The Insiders Page 15

  “That’s what you want? The possible disintegration of our country, our way of life, every good thing this nation has ever accomplished, just so you can correct Dad’s mistakes?” Rachel said, drawing her hair back tightly against her head with both hands.

  “Don’t you think I’ve considered the consequences?” Wilson jumped in, before his sister could continue. “There’s only one way to protect yourself from evil. You have to expose all of its ugly implications and consequences, so you and your children and their children can have a better life.” He stopped when he saw the tears in Emily’s eyes.

  For a brief moment, he reconsidered his position. Am I overreacting to my feelings of frustration and powerlessness? Can the government do the right thing? Have I become obsessed with my father’s and great-grandfather’s quest? But his introspection lasted only a few moments before his certainty and commitment returned, stronger than before.

  “What else can I say? I honestly believe that our collective future depends on exposing this web of corruption. And I think we’re the only ones who can do it. In fact, I believe it’s the only way we’ll be able to save our own lives.”

  “Only God can expose evil in all its forms,” Rachel said in a final attempt to dissuade Wilson.

  Dead silence hung in the air for several moments. Emily and Rachel looked at each other as if awaiting their deaths on the gallows. It was Carter, who broke the silence.

  “What did you have in mind, Wilson?”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  Carter smiled while Emily and Rachel looked stoic and pale. They all agreed to sleep on it. One by one, they returned to the string quartet’s rehearsal in the large family room at the back of the house. Wilson’s mother and Elizabeth Emerson were sitting next to each other on the yellow sectional that wrapped around the large glass coffee table. Darrin was lying back on the fully extended moss-green lounge chair with his eyes closed. Aunt Sarah was rocking little Mary to sleep in the Scandinavian rocker. Savoy and his associate Case were standing at the back near the French doors to the verandah. The string quartet was seated in a semi-circle near the stone fireplace. It was a warm and inviting ambiance, if only they could have enjoyed it.

  The four of them took seats on the sectional for a few minutes before Carter and his wife had to leave. After a few more minutes of casual conversation with Rachel and Wilson’s mother, Emily left for the guestroom on the second floor. She told Wilson she needed some time to herself. He understood her concern, but he wasn’t about to change his mind. Tenacity can be a dangerous trait but only when you’re wrong. I’m not wrong: their lives depend on my resolve. He returned to the belfry library to begin working on an implementation plan.

  22

  Quinn – Chicago, IL

  Since returning from Banff, David Quinn felt as though he’d died a thousand deaths. Monday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal carried a front-page article about the J. B. Musselman Company and its decision to fire the prestigious management consulting firm of Kresge & Company for questioning Musselman’s future viability and recommending the company’s breakup. As a result of the rumor mill generated by the article, Musselman’s stock yo-yoed erratically until it plummeted by almost thirty percent in value. Quinn was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted from worrying about collateralizing his stock options and agonizing over every quarter point drop in the company’s stock. When the stock finally bottomed out at 97/8 a share and Hardware City made its tender offer of 117/8, Quinn was begging for deliverance.

  Then, miraculously, another aggressive buyer in the form of Pace Warehouses along with the secret partnership’s network of buyers went on a competitive buying spree, eventually bringing the trading of Musselman stock to a near complete halt. All of the shareholders who now owned Musselman’s 950 million shares of stock were holding their positions, waiting for someone to sell or offer another premium. That’s when the bid price from floor traders began climbing to keep trading alive, just as expected. As the floor price approached thirteen dollars a share, Hardware City announced that it had been blocked in its takeover attempt. The hostile suitor began selling the stock it had purchased to a growing group of anxious investors who now saw Musselman stock as a superb undervalued opportunity. The stock price moved quickly back to fourteen dollars.

  Tate and Kamin had delivered on their promise. Quinn felt resurrected, barely able to contain his elation. He kissed Kamin on the cheek three times—once for Kamin, once for Tate, who had already gone to the airport to catch a flight to Rome for another client retreat, and once for the anonymous contingent that had helped to prevent Musselman’s takeover by Hardware City.

  As the week progressed, things only got better. Thursday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal carried another front-page article on Musselman, this time heralding the company’s upcoming grand opening of America’s Warehouse as the reason for David Quinn’s courageous stand against Kresge & Company and Hardware City:

  David Quinn’s vision for reinventing the J. B. Musselman Company seems destined for success. His bold strategy to convert thousands of distribution warehouses into bargain basements called America’s Warehouse, has already won enormous media attention. According to Musselman’s advertising agency Boggs & Saggett, shoppers will find better values and greater varieties than anywhere else.

  Driven by an unwavering determination to turn Musselman’s twenty-five billion dollar roll-up of local and regional warehouses into an industry powerhouse, CEO Quinn has surmounted huge obstacles. He battled a skeptical board of directors, renowned management consultants who recommended dismantling the company, and a hostile takeover bid by Hardware City Stores. Now he claims to have engineered a corporate turnaround epitomized by a marketing campaign the likes of which this industry has never seen.

  After yesterday’s dramatic rebound in the company’s stock price, some analysts are speculating that Musselman’s launch of America’s Warehouse next week will revolutionize the industry. This could become the biggest success story in mass merchandising since Amazon.com, but with traditional bricks and mortar, not digital web pages …

  When Quinn read the article, tears came to his eyes. He was beyond elated. Tate and Kamin had come through yet again with flying colors. They’d convinced The Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief, Jeremy Watts, to tell Quinn’s side of the story.

  Quinn was beaming like a conquering hero when Jules Kamin returned once more to share in the good news.

  “I’ve been born again, thanks to you and Wayland and all your people.”

  “Your stock is already trading at sixteen dollars,” Kamin said, pointing to one of the computer monitors in Quinn’s office.

  “Now the only thing we need to do is get me out…”

  “Don’t worry, David,” Kamin said quietly, placing his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “Daily trading volume has remained over forty million shares since Monday. We started selling your shares on Tuesday. You’ll be out before the end of the day.”

  Musselman stock moved steadily upward during the rest of the day, seventeen dollars a share by noon, nineteen by mid-afternoon, and twenty-two at closing. It was a phenomenal ride. Thirty minutes before the bell rang, Quinn went ballistic with joy and then started crying again. The last of his ninety-five million shares purchased illegally through the concealed entity had been sold. It had taken four long days and a lot of nail-biting, but he was finally out of the market.

  Quinn hugged everyone in sight. First, he hugged Kamin for the fourth time in two days. Then, he hugged two of his senior executives, who had come to congratulate him on the rising stock price, three of his administrative assistants, and all ten of the Musselman and Boggs & Saggett team members, who were hunkered down in a nearby conference room to hammer out the final details of America’s Warehouse grand opening. He kissed Andrea Vargas twice.

  Turning back to Kamin who’d followed him to the conference room, Quinn said with eyes aglow, “This is the happiest day of my life, Ju
les. I want to acquire Hardware City before the end of the year.”

  23

  Wilson – Cambridge, MA

  A dozen alternative strategies for taking down the secret partnership scrolled through Wilson’s mind, as he reflected on a past conversation with his father. He was alone in the belfry library, giving Emily the space she needed. The conversation he couldn’t stop thinking about had taken place fifteen years ago, during a Christmas break midway through his junior year at Milton Academy. Wilson had just finished studying America’s Gilded Age and written a lengthy report on the Pullman Strike of 1894. He was anxious to discuss what he’d learned with his father and had looked forward to what he hoped would be a lively debate.

  The family was eating dinner in the chalet at White Horse. It was the day after Christmas, following a terrific day of skiing. His father was talking about a Dutch economist named Jan Pen, who had equated annual income to physical height. A person with an annual income of $50,000 would be six feet tall. Someone with an income of $5 million would be fifty feet tall. Billions of people would be dwarfs less than three feet tall, many of them standing less than one foot. Several million in income would make a person sixty to a hundred feet tall. And there would be a few hundred giants on the earth, some towering above our tallest skyscrapers, others rising more than a hundred miles into the stratosphere with fifteen mile long footprints. From that point, Wilson mentally replayed the dialogue in remarkable detail.

  His fourteen-year-old sister Rachel had started it all by saying: “Capitalism sucks.” Then she teased, “How tall are you, Dad?”

  His father smiled and raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  “Until we have a better alternative, I think we should be grateful for the economic system we have,” his mother said, always trying to temper things.

  Anxious to share his thoughts, Wilson said, “I just finished writing a paper on the Pullman Strike of 1894 and how it shaped the relationship between capitalists and laborers in America. It’s not a pretty story.”

  “Remind us of what happened,” his mother said, noticeably excited to hear more about what he’d been studying at school.

  Wilson jumped at the opportunity, having already committed his synopsis to memory for an oral presentation at school. “George Pullman invented his luxury railroad car in 1867 and then joined forces with Andrew Carnegie to build the Pullman Palace Car Company. In the 1880s Pullman built an entire town on the south side of Chicago for his workers, to shield them from the vices of the day and Chicago’s labor unrest. Paved streets, indoor plumbing, gas lighting, sewage system, communal stables, parks, and an arcade were all part of the model town for his company’s ten thousand railcar manufacturing workers. But after workers paid Pullman rent for their new houses, they only had a few cents to buy their families the other things they needed. When the stock market crashed in 1893, the economy went into a recession. Pullman cut workers’ wages by thirty percent, making their living situation intolerable. Four thousand Pullman workers, who were members of Eugene Deb’s American Railway Union, went on strike in 1894. George Pullman refused to even talk to the union or his workers. He locked up his home and left town. That summer, another hundred thousand railroad workers, from across the country, supported the strike by refusing to handle Pullman railcars. When Pullman fired workers who were union members, entire rail lines began to shut down and the U.S. mail stopped moving by rail. Chicago erupted in riots. Federal troops were brought in from Fort Sheridan, a military base on Lake Michigan. It had been donated to the Federal Government by The Commercial Club of Chicago to protect Chicago’s capitalist elite—men like George Pullman, Marshall Field, Cyrus McCormick, George Armour, and Frederic Delano—from labor unrest. On July 8, 1894, federal troops opened fire against the strikers. Thirty-four people were killed. Eugene Debs went to jail and the courts stood behind the capitalists. A federal commission later censured George Pullman for charging excessive rent and forcing his employees to bear unnecessary burdens, but the capitalist elite had already emerged victorious over united labor,” Wilson finished as he sat back waiting for comments.

  “So what was the conclusion of your paper?” his father asked.

  “Capitalism sucks,” Rachel repeated to loud laughter.

  Then everyone turned to Wilson, awaiting his response.

  “It’s simple. The government helped capital defeat labor,” Wilson said wryly.

  “Right or wrong?” his father asked.

  “Wrong,” Wilson said.

  “Why?”

  “Because the forces of capital and labor should be better balanced, but after the Pullman Strike, thanks to the government, capital gained the clear advantage. It shaped American history, for the worse.”

  “What would you have done, if you’d been President Cleveland?”

  “I wouldn’t have sent in federal troops or allowed Eugene Debs to go to jail. But it was the courts that gave capital its advantage. Capitalists were allowed to use the rule of law—and the shrewdest lawyers they could buy—to control rebellious laborers. Laborers never had the same opportunity or resources to control greedy capitalists.”

  His father nodded without saying anything for several moments. His mother and Rachel remained quiet, finishing their dinners. “So how do we correct things?” his father had finally asked.

  “Our system of favoring capital over labor has become entrenched. It’s too late,” Wilson said, baiting his father. He could still remember the excitement he felt when provoking his father into a heated debate. The fact was he loved arguing with his father, because it allowed him to penetrate his father’s enigma. “The capitalists rule. Control or be controlled, isn’t that what you tell your clients?”

  His father waited a moment before taking the bait. “It’s never too late, Wilson. Control or be controlled is an argument used by the powerful to justify their exploitation of the weak. That’s exactly why the laws in this country must be changed—to prevent the strong from crushing the weak. Wage slavery is a reality for most of the population and I hate it as much as you do,” his father said firmly.

  Wilson remembered smiling to himself, thinking that the polemics were about to commence. “How can you say that you hate it when you continue to make yourself and your rich clients richer, just like every other capitalist? It’s capitalism that promotes exclusivity, inequality, unemployment, overwork, and poverty—and in its current form, it will never be compatible with democracy,” Wilson said, heightening the drama.

  His father stopped eating and placed his elbows on the table. “No form of capitalism, fascism, socialism, communism, libertarianism, communitarianism, or any other “ism” is going to prevent the powerful from exploiting the weak—and you can’t force equality when it doesn’t exist. If the powerful few were wise, noble, and committed to spreading the wealth, then the powerless many would have little to fear. But every governing hierarchy on earth, public or private, is designed to give a few control over the many. The secret lies in making capitalism more accessible to all.”

  Perfect, Wilson remembered saying to himself. It’s time for a frontal attack. “So, when are you going to begin using your wealth to make the weak more powerful or teach your clients to become less cutthroat and more inclusive? And for what it’s worth, I don’t think making big donations to Harvard is going to make much of a difference.” Wilson cringed as he replayed the dialogue in his head. He’d been such a smartass.

  “Wilson. This is not…” his mother began before his father cut her off.

  “What makes you think I’m not already doing more than making charitable donations?” his father said defensively.

  “What exactly are you doing?” Wilson asked, unwilling to let his father off the hook. “The fact is most capitalists don’t want to change things because they need the slaves.”

  “That’s enough, Wilson,” his mother said decisively. “It’s Christmas. Rachel and I are not interested in sitting here while you and your father have another one of yo
ur jousting sessions.”

  “Your mother’s right,” his father said. “It’s time to lighten the conversation. The snow is falling and our new hot tub is beckoning. However, I will say one more thing in response to your questions. Fielder & Company is in the process of launching a rather novel approach to humanizing capitalism. But you need to give me a decade or so to see if it works. If it does, we may finally overcome the generations of concealed corruption that have created our current version of capitalism. If it doesn’t, you may have to pick up the pieces.” His father smiled, looking as if he wanted to say more but then decided against it. His intense blue-green eyes suddenly softened. “Who’s ready to hit the hot tub?”

  “I am,” Rachel squealed, as only fourteen-year-old girls can.

  That was the end of the now troubling conversation. Wilson had questioned his father about it on numerous occasions after that, but his father only responded in vague terms, usually saying something like ‘We’re still working on it’. Then he’d typically shift the conversation to why it was difficult, but never impossible, to change deeply entrenched and widely accepted systems. I should have pressed harder, much harder, Wilson thought. But at the time, he was leaving for Princeton and his own fight against the abuse of power.

  Wilson returned to considering his options for attacking the secret partnership. He continued to favor an infiltration strategy, assuming he could convince the secret partnership that it would be safer to bring him inside. Regardless of which strategy he ultimately pursued, picking up the pieces of his father’s life had become his reality and that meant figuring out how his father planned to use his secret insiders club to humanize capitalism. The lives of his loved ones, his father’s reputation, and his and Emily’s future depended on it.