you know?”
    “I heard from a guy that Marlett’s going to announce a seventy-eight percent loss for the last quarter.”
    “What? Wow. That’s awesome!”
    “Yeah.”
    And if Johnny knew, so did enough other smart money. I could see the problem—no one was going to touch Marlett, no matter what Johnny offered. All that first-responder excitement I’d seen was just icing on a cake that had been scavenged down to crumbs already.
    I didn’t bother asking “What guy?” either.
    “Wait a minute,” Johnny said. “How do you know about this?”
    “I was driving by.”
    “Is that
all
?”
    He was a longtime friend, so I could overlook the implication.
    “Nothing to do with me,” I said. Which I thought was true—I couldn’t imagine any connection to Hayden, who was probably still in the Bazookas parking lot. And who had no idea it was Marlett who’d hired me, for that matter.
    “Uh-huh. Come by tomorrow, we’ll talk.”
    A sign for the Merritt Parkway appeared in my headlights, then the on-ramp itself. At the top of the incline, merging on to the mostly empty highway, I could see a faint glow of false dawn in the rearview mirror.
    “Sorry to wake you up,” I said.
    “Nah, still good to know. Maybe I’ll call around. See if I can find anyone who’s still exposed to Marlett—salt the wounds.” He would, too. Inside knowledge is always good for
something
, even if only to talk smack.
    On the way back to Manhattan I considered the ten million Hayden had grudgingly coughed up earlier. I’d already extracted my cut, of course, but Tom Marlett might not be needing all the rest. Maybe he wouldn’t even know about it…When I got home, and had access to a securely anonymized computer connection, I would see if the recovery was still sitting at that bank in the Caymans.
    Even if Johnny couldn’t profit from Marlett’s misfortune, maybe I could.

CHAPTER THREE
    I slept until birds woke me up. Midmorning sunshine slanted through the window slats. Pigeons don’t chirp, but what the hell else lives in the city? Every year some nature-loving reporter runs a story on peregrine falcons roosting on City Hall or Trump Tower, but I don’t think they chirp either. Sparrows? Robins? Where’s John James Audubon when you need him?
    If the falcons moved uptown,